New Book

Next week my newest book should be available for purchase through lulu.com, copies will be available locally soon after. This book is a compilation of 24 of my Echoes of the Past columns that deal with the Civil War era in Minden. It's titled: Echoes of Our Past - The Civil War Years in Minden.

The Civil War was the event that hooked me on history. Some of you may be familiar with the story my mother liked to tell about me teaching myself to read. The time I was learning was the early 1960s as the Civil War Centennial was at its peak. For all the reasons that war stories are exciting to little boys, I was hooked by the Civil War. When the folks from the School Board called me into the office to prove I could read as I started 2nd grade. They made a big mistake, for some reason the "reading test" they gave me was to read the caption to the painting -- "Lee and His Generals". I did read the content, but they didn't realize I knew those generals already and could have "faked it."

As I grew older, my interest in the Civil War waned to some degree. I tell my students that I knew more about the Civil War at age eight than I know today. It's probably true. Even though I am still very interested in the war, it is not my passion. However, it does remain a passion for so many folks in our area. I probably get more questions about the Civil War than any other topic. For that reason, I decided my first experiment in self-publishing would put all my published writings on the Civil War into a single volume. I think it will be a good thing locally because after my columns are long forgotten, a copy of this book will contain some of the information I have been able to compile in a more permanent form.

I need to give a big thanks to my talented nephew, David Jameson. He happened to be in Minden this summer in transit from his teaching job in Indonesia en route to graduate school in Virginia this fall. I have no talent for art -- the dirty little secret to the "reading at three" story that Momma loved to tell is that even though I could read at three, I couldn't get my library card until I was five because I found it impossible to write my name, some, after reading my scratching say I still can't write my name -- so me doing any art work was out of the question. David was willing to help me out and created the cover image that makes the book attractive and memorable.

Hope some of you decide to check out this latest work.

This and That

Been a while since I've made a blog post, so I guess it's time to add something. Yesterday was one of those days when I'm reminded of something I observed years ago while working for the Sears catalog store in college. The same or similar idea seems to hit people's minds at the same time. We would sit for long periods without a customer entering the store and then suddenly, three cars would pull up at the same time. On weekdays you expect this during lunch or during the school year just after school dismissed, but the pattern persisted even during the Summer and on Saturdays. Well, yesterday I had one of those historical inquiry "rushes." It had been a couple of weeks since anyone had gotten in touch with me for historical information, then, in the space of a little over 12 hours, I received five different inquiries.

The first came late Monday night from a gentleman in Shreveport interested in having a historical marker erected regarding some Confederate army movements after the Battle of Mansfield. Then yesterday morning I received two e-mail requests --  one trying to find out the first name of a professor at the Minden Female College and is wife, and another from a descendant seeking information about a divorce in her family years ago. Finally, Schelley Brown from the Dorcheat Museum contacted me with two inquires she had received: one seeking information about a couple that operated a boarding house here in Minden from 1903 - 1939 and another from members of the Monzingo family from Texas who were visiting the Dorcheat Museum.  So, it's always interesting how these things seem to come in groups.

I guess the real reason for this post is to promote a book. Thad Andress' When I Was a Little Girl and after, too -- Memoirs of My Life and Family. Now, before some of you are surprised to find that Thad was a little girl, he is actually the editor of these memories written and collected by his mother, Treeby Miller Andress. The book is the story Mrs. Andress wrote down of her memories and the memories of her mother, Treeby Chaffe Miller, of life in Minden from about 1838 on through 1938. The book is available from the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum here in Minden for $15. The proceeds from sales of the book go to the Association.

Now in the sake of full disclosure, I need to explain that my family and the Andress family have had very close ties over the years. My father went to work for Thad's father, Harry Andress, at Andress Motors Company in Minden at age 18 in 1936 and worked for the company for the next 29 years until the dealership was sold. Even more significant was the fact that my mother went to work at Andress in 1941 at age 17 and became, in addition to her bookkeeping duties, sort of a personal secretary for Mr. Andress. Momma had lost her father at age 3, so Mr. Andress in many ways filled the role of a father for her, even giving her away at her wedding to Daddy in 1948. So, over the years, Momma and I were aware of the wonderful memories Mrs. Andress' had preserved. On rare occasions, we were able to pry some of those deeply held memories free from Thad to publish them. The best story I ever used was the "Mayberry moment" when locals celebrating the Armistice at the end of World War I overloaded a Civil War cannon and caused it to explode when fired in honor of peace. But Thad always had plans to publish these stories, so he was really careful that sneaky folks with newspaper columns like Momma and me didn't steal the "good stuff." 

The book is now published -- so I can steal anything I want, so long as I give proper credit -- and is a wonderful read for anyone who wants to learn about "Old Minden." Stories of how life was in those days from the games children played to liveried servants carrying death notices door-to-door, this is a delightful account of how one of the "first families" of Minden lived in those years. For me, as a local historian, it is the personal stories that are priceless. Individuals such as R. H. Miller (Thad's grandfather), Aunt Jack Taylor, Captain Alfred Goodwill (Gov. Mike Foster's grandfather) and others were just names I wrote about. All I had as a basis for my writing were cold newspapers articles. Thad's book fleshes out these people giving glimpses of their personalities I might never had know such as Mr. Miller's scholarly background and his love of learning, Aunt Jack's story telling ability and quick wit, and Captain Goodwill's intimidating presence. All in all, even if this book weren't benefiting the museum, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to gain a glimpse of life in "Old Minden."

Enduring Faith

I think of my six regular readers, about half read this for local history. For y'all, this post is more about faith and family than history, so you are forewarned.

I took a drive this morning to "visit" with my great-grandparents -- Green Berry and Mahala Davis Agan -- at the Buckner Cemetery in Lafayette County, Arkansas. I hadn't been there in over 30 years and it felt like a good time. I didn't know God had a purpose for me in mind.

Green Berry was a Hardshell Baptist Preacher/pulpwooder. He married many of the couples who later moved to Minden when the L & A Railroad came in 1923 and also his share of formerly underage couples from Louisiana who found themselves suddenly of age across the state line in Arkansas. Since he died before my father was born I never knew him. (Sobering dose of personal mortality this morning I realized that of my four great-grandfathers the longest surviving made it to 58, not good news for a 52-year-old.) He survives for me mainly in two sets of circumstances.

The first is his picture. We inherited an image of Green Berry taken about 1900. It is an oval image of a stern-looking man with an impressive handlebar mustache. The picture is stored in a closet and it so frightened one of my nephews that he refused to even sleep in the room where it was stored. Somehow I think that might make the hyper-Calvinist in Green Berry happy.

The second is my mother's story about the "preacher's chair." Today, I have inherited that chair and it sits in my living room. It seems it was a prized possession of Green Berry's that I guess he used in his churches. Any way, the first family occasion my mother visited as the fiance of my daddy led to a funny story. I think it was a Christmas celebration, but I'm not certain. Any way, Momma came into the living room at my grandparents house and the entire room was filled with relatives. No one -- not even Daddy -- made a move to give her a place to sit. She spied an empty chair and quickly walked over and sat down. The expressions of all in the room let her know she had made some awful violation of protocol, as she looked from face to face, someone finally said, "that's the preacher's chair." Momma replied, "oh, when he comes back I'll let him sit here." The answer came back, "He died in 1915" (This would have been in 1947). Momma said: "Oh, then I guess he's not coming." I can't help but think of that every time some one sits in the chair or particularly when one of my cats climbs up there for a nap.

This has been a week to test my faith and frankly, I'm still looking for answers, but God had a way of sending me a message through that old Hardshell preacher.

Here is a picture I snapped of the front of Green Berry's tombstone. (Excuse the iPhone quality of the pictures.

As you can tell, the inscription is barely readable, even in person. However, here is the reverse side of the same stone.

While it's tough to read in the iPhone image, the inscription is of the "I have fought the good fight" passage from 2 Timothy 4.

Well, what was God's message for me, delivered through the tombstone. The front side, giving Green Berry's life details, the earthly things have almost disappeared less than a century after his death. However, his faith, described by the inscription, endures and is still strong and visible.

Now, the logical side of me knows that the stones in the cemetery are on an incline and the fronts face to the north. Thus exposing the front side to the brunt of the weather for the past 95 years and its eroding effects. But somewhere inside I do believe that God intended that message for Green Berry's great-grandchild today, at a time he needed to be reminded of the power of faith.

To end on a lighter note. I also motored over to Magnolia and snapped an image of my grandmother Agan's parents in the City Cemetery. Here's that shot:

What's funny you may ask? Well, this stone is for David Green Emerson and his wife. It never hit me until today with TWO great-grandfathers having Green as a given name, perhaps I'd better start considering the possibility of some Jewish heritage.

Profile for Tourists of the Past

I was able to purchase on eBay a copy of the Louisiana edition of A Guide to the States published by the Louisiana Writer’s Project of the Works Progress Administration in 1941. It is a very interesting book, one I wish I could find a contemporary version of today. It gives brief profiles of the largest communities in Louisiana and includes more than two dozen driving tours of the state, listing points of interest on each tour, providing distances and describing the road conditions and accommodations along each route. The Appendices include a glossary of Louisiana terms from armoire to zombie, a chronology of Louisiana History, an extensive bibliography of sources for Louisiana information, a list of places including populations from the 1940 census and five regional maps of the state with points of interest marked. I really wish I had been able to find such a concise, but informative tour book a few weeks back when I went through Plantation Country along the River Road.


Since it seems a little too short to be the basis of a newspaper column, I decided to post the text about Minden to my blog word for word. I hope some of you will find interesting. There are some errors, by 1940, Minden had three movie theaters, not one as listed, and with the coming of the Louisiana Ordnance Plant in the Summer of 1941 we would soon add a drive-in between McIntyre and the Plant. The timing of the emerging oil and gas boom is off by more than a decade and there are other mistakes such as the description of the events of 1933 is hopelessly jumbled. However it is fun to read how our town was described to travelers 70 years ago.

Minden:

Railroad Station: Foot of S. Broadway for Louisiana & Arkansas Railroad

Bus Station: 120 Pearl Street for Tri-State Bus Line

Taxies: Fare $0.25

Traffic Regulations: Speed limit 25 mph. Turn on green light only. Parallel parking; no limit.

Accommodations: Two hotels; boarding houses; tourist camps

Information Service: Courthouse, S. Broadway and Pearl Sts.

Motion Picture Houses: One

Golf: Minden Country Club, 1.6 miles N. on U.S. 79, 9 holes (3,100 yds.), $0.50 a day

Swimming: Municipal Natatorium, Victory Park, northern part of town, adults $0.15, children $0.10

Tennis: Six courts in three city parks

Annual Events: Flower Show, usually in April; Garden Party, May; Fish Fry, first Tuesday in September

MINDEN (181 alt; 5,623 population), is the trading and shipping center of a productive cotton-growing and general farming district in the Northwestern corner of the State. During the late 1930s the town experienced a modest boom brought about by discovery of oil and gas in the vicinity. The presence of a plant which manufactures presses for cotton gins adds to the town’s industrial aspect.

Minden has a wide main street, tree-shade residential sections, parks planted with shrubs and flowers, and a general air of comfort and well-being. Saturday in Minden finds the streets, stores and theaters crowded with farmers and their families in town for their weekly shopping and recreation. In the vicinity are numerous small lakes and streams affording excellent fishing, boating and picnicking sites.

Minden was founded in 1836 as a real estate promotion by a German-American named Charles Hance Veeder; it was named after a town on the Weser River, in northern Germany, the birthplace of Veeder’s parents. The town’s founder deserted it to participate in the California Gold Rush.

Favored by fertile land and transportation facilities by way of Bayou Dauchite, Lake Bistineau, and the Red River, the town grew steadily sharing in the general prosperity that preceded the War Between the States. The Minden Academy, co-educational, was opened in 1838, but divided in 1850 into the Minden Male Academy and the Minden Female Seminary; the latter developed into an outstanding women’s college, but was closed in 1886.

In 1933 Minden suffered a series of disasters. First a cyclone took heavy toll of life and property; a few weeks later a fire destroyed the business district and many homes; finally the funds of the citizens and business establishments were frozen during the Nation-wide bank holiday. The discovery of oil and natural gas in the vicinity shortly afterward aided materially in recouping Minden’s fortunes.

POINTS OF INTEREST

At the MINDEN COMPRESS (visitors admitted), foot of S. Broadway St., opposite the depot, cotton bales pressed at rural gins are further compressed to half t heir original size. In addition to giant steam presses, there are 4 acres of covered warehouse space, enough for 8.500 bales of cotton

CITY PARK, made up of 3 squares in the neutral ground of S. Broadway St., south of the courthouse, has a bandstand about which hundreds gather every Friday evening during the summer to hear free concerts presented by the Municipal Band, and take part in community song-fests. At the south end of the park is a CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL.

WEBSTER PARISH COURTHOUSE, Pearl and S. Broadway Sts., is a two-story stone and buff-colored brick structure with an octagonal white dome. Each side has a small portico with four Ionic columns.

FERGUSON MEMORIAL TABERNACLE (Baptist), Murrell Ave., between N. Broadway and Pennsylvania Sts., is an open-sided structure somewhat resembling an airplane hangar. During revival meetings the floor is usually covered with sawdust, and converts “hit the sawdust trail.”

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 310 N. Broadway St., S.E. Corner Broadway and 1st Sts., is a three-story cream-colored brick adaptation of Classical Greek architecture, built in 1925. Four embellished Ionic columns frame a recessed pedimented portico on the façade. The auditorium seats 1000 persons.

The ADA JACK CARVER HOME (private), 412 Webb Court, a one-story white frame cottage, is the residence of Mrs. Ada Jack Carver Snell, author of The Cajun, Red Bone and other stories and plays, most of which have as their locale Natchitoches and its vicinity.

MINDEN SANITARIUM (visiting hours 9-11 a.m., 2-4 p.m.), N.W. corner Monroe and Cedar Sts., housed in a four-story red brick structure was established in 1926 as a semipublic institution. There are 18 private rooms and four wards, with facilities for 35 patients.

Diamonds are Forever

Sequel to the earlier posts about the diamonds found in North Louisiana in the 1970s. Over the past couple of days I have been contacted by or in touch with Paul Heinrich of the Louisiana Geological Survey, Mike Howard of the Arkansas Geological Survey, Ann Middleton of the Bossier History Center and Clif Cardin the Bossier Parish Historian. To make a long story short, information has been shared among us about the diamond stories. There were at least two diamond finds that seem to have been merged together in local tradition. There was a diamond found at Princeton in 1970 in a driveway. Then, three years later, the diamonds were found at Gifford Hill at Sibley. Mr. Heinrich and Mr. Howard are working on documenting all the diamonds found in Louisiana. Clif has tracked down the lady that found the diamond in 1970 and now Ms. Middleton has information about both stories. So, that's the latest on that story, now if I could just find some Haynesville Shale under my property . . . LOL!!!

Friends of the Germantown Colony Museum

As mentioned in previous blog posts, the Germantown Colony Museum has become part of the Secretary of State’s museum system. This is an exciting development as it provides a chance for the museum to finally have an adequate source of funding for its operations, something that has been lacking for the 35 years the museum has been in existence. In fact, the first project planned for the site by the Secretary of State’s office will involve an expenditure of funds greater than the combined operating budget of the museum for its entire 35 years of life. I’ve also mentioned that perhaps there might be some instability in the future of this funding, as Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, who created the museum system and along with Representative Jean Doerge orchestrated the state takeover of Germantown, is running for Lieutenant Governor. The prospect of Dardenne moving over to the Lt. Gov’s office could leave Germantown and the other museums in his system (including the Eddie Robinson Museum in Grambling, the Delta Music Museum in Ferriday, the Mansfield Female College Museum in Mansfield, among others) as orphans. However, since the Lieutenant Governor also runs his own museum system, the Louisiana State Museum system, I trust that none of the museum will suffer if Dardenne’s is successful in gaining the Lieutenant Governor’s seat. The real threat to these museums is the ongoing budget crisis in the State of Louisiana (one that has many of us “antsy” about our own job futures), so all the skies aren’t blue, but even with the problems, Germantown has the brightest future it has seen since its founding as a settlement, back in 1835.


The reason for my blog post is to make folks aware of a significant meeting tomorrow. Anyone who has worked with a museum knows that the real key to success is gaining support from the public. For private museums, such as the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, the key is getting capable management and then getting as many members as possible to make the community feel it is “their” museum. At Dorcheat we have been fortunate with leadership from Thad Andress and the wonderful job Schelley Brown has done as Director. In the case of Germantown, the management and the basic funding is not a local task – it comes from the state government; however, it is equally important if not more so, for there to be an outreach arm for the museum. Tomorrow, Cliff Deal, the Director of Museums for the Secretary of State’s office will be in Minden to help set the stage for creating such an arm. He will be present for an organizational meeting of what has been tentatively called the Friends of the Germantown Colony Museum. This will be the group that spread the word in the community and beyond about the museum and provides the volunteer base so necessary for success. Cliff is supposed to bringing the plans for the new visitor center that will be constructed at the Colony. To me, that’s a very important step as physical progress and investment makes it clear that the state is committed to the project.

So, if you have the time and have any inclination toward helping make our underappreciated treasure, the Germantown Colony Museum, a booming success, please consider coming to the meeting. It will be held at 3 p.m., tomorrow, Thursday, June 3 at the Minden Chamber of Commerce Offices in Minden. I hope to see you there.

Random Ramblings from the Road

There’s nothing of any real value in this blog post. It’s really a collection of non-sequiturs from my weekend trip to South Louisiana. Think of it like one of those columns Larry King used to write for USA Today (maybe he still writes them, I haven’t read in a while, I finally reached the point in life where I don’t need color charts to understand articles), where he jumped all around in an incoherent fashion. Remember, I don’t make you read these things. When you go on trips by yourself, there’s no one there when you want to turn and comment on something you see, so this is a collection of the things I would have said to someone with me on the trip. (Let’s be honest, I did turn and say them to my imaginary companion in the car, but if I admit to that, some of y’all might try to have me committed . . . . OOPS.)


Was amazed to see how the Saturday afternoon Mass appears to be outstripping the Sunday morning Mass at many Catholic churches that I passed. Now, since I’m not a Catholic maybe it’s always been that way, but in the smaller towns there were clearly more folks at the Saturday Mass then on Sunday morning.

Again, this may be a warped perception of mine, but this was my first visit to spend any time in New Orleans in over two years, and I felt a different spirit. Not sure if you can credit that to the Saints victory or the time passed since Katrina (or perhaps since I’ve been watching Treme for the last few weeks, maybe my mindset was locked in the late 2005 time period of that show.) I will confess I’m not a big New Orleans fan, but it was good to sense things were back to “abnormal” in the Big Easy. I pray that the oil spoil – as Spud McConnell calls it – doesn’t dampen things (Literally. One topic discussed on the radio was the possibility that the dispersant used by BP might be evaporated into any potential tropical storm and fall on New Orleans and South Louisiana as a sort of “acid rain.”)

I’ve always been a big proponent of microfilming any and all historical records to preserve them, but one experience Saturday has added a new clause to my stance. Microfilm any and all records, BUT, do it right. I went to the New Orleans Public Library Saturday in yet another attempt to try and pin down my peripatetic grandfather through old City Directories. Someone decided to microfilm those things for the NOPL, but made two very bad decisions. First, they decided to film two pages per slide – making the print so tiny that even with my big magnifying reading glasses you had to set the reader at maximum magnification to see the images. Second, they apparently didn’t check their settings and the left hand page was virtually unreadable on all slides. I checked with the librarian to see if perhaps it was just my eyes, but she confirmed that it was a problem. So, Grandpa Jim Murphy once again eluded me. Guess my next step is to save up for a few years and head for Virginia to try and track him down.

This is probably something that has been hashed and rehashed by sociologists and social historians, but as I drove along the River Road I had a sudden brainstorm (well maybe it was just a brain cramp) about an aspect of Louisiana culture. I have to wonder if the use of the French Arpent system of land measurement might have contributed to the close-knit sense of community in parts of Louisiana. If the English township system is used, often the farm houses are land-locked in the center of large farms. But under the Arpent system, with the river or Bayou serving as the “street”, it allowed the houses to be located closer together along the banks of the stream. That proximity might have made it easier for neighbors to bond and bring stronger community ties. Or maybe not – I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express so I could be wrong.

Along Highway 90 just west of Morgan City I saw bear crossing signs in Louisiana for the first time in my life  (I think they were bear crossing signs, or else someone really can’t draw a deer.) Didn’t realize they had become so plentiful that the signs were necessary, but it was a new experience.

I’ve worked keeping books for a company involved in the road construction business for nearly 25 years now, but I’m not sure I really appreciated how amazing the skills of our road construction industry are in this country. When you look at the sophisticated roads constructed through swamps and wilderness that seem so unbending as in South Louisiana, it is really stunning. Made me wonder that if we really applied our collective brilliance to other problems we might be able to solve some nagging problems – like oil “spoils” and the like.

So, there you have it “what I did on my weekend vacation” and the random thoughts that danced through my brain.