July 30, 2014

Wednesday's Child - Hattie Mae Childress


Hattie Mae Childress

Born on December 2, 1942

Daughter of
Sidney Gilbert Childress, Jr. and Hattie Pauline Howard

Sister to
Juanita, James Gilbert, Sidney Earl, Dan Albert and Willie Lee Childress

Died on February 7, 1947
Buried in the Old Pine Hill Cemetery
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana


Precious Daughter and Sister


July 28, 2014

Military Monday - James Madison Faulk, Sr.


James Madison Faulk, Sr.

Born on May 29, 1845

Son of 
Lorenzo Fletcher Faulk and Mary Willis

Husband of
Frances Sherwood

Father to
Mary Ella, James Madison, Jr., Carrie,
Lucious Elam and Elodie Faulk

Died on July 15, 1881
Buried in the Harrisonburg Cemetery
Harrisonburg, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana

Private
Co. F, 6th Alabama Cavalry
Confederate States of America




Tombstone photograph taken by FindAGrave member, Karen Klemm Pinckard



July 27, 2014

Sunday's Obituary - Cameron Beard Coney

Monroe News Star - 1/14/1975

Cameron Beard Coney

Born on October 1, 1900

Son of Dr. Walter Clarence Coney and Caroline "Carrie" Beard

Brother to Helen May Armstrong and Ann Emily Coney

Husband of Katie Archer Drake Harris

Father to Dr. William C. "Billy" Coney and Beverly Ann Harris Weston

Died on January 12, 1975

Buried in the Old Pine Hill Cemetery
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana


July 26, 2014

Sports Center Saturday - Virginia Pearson earns spot on All-State Team, 1940

The following article appeared in the March 15, 1940 edition of the Monroe News Star:


Virginia was the daughter of Abbott Allen Pearson and Bertha Virginia McKay and sister to Barbara Jean [Cater] and Carey Pearson.  She was the wife of Larry Kenneth Barron and mother to Kenny, Karen and Kay Barron.



July 25, 2014

Friday's Faces From the Past - Barnie Lee Cloy Stubbs


Barnie Lee Cloy Stubbs

Born on May 15, 1924

Daughter of

Sister to
Mary Nellie, Richard Frank, John Edward, Anna, Jerald Houston,
Wallace, Charles Clay, Jarvis Roan and William "Billy" Cloy

Wife of
William Perry Stubbs

Mother of
William Perry, Jr. and Thelma Diana Stubbs

Died on May 26, 2006
Buried in the Highland Park Cemetery
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana


Follow Friday - Old Picture of the Day

The featured blog for this Friday's 'Follow Friday' post is Old Picture of the Day.


Blog owner PJM began 'Old Picture of the Day' back in 2007.  Each day he posts a photograph from times past.  To date, he has posted over 2,600 photographs of everything you can imagine.

Just a few of my favorites...

Drive-In

Girls on a Harley

Milk Bottle Diner

Army Aviators

Friends

Old Storefront-Natchez, MS

Police Woman

From his profile, PJM shares the following:
"I grew up in West Texas, and could not wait to get away. I got away, and went to the University of Texas, and then on to Stanford. I saw the world, and decided what I really wanted was to be in West Texas. So here I am, right back where I started. I had it all, and found it was not that great."

Pay his blog a visit.  I'm sure you'll enjoy the photographs and the stories he adds to each one.



Family Recipe Friday - Delicious Oatmeal Cookies

The following recipe was submitted to the Monroe News Star by Mrs. Carrie Trisler McGuffee of Harrisonburg.  It appeared in the April 21, 1953 edition.




Carrie Trisler was the wife of George Orville "G. O." McGuffee.



July 24, 2014

Thriller Thursday - Assassination Attempt on Catahoula Sheriff, 1888

The following article appeared in the August 4, 1888 edition of the Colfax Chronicle in Colfax, Louisiana:


Transcription:
An Attempt to Assassinate the Sheriff of Catahoula.
A mostly cowardly attempt at murder was perpetrated upon the streets of Harrisonburg, Catahoula parish, Monday, July 30, at 10 o'clock.  It seems that Dr. W. E. Robb, the newly elected sheriff of Catahoula parish, missed some $350 whilst acting as sheriff in place of John P. Routon, an adjudged defaulter, in 1866, and accused the Hollomon Brothers, in whose safe the money was deposited, of allowing the same to be extracted.
Last week Cary Hollomon for Hollomon Brothers wrote Dr. Robb a note denying all knowledge of the missing money.  Dr. Robb replied, saying the money was missing from their safe and refused to retract a word.
Monday at the time above mentioned Dr. Robb went to the post office, and upon his return was fired at without any warning by Wm. H. and Henry Hollomon, from their store, eleven buckshot penetrating his legs and terribly shattering his left thigh.  Three shots were fired, two by W. H. Hollomon and one by Henry Hollomon.
As soon as the news reached Trinity (Robb's home), a crowd at once organized and chartered the steamer Teal, lying at Troyville, and proceeded to Harrisonburg, brought Dr. Robb to Trinity, where he now lies in a critical condition.
The whole country is aroused, and there is no telling where it will end.
No cause whatever can be assigned for the attempted killing of Robb.  He did not speak a word, nor had he for three or four days to the Hollomons.  It looks like a premeditated affair.  
Hollomon after the shooting, surrendered and claimed protection from expected mob law, which was talked of.  There has never been such an excitement in the parish.



July 23, 2014

Wedding Wednesday - Gambrell and Tarver

Monroe Morning World - 8/4/1957



Wednesday's Child - Russell Caggie Tidwell


Russell Caggie Tidwell

Born on March 22, 1908

Son of
Caggie Tidwell and Martha Elizabeth "Maggie" Kendrick

Brother to
Leona, Lucille, Edith and David Tidwell

Half Brother to
Ben, Emmett, Gussie, Charlie and Mabel Kimble

Died on October 20, 1910
Buried in the Old Pine Hill Cemetery
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana


July 20, 2014

Military Monday - David Mathies Hailey



David Mathies Hailey

Born on May 3, 1932

Son of
James Mathies Hailey and Cleo Oliphant

Died on May 19, 1953
Buried in the Harrisonburg Cemetery
Harrisonburg, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana

Airman 2nd Class
790 Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron
United States Navy
Korean War

Enlisted on July 12, 1950
Died at St. Mary Hospital in Quincy IL

Navy Muster Rolls and Personnel Diaries, 1949-1971

Selective Service Registration Card

Application for Headstone




Amanuensis Monday - The Stories That Should Be Told, Part 50


The following transcription is from a series of recordings my father made in the early 1990s:
This is October 26, 1991 on a Saturday morning.  It is sort of muggy outside this morning.  I wonder what I would be doing on a Saturday morning in October back in 1938 or 1939 or 1940.  
The Juneau boys, Vernon Whitlock and some other boys and I would be going out across the bayou to the field on the edge of the woods and swamps with our BB guns and slingshots.  We would go bird hunting.  We never did kill much of anything.  Maybe a bird now and then. 
Courtesy of Bayou Momma Photography
We always took some matches so we could build a fire down in one of the gullies where the wind wouldn’t hit us.  If it started raining, all the better.  We’d get up under some of the bushes and try to keep our fire burning.  We loved camping out.  If we had a couple of nickels, we’d buy a can of oil wieners, some sweet pickles, soda crackers, a can of pork and beans, a cold drink or a cake.  
We could buy all of that for less than fifty cents.  That was a feast for four or five boys.  It wasn’t very often that we had that much money between us.  Times were very hard back then but they were wonderful times.
We did a lot of exploring while we were out in the fields and meadows.  We learned how to identify the different birds and trees and bushes in the area.  With the Peck Plantation nearby, we learned all about farm animals.  We’d see horses, cows and calves, hogs and little pigs, jacks and old mules.  No one taught us about the birds and animals.  We discovered them and learned about them ourselves.  
Courtesy of Bayou Momma Photography
We probably went places no one else had ever been except other boys.  I have no doubt in my mind that I have been to places around here that others haven’t been.  I know almost every square foot of this little village. 
Some Saturdays I’d be over at Howard Smith’s Greasy Spoon beside the cotton gin.  Wagons would be lined up and the gin would be running full out.  As I mentioned in earlier tapes, I helped Howard at the Greasy Spoon.  He’d fix a tray full of cups of coffee and I’d take them over to the gin and sell the coffee to the workers.  I’d stay at the Greasy Spoon all day.  That would have been around 1936 or 1937.  I was about eight, nine or ten years old.
It was along back in those days when they came out with a candy bar called a Powerhouse.  Oh boy, those Powerhouse candy bars were good!  Before that we had Hershey Bars, Milky Ways, Baby Ruths, Tootsie Rolls, Silver Bells and some kind of orange drops coated with sugar. 
I’ve mentioned Stage Planks several times on these tapes.  Stage Planks were some kind of gingerbread with icing on them.  There were two in a pack.  One piece would have white icing and the other piece would have pink icing. 
Each piece was about eight or nine inches long and about three or four inches wide.  A package of Stage Planks cost us a nickel. 
Sometimes the boys and girls would get together and have wiener roasts.  We’d come up with a nickel or a dime a piece and go buy a package of wieners and a loaf of bread.  About first dark, we’d go to somebody’s house and build a fire.  The girls would be off on one side and the boys on another side.  We all wanted to get together but most of the time we were all too timid or bashful. 
About 1941, 42, 43 we got up to be teenagers and we had dances.  We’d get someone to be the chaperon and we’d get an old record player.  They’d let us use the gym at the school for our dances.  And just like the wiener roasts, the girls sat on one side of the dance floor and the boys sat on the other side.  Some of the girls would dance with one another.  
Every once in a while a real brave lad would dance with a girl.  I wasn’t one of those.  All the guys, including myself liked the girls but most of us were just too shy to ask one of them to dance.  Oh, we looked forward to the dances and I guess we had plans to dance with the girls.  But we didn’t. 
After I got up around eleven or twelve years old I didn’t spend much time around the girls.  I was too busy hanging out with the boys roaming the fields and the meadows and slipping down to the bayous. 
Courtesy of Bayou Momma Photography
We spent time at the cotton gin playing in the cotton on the big platforms.  We would position the bales to the side and make tunnels all down in and through the cotton.  In the Fall, we’d go pick persimmons and in the Spring we’d pick dew berries. 
Dorothy Mae Benge, John Fairbanks and Cleo Foster were part of our little group that held wiener roasts and dances.  They’re now gone.  Gone on before the rest of us.

Note:  Parts 1-49 of 'The Stories That Should Be Told' can be found in the Tags List on the right-hand side of this blog.


Sunday's Obituary - Marvin Bishop Nolen, Sr.

Monroe News Star - 6/29/1976

Marvin Bishop "Papa" Nolen, Sr.

Born on January 12, 1894

Son of
George and Minnie Nolen

Husband of
Sadye Smith

Father of
Marvin Bishop Nolen, Jr.

Died on June 27, 1976
Buried in the Old Pine Hill Cemetery
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana







July 18, 2014

Friday's Faces From the Past - Henry Clarendon Peck, Sr.



Henry Clarendon Peck, Sr.

Born on June 21, 1919

Son of
William Smith Peck, II and Barbara Estelle Woodward

Brother to
William Smith, III and Barbara Jane Peck

Husband of
Mamie Dell Cruse

Father of
Henry Clarendon Peck, Jr.

Died on January 24, 2004
Entombed in the Highland Park Mausoleum
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana


Family Recipe Friday - Icebox Lemon Pie

From the kitchen of Harrisonburg resident, Mrs. R. U. Ferguson:




July 17, 2014

Thriller Thursday - 1935 Tornado Hits Harrisonburg and Sicily Island

The following article appeared in the April 7, 1935 edition of the Monroe Morning World:

Transcription:

Lake Providence In Path Of Devastating Winds Last Night

DAMAGE WIDESPREAD

Harrisonburg, Wisner And Sicily Island Areas Are Victims

At least nine persons suffered more or less serious injuries and serious property losses were entailed in a violent tornadic storm which swept through two areas of northeast Louisiana shortly after 6:30 o'clock Saturday night.  The storm passed over Monroe about 5 o'clock, marked by heavy black clouds and a slight rainfall.

Sicily Island reported three persons injured; Lake Providence three; Wisner two, and Harrisonburg one.  No fatalities occurred, though an unverified report said that three white men and two negroes had been killed in Lake Providence.

Two devastating storm cones fell from the skies almost simultaneously in northeast Louisiana, one at Lake Providence and the other near Sicily Island, about 75 miles south of Lake Providence. Residents in both sections reported the storms hit at 6:30 p.m.  High winds prevailed throughout northern Louisiana along the Mississippi border.

Several houses were blown down at Lake Providence and two members of the family of L. S. Cook, living three miles south of there, were reported injured when their home was demolished.  Wind, rain and hail raged in a destructive medley.  Many small buildings were blown down and the grandstand at the ball park was blown into a bordering highway.

The tornado that struck in the Sicily Island vicinity centered its fury on the Bondurant community, four miles east of Sicily Island, where three members of a family named Flowers were reported injured where the twister crumpled a number of residences and other buildings there.  The Frank Girault family and several visitors escaped death or serious injury by ducking into a potato "pump" house [tator punk house - D.E.B.] just before their home was splintered by the winds.

A freak of the storm was reported by Dr. R. U. Fairbanks of Sicily Island who said a huge waterspout shot into the air out of the Ouachita river as the storm was forming just before it tore onto the land, carving a strip 50 yards wide and a half mile long.  The storm traveled northeastward from Sicily Island, he said.

Roofs of a number of houses at Oak Grove were reported badly damaged by a hail and wind storm that struck there early last night.  No one was reported injured.


July 15, 2014

Wedding Wednesday - Franks and Warren




Surprise Party for Florence Duncle Meyers, 1968

The following article appeared in the July 1, 1968 edition of the Monroe News Star:


Florence Duncle was born in Sicily Island on June 14, 1880 to the marriage of William R. Duncle and Almeda Turner.  She was a sister to Ellen, Almeda, Octavia, John, Albert Sidney, Henry Edward and Ruth Duncle.

On June 27, 1897 she married Cicero Jacob Meyers in Catahoula Parish.  She and her husband had the following children:
William Herbert, 1898-1899
Katie, 1901-1992 (m. Henry Daniel Bruce)
Cicero E., 1903-1988 (m. Flora M.)
Florence Elizabeth, 1907-1997 (m. Jacob Roddie Heard)
Ethel Alaska, 1910-1971 (m. Carl Rupert Deen)
Simon M., 1912-1980 (m. Doris Watson)
Rufus Gordon, 1915-2002 (m. Elva Valentine)
Johnny S., 1918-1977 (m. Ann Smith)
Almeda, 1923-2011 (m. Harry D. Russell)
Florence Duncle Meyers died on July 3, 1971.  She is buried alongside her husband in the Old Pine Hill Cemetery in Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.







July 14, 2014

Amanuensis Monday - The Stories That Should Be Told, Part 49


The following transcription is from a series of recordings my father made in the early 1990s:
Old man Zeb York [Son of Sylvester and Sophia Peniston York] was named after his uncle Zebulon York who was a Confederate Brigadier General.  Old man Zeb had a son named Zeb who married Henry Brown. They had a son named Zeb who we called Little Zeb.  Little Zeb married Emma Griggs and they had a son named Zeb. 
Brigadier General Zebulon York
Old man Zeb married Mollie Earle.  They had the following children:  Zeb, Horace Peniston “H. P.”, Jesse, Billy, Thomas, Earle and Julia.  Earle married Mr. Henry Krause and Julia married a Wales. 
Zeb, Jessie and Earle made Sicily Island their home.  H. P. lived here off and on over the years.  
The last time H. P. lived here was in the late 1940s.  He and his wife and son, H. P., Jr. lived in the house across the way from my house where Brother Nolen lives today.  My aunt Nita Peck rented that house to them.  They later moved to Mississippi.  H. P., Jr. now lives down in Florida. 
Thomas moved out to Georgia and Billy lived up around Fairbanks, up above Monroe.  Julia moved to New Mexico but she used to come back to visit her sister, Earle.  At one time her husband managed the Peck Plantation.  That was before William Vaught managed it. 
Old man Zeb York was a very successful farmer and had several hundred acres of land up at Peck.  He also raised cattle and sheep.  When he died, the land was divided up between all his children.  I don’t believe any of his descendants own any of that land now. 
I’ve got to tell this story... 
Old man Zeb York, T. J. Peniston and my daddy used to play a card game called ‘Setback’.  They would play every Sunday evening in the early 1940s.  They would take turns hosting the games.  I often watched them play but I never could catch on to how the game was played.
T. J. Peniston
One Sunday evening they were playing in the dining room at our house.  Somebody knocked on the door and Daddy said, “Son, go see who that is at the door.”  When I opened the door, there stood old man Zeb’s son, H. P.  He was living up in Monroe at that time and had stopped by to visit.  
Man, he was all dressed up in a suit and shiny shoes.  He asked, “Is Papa here?”  I told him he was and invited him inside.
He walked in the dining room and spoke to everybody.  They stopped the game to visit with him.  He asked his father how his mother was doing, how the farm was doing and several other questions.  
The visit lasted about fifteen minutes then H. P. said he had to go.  I walked him to the door and when I walked back in the dining room old man Zeb said, “H. P. is a good boy but I’d just as soon be nibbled to death by a duck than to have him come in here while I’m trying to play cards!”  Mr. T. J. Peniston got up out of his chair and almost fell on the floor from laughing so hard.  

Note:  Parts 1-48 of 'The Stories That Should Be Told' can be found in the Tags List on the right-hand side of this blog.


Military Monday - Charles Frank Beetz


Charles Frank Beetz

Born on February 8, 1889

Son of
August and Bertha Beetz

Husband of
Leona J. Trisler

Father of
Henry Ford and Opal Mary Beetz

Died on August 17, 1932
Buried in the Harrisonburg Cemetery
Harrisonburg, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana


Sergeant
United States Army
Wisconsin
124 Aero Squadron
World War I




Tombstone photograph taken by FindAGrave member, Karen Klemm Pinckard.



July 13, 2014

Dedication Held at First Baptist Church in Sicily Island, 1960

Monroe Morning World - 7/17/1960

Photograph taken by Billy Hathorn


Wednesday's Child - Clara Myrtle Bryan


Clara Myrtle Bryan

Born in 1908

Daughter of
Joseph Henry Bryan and Mary Agnes "Mamie" Bennett

Sister to
Beatrice "Bea", Minnie Lea and Mamie "Kidd" Bryan

Died in 1909
Buried in the Old Pine Hill Cemetery
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana


Sunday's Obituary - Allie Stringer Passman Bingham

Monroe News Star - 12/27/1971


Allie Mae Stringer was born in Lincoln County, Mississippi on April 15, 1901 to the marriage of William Otto Stringer and Nancy Jane "Nannie" Albritton.  

Her siblings included the following:
Emma Idell (m. Jeff Franklin Roberts)
Walter William (m. Norma Keenan)
Cordye (m. Frank Chapman)
William A. "Bill" (m. 1. Versie May; 2. Jimmie Bingham)
Gertrude (m. 1. William Douglas Passman; 2. Clarence Rastus Flowers)
Nina (m. John Carl Passman, Sr.)
Allie first married John Otto Passman and had the following children:
Mildred (m. Frederick O. "Freddie" Krause)
Barbara Nell (m. Fredrick Francis Chambless)
John William
She married a second time to Joe L. Bingham.

Allie Stringer Passman Bingham passed away on December 26, 1971.  She is buried in the Old Pine Hill Cemetery near Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.

Photograph taken by FindAGrave member, Karen Klemm Pinckard


July 12, 2014

Sicily Island News, 1941

The following article appeared in the May 18, 1941 edition of the Monroe News Star:





July 11, 2014

Friday's Faces From the Past - Deleta Peniston


Deleta Furr Peniston

Born on November 10, 1909

Daughter of
Levi Wray Furr and Emma Cordelia Girault

Sister to
Roy Girault, Jennie Bell [Hoggatt], Clyde Meredith, Dennis Bryan, 
Marietta, Garland Lyell and Virginia Lee "Virgie" [Bird]

Wife of
Homer Ellis Conn
John Willard Peniston

Died on November 3, 2003
Entombed in the Highland Park Mausoleum
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana