Archive Record

Metadata

Accession number

2015.026

Catalog Number

2015.026.002

Object Name

Transcript

Date

12 May 2005

Title

Evalee Williams oral history interview

Scope & Content

Oral history interview with Evalee Williams.

Interview Mrs. Eva Lee Williams
May 12, 2005

An oral interview by Pam Carter and Ann Middleton with Mrs. Eva Lee Williams on the behalf of the Bossier Parish Library Historical Center, for the Oral History Project.

Tape 1, Side A

[Mrs. Middleton]- Today is Thursday May 12, 2005 and Pam Carter and Ann Middleton are interviewing Mrs. Evalee Williams and we are in her lovely home which is about 100 years old?

[Mrs. Williams]- It will be 100 years in Dec. At this time 100 years ago it was under construction.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh wonderful

[Mrs. Williams]- So it will be 100 years old somewhere around probably the middle or the last of December. And the family, the Kelly family had it built. Mr. Bruce Procell who lived right around the corner from here was the builder of the house and Mr. and Mrs. Adolphos Kelly were the ones who had it built and they moved in here. They had a baby daughter Lois, who later married Brent Barron and she lived next door until she went to a nursing home about four or five years ago and she has just died this past winter. She was 99 her birthday is December 18 so she was born about three weeks before they moved into this house. She was born in an older house up the street which is not here anymore and she married and lived in the house next door all those years up until she was well she must have been around 94 or 95 when she left there so she lived right here from the time she was three weeks old here and in that house there until she was 95 probably 94 or 95.

[Mrs. Middleton]- So that house is at least as old as this one?

[Mrs. Williams]- No

[Mrs. Middleton]- No?

[Mrs. Williams]- When she married they lived there was an older house there is what she told me, and she and her husband who was Brent Barron they had one son Richard Barron who lives in Jackson, Mississippi now and they lived in the old house for a time and about 1940 they built that house over there, but this house was built in 1905 and they moved into the house the 5th of January in 1906 and we bought the house in 1974. Mr. Kelly died the week of Thanksgiving 1973 and in February of 1974 so we are the second owners.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That doesn't occur very often it normally goes through many, many owners.
[Mrs. Williams]- Right, but we are the second owners of the house so we kinda feel like we are the caretakers of it for the Kelly family.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Surely, it's just lovely

[Mrs. Williams]- Well thank you, thank you.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Are the floors are they the original floors?

[Mrs. Williams]- They are the original floors

[Mrs. Middleton]- What are they?

[Mrs. Williams]- They are hard wood, but the ones in the front are pine, because this house when it was built, you will see a picture a little later up front of what it looked like when it was built and then when it was about 24 years old they decided to remodel and enlarge it so they took the roof off and changed the roof line and made an upstairs which is really a crude upstairs, but it's an upstairs because at that time there were a lot of men living here working on the railroad. Something they were doing to the railroad and so they didn't have they had a small hotel, but just a few rooms so a lot of people took in boarders. Well the Kellys took in boarders so they built the upstairs and they had there's a room across the front that's 12x40 feet long and they had six beds up there that they slept boarders in, they also used the room that's the dinning room and they took that room and a lady who taught school here and her younger sister boarded here because at that time the school out at Red Land went as far as 8th grade then if those students wanted to go to High School those kids had to come to town and board for three years because at that time you only went through to the 11th grade and you graduated.

[Phone rings, [Mrs. Williams] excuses herself to answer phone]

[Mrs. Williams]- Back in those days like in the 20s you graduated with 11 years of school so High School only consisted of 3 years. So at that time there was quite a large community at Red Land which is about half way between here and Spring Hill around HWY 157, but their school only went to the eight grade so if students wanted to continue with their education through High School they had to come to Plain Dealing and board because they didn't have a bus or anything to ride, at that time and it's too far to travel by horseback or whatever.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- So Amy McKellar, she married a McKellar here in town and she used to tell me a story about this all this time that she came here when she started the 9th grade and her sister was older and had a teaching job she taught PE here in Plain Dealing so they boarded in the room that is our dinning room for three years.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh how interesting
[Mrs. Williams]- So whenever the Kellys enlarged the house they built this room on, but not that room. They built this one, they built the back of the hall, and the upstairs and then I don't know what year that bedroom and bathroom were added, but it was later on may have been even as late as the late 30s, or maybe even 40s when that one was built there; so the house was really built in three stages really four stages, because my first husband died 28 years ago and then I remarried three years ago and my second husband built this screen porch on and put the fireplace in. There was a fireplace here and when we bought the house my first husband and I bought the house you could see under the house the foundation of the old fireplace and the hardwood floor had been patched you could see where it had been patched right there, but they had taken that out. So Joe wanted to put a fireplace back in so we put it right back in the same place where the other one had been. So he did that and we had double windows here, we took those out, put French doors in and built the screen porch.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I bet you enjoy the screen porch a lot.

[Mrs. Williams]- Oh we do

[Mrs. Middleton]- I can enjoy it just sitting here lounging with you.

[Mrs. Williams]- We do, I will take you out there in a little while. We eat out there a lot, we just sit out there drink coffee, we just enjoy being out.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That's just an interesting story about the house you could probably go to the court house and find out when every section was added.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well maybe so, I know that the upstairs and this and the upstairs and the back of that hall and that bathroom was added they were working on it part of 1924 and part of 1925 it was part of the school year, because Lois who was a baby when they moved here was going to Tech at that time she said so she was not here so she must not have gone straight from High School to Tech because that would have made her 24 years old at that time, but maybe she didn't go I don't know when she started, but she did graduate from Tech she did go there four years and she told me during the time and this could have been during the end of her time there she said "during the time they were doing the building she was at Tech and she never came home during that time and saw the house under construction," but it was in '24 and '25 during the winter part of 24 and 25 that they were rebuilding it.

[Mrs. Middleton]- We've done Pam and I have a little research on the Rosenwald Schools, which were, of course African American schools, and I think that was the case as far as the 8th grade, wasn't it with those schools when the students reached the 8th grade they also had to go into town to room or board didn't they?

[Mrs. Carter]- Um hmm, after 8th grade

[Mrs. Middleton]- But I didn't realize that was the case with white students too, that's interesting.

[Mrs. Williams]- See they had an elementary and high school here. If you lived here you went to school here the whole time, but if you lived in Red Land you only went to the 8th grade. I'm not sure about Collinsburg, that was also a community and that was the old Plain Dealing High Way if you turn right out of town here and go and come out at Benton. Collinsburg is down that road six or seven miles and I know they had quite a community there, but I don't know if they ever had a school there or not, but Mr. Johnny Allen who was the Sunday school superintendant at the Methodist church here for 50 years and he used to talk to me a lot, because when we moved here from Plain Dealing in 28th of May 1962 when me moved here and we rented a house that is over a hundred years old now probably 105 or so now and it's only one block down the street on the opposite side of the road and we rented that house from Mr. Kip McKellar. Well Mr. McKellar's wife was a sister to Mr. Johnny Allen and I was acquainted with him through church so I worked in Walker Brothers drug store for a short while one day a week and he would come in the Drug store because he found out I was interested in the history of the town and he would stand in there and talk to me and he would talk and talk then I would have a customer and then we would talk some more. The house that we rented down the street here when we first moved here was his parent's home, but he was already grown and left home at the time and his family lived at Red Land. He also had come to Plain Dealing to board to go to high school and then after he left home graduated high school I believe his parents decided they were too old to farm out at Red Land and wanted to move to town, but I don't think they wanted to sell their farm out there. At that time they owned some acreage down in the bottoms if you go out towards Bradley and turn down toward the river you know down in the bottoms there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I don't know where that is

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, if you go past Bollinger there's a little store up there, just past Bollinger there is a road that turns and goes in to the river bottoms and so he owned some acreage I don't remember how many acres, but he owned some acreage out there so this house that we rented from Mr. McKellar down the street here that house was built by a Jewish Merchant who came here and had a store for a time then when he left I'm not clear whether he sold it or rented it to the man who came here to be the school principal, but anyway the man who was the school principal lived there and I believe Cochran was the name of the man that built it, but Kitty Coyle can tell you because she and I were talking about it the other day, are you familiar with Kitty?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Kitty worked at the History Center

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah, yeah Kitty can tell you because she and I were talking about that the other day and I believe the man that built it was Cochran, but I'm not sure and she could not remember who the school principal was that lived there and we're not sure if he bought it from the Jewish man or just rented it, but anyway he was leaving here to go to another school and if he owned it or if the other man or builder I'm not sure which everyone wanted to get rid of the house so Mr. Green Allen that was Mr. Johnny Allen's father made a deal with this man to trade his acreage out in the river bottom for this house up here so the Green Allens moved from Red Land into this house here and they lived there until they both died and they had a daughter who was married I can't remember her first name but she was married to a Wingate. They had a daughter who was married to Mr. Kip McKellar that's Mr. Kip bought the other heirs out after their in-laws died his wife wanted to keep the house for her daughter she said her daughter wanted to come back and retire there and I thought well it will probably never happen. but we bought this house twelve years later and a few years later the daughter retired from teaching school in Birmingham, Alabama and she and her husband came back and remodeled her grandparents' home and she lives there now and her name is Janice Coleman.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Your not going to believe this, but I'm currently working on a request from a researcher in I want to say Alabama who's inquiring about Green Allen we honestly have not had a lot of success in finding anything so that's interesting.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well he was a Justice of the Peace now Mr. Mc Keller who was his son in law Mr. McKellar who we rented the house from Mr. McKellar used to come down to the house he would stop by and visit with us some times come by to look if we had anything broken or whatever and he would walk around through the house and just reminisce about it and Mr. Green Allen was a Justice of the Peace and what we used for our daughters bedroom you came into a hall like you do into my house here and the front bedroom on the right there was Mr. Green Allen's office. He was the Justice of the Peace and a lot of old men used to hang there they would come down to his office and sit around and he had a wood stove in that office and one day a piece of wood rolled out on the floor and burned a place about that long because I asked Mr. McKellar "well how did this burn get in this floor here" and he said "that's what happen they were sitting around smoking cigars and someone was going to stir the fire and a log a piece of wood burned the floor" Mr. McKellar said. Mr. Johnny Allen was their son he was the one who told me the story about them moving from Red Land. Mr. Johnny Allen told me the same story you know his daddy was a Justice of the Peace and he was older when they moved here from the farm and he just enjoyed having the old men drop in and sit around in the morning and drink their coffee and smoke their cigars and visit and that was the room they did it in and that was my daughter's bedroom and that house has thresholds between all the rooms there's a board that's the threshold in the middle of that room is worn down. The threshold's about this big in the middle it's worn down to practically nothing from so many people passing back and forth through there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- To whom was Mr. Green Allen married?

[Mrs. Williams]- You know I do not know that, but let me give you the name of I called my neighbor let me find my glasses, I called my neighbor….[trails off] I called Janice Coleman and asked her these questions because I wanted to find out these answers before you came and she said, " I honestly don't remember that stuff," but her sister is into genealogy and her name is Edna Medcalf and her number is ___-____ and
[Mrs. Middleton]- Metcalf?

[Mrs. Williams]- Medcalf - M.E.D.C.A.L.F

[Mrs. Williams]- And she lives in the old Kip McKellar house her mother and daddy's house and Mr. Kip always told me his wife wanted to save those two houses because the two daughters, we wanted to buy the house we were living in and they wouldn't hear to selling it because the two daughters wanted that house and their house when they retired and they have come back here and restored those houses. Ok Mr. Johnny Allen's daughter also has moved back here and restored her old home place, but sorry to say she won't be any help to yah because she has Alzheimer's, but she had worlds and worlds of pictures that Mr. Johnny had made but that's another story I wanted to tell you about. But let me get back to Mr. Green Allen's children though. Janet Warfay was telling me who they are Mr. John Allen then there was a sister that married a Wingate then there's a sister that married a Gleason.

[Mrs. Middleton]- These names I've seen in the little bit of information I have.

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok then there's Mrs. Kip McKellar I think she was the baby.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I can look in the census for that.

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh, so

[Mrs. Middleton]- So they had four children?

[Mrs. Williams]- I'm not sure if there were more than that's the ones I know about, but Edna I'm sure can tell you that, Edna Medcalf because see that's her grandfather.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Johnny

[Mrs. Williams]- No

[Mrs. Middleton]- I mean Green Allen

[Mrs. Williams]- Green Allen is her grandfather. So I'm sure she can tell you these things and if you get some information on that family would you share it with me?

[Mrs. Middleton]- I certainly will

[Mrs. Williams]- Because the first Sunday in December and I want to invite both of you to come, I'm going to have a hundredth birthday party for this house.

[Mrs. Middleton]- How wonderful.

[Mrs. Carter]- Wow
[Mrs. Williams]- I have a lot of old cook things and I have two cook tables. I'm going to take everything off the porch and put the cook tables out there and set it up like a 1900's kitchen.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Pam wants to do an exhibit on cooking, cookery on Bossier Parish.

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh, uh huh

[Mrs. Middleton]- So that would be just perfect

[Mrs. Williams]- I have a lot of old things and I thought that I would like for people to see them. See that black pot right there, now of course see I'm not originally from Louisiana I'm originally from Arkansas and I grew up eating something cooked in that black pot almost every day on a wood stove like this picture of one I have over here. Now that tea kettle is old, now I don't know how old it is but I know that that kettle has to be close to 100 years old if not 100 years old because my grandparents married in 1902 and that's one of the things they had all through their lives was that kettle you know and the other kettle on the top is not old, its just a later one, but that one that pot on the bottom my mother grew up eating out of that pot; that makes the best pinto beans, best vegetable soup, best turnip greens you could ever eat. [Laughing]

[Mrs. Middleton]- So you use it your self?

[Mrs. Williams]- No, I have never used it myself my mother died four years ago and I brought it home after that. But ah, no I have never used it myself we don't have a way to hang it in the fireplace to do it and I cracked it, it was rusty and I was going to burn all that rust off and I turned it up side down in the fire and it got a little crack about that long, so you really couldn't boil anything in it now, but anyway back to the Allen family though I know that Edna can give you some information though because Janice told me she is into Genealogy but Janice said frankly I cannot remember these things and if you get this I would like to have

[Mrs. Middleton]- I certainly would

[Mrs. Williams]- I have thought about this, see I have a lot of pictures that Mr. Johnny Allen took so I would like to know a little bit about his history. I have the history the granddaughter of the man that built this house wrote me up a little history of her grandfather so I have that and I called Ann and Richard, Richard is the only son of Mrs. Barron next door so I called them and asked that they write me up a little bit of history on Mr. and Mrs. Kelly so if you find anything on a Adolphus Kelly I would also like you to share that information with me too.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I've seen that name too

[Mrs. Williams]- Aldophus Kelly, and I'm not sure what his wife's name was.

[Mrs. Carter]- And that's spelled KELLY?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes and he had at the time they lived in this house he had a store in town and I have a box upstairs that came from is the, what is the oldest, it's a real old drug company, pharmaceutical company in Shreveport It's Dickson's something or other. Do you know what I'm talking about? It had a write up in the paper several times.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I'm sorry I

[Mrs. Williams]- Dickson's or something anyway I have a wooden box upstairs that was shipped from him to them for their store.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- You know and I don't know what year that was but it was probably back in the, you know early 1900's I'm thinking.

[Mrs. Middleton]- So Mr. Kelly actually had the store?

[Mrs. Williams]- He had a store, but he didn't always have the store, I'm unclear in talking to Lois, who is his daughter, who was my neighbor for many years and we talked about these things, I'm unclear on how long he had the store, because she would say that "papa didn't always have a store he had one when I was little", but he didn't always have a store so I'm not sure how long he had the store, but let's see what else I can tell you. The Gleasons getting back to Mr. Johnny Allen; I tell you someone else who is a granddaughter of his Lilburn Hudgens in Shreveport.

[Mrs. Carter]- Oh we've met her she is in the Kadelphian club.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh right

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes, she is big in the Kadelphian club

[Mrs. Williams]- Lilburn Hudgens and her sister is Lauren Gleason they are granddaughters of Mr. Green Allen.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh my goodness it's amazing how small the world gets.

[Mrs. Williams]-And they probably, Beulah Findley, Johnny's daughter so she is also Mr. Green Allen's, but she has Alzheimer's, but she wouldn't be able to help you, but I will show you some of the pictures that her daddy made in fact let me get those right now and show you. [[Mrs. Williams walks off you hear rustling in background.]

[You hear rustling and low talking by [Mrs. Williams]]

[Mrs. Williams]- When I have my birthday party for the house, I want to have some old things for people to see this is the way this house looked. Would you like to sit over here so you can see and I will point them out from back here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- [inaudible]

[Mrs. Williams]- Well, here just sit, we'll just sit back here and you both can see. Um this is the way our house looked when it was first built; this is Lois who was three weeks old when they moved into the house

[Mrs. Middleton]/ [Mrs. Carter]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- I would say she was probably looks to be around 3 there?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Three or four

[Mrs. Carter/Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- So the house is three years old Mr. Johnny was the first person in North Bossier Parish to have a camera. [Cuckoo clock chimes in background] Mr. Johnny Allen

[Mrs. Carter]- Oh yeah

[Mrs. Middleton]- We heard something about that

[Mrs. Carter]- Well that's what Alice told us.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes, he walked around town and whenever anything unusual happened like snow, floods or anything he walked around town and shot pictures and he had them developed into postcard forms, have you ever seen that?

[Mrs. Middleton]- That was common then yes I have.

[Mrs. Williams]- And he sold the pictures to whoever he had taken the picture of. So he got this picture of the house, we had moved into this house and after we had moved into this house we moved in here in May went through one winter. About a year after we moved into the house Lois was going through some of her pictures and see she was old at that time you know because she was born in 1905 and we moved here in 74, that was in 75 she was about 70 at the time and she found this old postcard picture and brought it to me to see and she said this is the way the house used to look and I said "oh I want a copy" and she got a copy for me and my son had a made a picture the winter before of how the house looked now with snow on it.

[Mrs. Middleton/Carter]- Oh [laughing]

[Mrs. Williams]- I will show you that later, so I had that framed

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh alright

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, this is the way the house looked after they had remodeled it before they built this room right here on, they called it the sun porch.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- Before they built that on, see it's on this end now, this is the way the house looked so this probably was made maybe shortly after they had redone it in the 20s probably Mr. Allen made that picture because they had redone the house. So all these pictures were made by him though and now this is the way the house looked after the room was built.

[Mrs. Middleton]- The sun porch

[Mrs. Williams]- In fact this is after we bought the house and we bought in 74.

[Mrs. Middleton]- What made you decide to buy it, you just wanted an old house?

[Mrs. Williams]- Every since I have been in High School the year I was in eleventh grade my Home Ec teacher we had a unit on homes and she took us to visit a couple of old homes. One had been completely restored a big house with an upstairs and everything and then she took us to visit a Colonial style home that was new but looked like a big Colonial mansion, you know. Well I was much more taken with the remolded house I mean restored house, than I was the new house, so from then on I just thought I was going to have an old house that's what I always wanted. When I married the first time my first husband was just as interested in history and old houses as I am, so that was the thing that we both wanted. So when we moved here we rented this old house down here for 12 years and Mr.and Mrs. McKellar would not sell it because they said their daughter wanted it and I always thought well she won't do it, but she did and I'm so glad because she's restored it and its just beautiful inside.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Is that the grey house with the white trim?

[Mrs. Williams]- Right on the corner, the one on the corner is also grey and that is Emily Jennings lives there, her mother and daddy lived there Jean and ____ Bar lived there, his parents lived there and that's the Bar house and I bet she would talk to you too.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Emily Jennings?

[Mrs. Williams]- Emily Jennings is her name.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Another Oral History Candidate

[Mrs. Williams]- And when I talked to Janice and Janice might talk to you too, but she just told me she can't remember all these things, but she did say to me she said "you know we need to get together and show all these old houses," and you know I'm going to do it in December because its going to be an open house.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It would make a wonderful tour

[Mrs. Williams]- So maybe if they can't do it that soon maybe we can do it in spring or something.

[Mrs. Middleton]- When the azalea's are blooming and iris

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah, a spring tour, but Janet said that and I was kinda surprised because she is normally a private person, but she said we need to get together and show these old houses and I said Kenny had mentioned doing that in maybe a few years and she said I don't know where I will be in a few years I would rather do it now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- [laughing] We would rather you do it now

[Mrs. Williams]- So we would love to. Well I would love to and she said she would love to too and I feel like Emily would too. If Emily's mother were still alive she would jump at the chance because she loved that sorta thing and I learned a lot of history from her. See I lived next door to her for 12 years and when people find out you're interested in this sorta thing they tell you all these things.

[Mrs. Carter]- Umm

[Mrs. Middleton]- They love to share what they know.

[Mrs. Williams]- And I just remember all this stuff you know. Kenny told me the other day that I need to write all this stuff down and I said I know I really do I need to write it all down.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well you will, when we get this transcribed you will get a copy of the transcription to it and you may be able to go back and add stuff to it.

[Mrs. Williams]- I know it burned about 3 years ago the old Sanders house, Leon Sanders who had a store here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, his old home place which was built I think maybe it was built a year after this house umm it was in bad repair, but someone had bought it and put new foundation under with the intent to restore it, but we had a storm 3 years ago they had the lights out all over town and they had the electricity hooked up in there and I guess it was just the old, old wiring when they turned the electricity back on I guess it was the power surge and set it on fire and burned it down.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh no

[Mrs. Williams]- But it was also one of the old ones and Leon died just in the last year. He was the one who had the store up here and he had a world of history and his daddy kept the weather. He had instruments where he went out and checked the temperature and wind velocity and Leon continued all that and he called the weather into one of the weather stations.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I read that somewhere, I don't know where but I read it.

[Mrs. Williams]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Middleton]- Now did Mr. Sanders, we're speaking here of the former Mayor?

[Mrs. Williams]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Middleton]- Did he marry?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes, he was married for years and years to Margaret I can't remember Margaret's last name because she lived in Bossier, but her name was Margaret and they had three children: Sandy, Paula, and Catherine.

[Mrs. Middleton]- And I have in my head that Paula was a niece.

[Mrs. Williams]- No

[Mrs. Middleton]- And I will tell you why and you might be interested. I had a reference question from Linda at the Plain Dealing library. The lady who purchased Paula's home.

[Mrs. Williams]- Paula's home?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Now I'm not sure I'm getting this absolutely correct.

[Mrs. Williams]- Paula never had a home here in Plain Dealing.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Alright

[Mrs. Williams]- Paula had a home in Shreveport and she was married to Steve Guire who is an orthodontist

[Mrs. Middleton]- That's what Donnie said. Donnie Giles

[Mrs. Williams]- Donnie Giles, see Donnie was raised right up the street here.
[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh he was, and Paula married who you said?

[Mrs. Williams]- Steve Guier, no there's no E, Guier I believe is the way it's spelled and he is an orthodontist, but they are divorced a number of years ago

[Mrs. Middleton]- That's what Donnie said

[Mrs. Williams]- And she is remarried and I don't know who she's remarried to.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well I think that's what he said too, because someone said ask Donnie because he knows everyone, but he remembered the orthodontist he remembered they were divorced. Now wait

[Mrs. Williams]- But now Paula is their daughter

[Mrs. Middleton]- Leon Sanders' house burned?

[Mrs. Williams]- His family home burned, not the house he lived in--the house he was raised in. The house Leon grew up in burned.

[Mrs. Middleton]- But is this the house he lived in later?

[Mrs. Williams]- Is still there

[Mrs. Middleton]- Has it recently sold that you know of?

[Mrs. Williams]- Not that I know of, someone told me that it's rented at this time, but now the house across the street from us belonged to Leon's sister who was also raised in that house that burned and she was Rita Keoun.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, we know about her--the Aulds library is actually named for her.

[Mrs. Williams]- She was married, she lived across the street from us until she went to the nursing home and I can't remember how many years ago it's been, but I know that Mr. Alton her husband was killed in the summer of '86 because my husband died in '87 and he was killed that summer. Mrs. Rita lived there for a number of years after that I want to say she was there until '80 or no she was there till later than that she was probably there till the late 80s then she went into a nursing home and she's been dead for I don't know how many years but a several, several years and that house was rented a few times and stood empty mainly for years and years and a couple from Ohio has bought it this past summer.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That's it

[Mrs. Williams]- and they have redone it and we are so glad because she kept the yard so beautiful all the time and they are restoring the yard they have restored the house on the inside.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That's where the research question came in. The lady had come into the library and asked Linda if she knew of any pictures of the yard the way it looked when Rita Keoun lived there and we looked and looked and couldn't find any. Ah she must have heard of the reputation and beauty of the yard

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah I had told her some, you know

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ok

[Mrs. Williams]- I might possibly, my son was an amateur photographer and he used to take pictures for weddings and beauty pageants and things and he took some pictures of a little girl over there in that yard and he also took some wedding pictures for Helen and Dale Carter of their daughter Sherry. Dale Carter in Bossier they probably have, he took a whole set of pictures and now whether Sherry has them or they have them you might check with them and see if they have Sherry's wedding pictures because

[Mrs. Middleton]- Dale Carter's daughter is Sherry?

[Mrs. Williams]- S.H.E.R.R.Y- and her wedding pictures would have, they were made in Mrs. Rita's yard because she had such a pretty yard and if you will hold on one minute I think I know where one picture of her yard is. I will have to show this to Rene too.

[Tape stops]

[Mrs. Williams]- Pictures he made of beauty pageants and things and there's a picture in here where's that picture? I flipped open to it just a minute ago well I will look in here till I find it. Okay this was, this was one picture made in Mrs. Rita's yard there can't really tell a whole lot about it because there was no flowers blooming, but that was ah oh Jane Demoss wanted pictures of her. Oh ok this one was also made in Mrs. Rita's yard [laughing] he used Mrs. Rita's yard as a backdrop to do pictures.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well if it's a pretty yard then that's perfect.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes, that's hers and let's see,

[Mrs. Middleton]- So you have to have actually spoken with the lady who is from Ohio-- the couple from Ohio?

[Mrs. Williams]- Oh yes I know them

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok this one was made in her yard but you can't tell much about it, she had a tulip tree over there and this little girl is holding a tulip but you can't tell anything much about it.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Maybe your son deliberately faded that

[Mrs. Williams]- Maybe so

[Mrs. Middleton]- So your son

[Mrs. Williams]- Maybe so I really don't know, but you can see there are flowers of some sort blooming, but anyway this isn't really a lot of help as far as telling what the yard looks like. Somewhere I may possibly have some pictures that we made like when it snowed or something like that

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok these, I'm going to finish showing you these pictures.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh please yes

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok let's see, this is the way the house looked after the third thing was added to it. Ok, then this is the house, the grey house down the street not the one on the corner, but the one next to it and look here it has this beautiful turret on it and the lady that lives there now her grandmother had the roofers to tear that off, because they said it was too hard to roof and they took it off many, many years ago.

[Mrs. Middleton]- What a shame.

[Mrs. Williams]- Isn't that a shame that that was taken off? Ok this is a general store here in town on this same street here, see. There was a flood, Plain Dealing used to flood. Ok this house has been torn down Carol Boggs who lives two doors over here this was her home.

[Mrs. Middleton]- [clears throat]

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok this is the Baptist church and this is on the site where the Baptist church is now.

[Mrs. Carter/Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- Right up the street, this is a wedding going on

[Mrs. Carter]- Oh yes we have seen that I think we have that.

[Mrs. Williams]- You probably got it from Bryce. Bryce made these for me Bryce Turnley.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes uh huh.

[Mrs. Williams]- Made these copies for me and I told him I only wanted pictures on this street. Now this house is also gone, but this house, now this house is gone, but this house is still there. This house is next door to where City Hall is.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ok we will watch for that when we go back out

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah this one is still there and this one is they were moving this building with this tractor.

[Mrs. Carter]- Ah

[Mrs. Middleton]- For goodness sakes.

[Mrs. Williams]- [laughing slightly] That's J.C store they were moving.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Now this name I recognize J. Pinkney

[Mrs. Williams]- That was his store you saw in the flood a while ago

[Mrs. Middleton]- The Jewish merchant was his name Cochran?

[Mrs. Williams]- I believe it was Cochran that sounds right check that out with Kitty.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Alright

[Mrs. Williams]- Cause Kitty told me what it was the other day what it was I didn't know what it was till then. This is J. Pinkney's store here, no wait a minute yep, yeah this is J. Pinkney's store here, see with the flood

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- See this old building here. No wait a minute it wasn't the store they were moving this was their house they were moving the house because they built another house on this side.

[Mrs. Middleton]- What did they do with this house I wonder?

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know it's been so many years ago, look at the age of that tractor. [Laughing slightly]

[Mrs. Williams]- See here it is in this picture, this is up by the railroad tracks and his house was over here; just a minute I think I can tell you what house they built back there in place of it because Bryce told me. [Pause and rustle of pictures]

[Mrs. Middleton]- Is Mr. Bryce alright?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah, uh huh

[Mrs. Middleton]- I don't know how I heard this but someone said his memory had begun to fail.

[Mrs. Williams]- Not that I know of.

[Mrs. Middleton]-Well he came into the library one day with a wonderful suggestion that we have never followed through with but I'm so glad to hear that, now his collection is at LSUS is that right?

[Mrs. Williams]- I'm not sure, but he umm now maybe what now Bryce got all these pictures from Beulah Findley now she's the one who has Alzheimer's so maybe that's how it got all

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well now that's, it probably did.

[Mrs. Williams]- Now see this house right here

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes mam

[Mrs. Williams]- Now this is the house they built in place of the one they moved. This house right here the one they were moving.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ah, what a wonderful history

[Mrs. Williams]- We play dominoes with Mr. Bryce and Marilyn once a week and we were at their house night before last and he was just fine then. [Laughing]

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, well that's I'm sure that's how, Beulah Findley.

[Mrs. Williams]- But he got all these pictures from Beulah and so I'm sure that's that probably how, because he can't ask her questions about these things, because she has Alzheimer's.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh I'm sure that's where it came about.

[Mrs. Williams]- She's the one who is a granddaughter of Green Allen, another one of the granddaughters of Green Allen. Let's see, ok this was the Benton Boggs home right here, I wonder if I have better picture of that if not I'm going to have to get him to, there's one in the Hot Dog Palace there is a, no here it is.

[Mrs. Middleton]- The Hot Dog Palace?

[Mrs. Williams]- Well it's not called the Hot Dog Palace anymore it used to be called the Hot Dog Palace I mean years ago she had the Hot Dog Palace, it's called Giles Snack Shop now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, yes we've eaten there many times.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well you know she's got all those old pictures in there

[Mrs. Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- Well Bryce made those for them, he took the pictures he had of Mr. Johnny's and made pictures for them, but this is, ok this is looking if you were up town, say you were at Giles snack shop looking this way this is the Benton Boggs house is here on the left

[Mrs. Middleton]- Its still here?

[Mrs. Williams]- No it burned, there's a service station across the road from the bank. Do you know where the service station is?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok this is where the bank was, this is the Gray Hotel, and this is the Gray store and this is the Swindle home and all those are gone the bank is right here now where the Benton Boggs

[Mrs. Middleton]- The Hibernia?

[Mrs. Williams]- Where the Benton Boggs was it's a service station that was there when I came here 43 years ago. But anyway I just wanted when I have my party for people to see what this street looked like at that time.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It's a wonderful idea. I love it!

[Mrs. Williams]- Now these are some pictures of people that he just of just people he had made and Bryce just made me some pictures so we could see what

[Mrs. Middleton]- That Mr. Johnny Allen had made?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes these are some pictures he had we don't know who the people are.

[Mrs. Middleton]- There was a movie star in the 40s we did a little research on her. Ogilvie?

[Mrs. Williams]- Oh really, now well the Ogilvie's there was a Mr. Ogils… there was an Aileen Ogilvie that had a beauty shop here and then her husband and then there was an older man who was the butcher in Winham's Grocery store at that time and those are the only Ogilvies I know about I don't know any history on them or anything.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well this lady if I remember correctly I don't remember her name we found pictures of her in the paper as a movie star…

[Mrs. Williams]- Well how about that.

[Mrs. Middleton]- She married a photographer I believe

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't think that

[Mrs. Middleton]- Sometimes I get these things very confused

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't think that would have been Mr. Johnny's wife, I don't think so, but now you can find more of that out with Edna Medcalf.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh alright

[Mrs. Williams]- She can tell you

[Mrs. Middleton]- She sounds like we really need to speak with her

[Mrs. Williams]- Because Janice told me she has done some genealogy so she ought to know some of those things. Now see this is J. Pinkney's store again Bryce said J. Pinkney had four different stores through the times. He said when a store would burn he would just build, put another one some place else. You know so he had like four different stores at different times.

[Mrs. Middleton]- So fires were common?

[Mrs. Williams]- I guess so, guess so you know with the way they heated and the way they had to put them out. Now see this is J. Pinkney's store located on the Southwest corner of South Lynch and Palmetto. Now Lynch I believe is the street that runs right down beside the Giles snack shop. Is that Lynch?

[Mrs. Middleton]- I didn't notice

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok Lynch might be at the bank here you'll have to look on that and see and left to right we have Ben Keith, Mrs. J.P Keith the store owner here and then Johnny Nuckolls.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I've seen that name I don't know why.

[Mrs. Williams]- Alright I knew this old man whenever we first moved here; he had a daughter named Louise Scale and he lived when we lived down there. He would walk past our house, went down two streets, and turned and went back to where his house was. I didn't know him personally; I knew who he was, because he walked past the house so much. Then Benton Bixler, T. Benton Bixler I don't know that name and the house on the left was built by the son of G.W. Jones. That's this right here who had a store, who had a wooden store on the corner. I guess that's the wooden store on the corner there…

[Mrs. Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- Of Palmetto and North Cotton Belt, ok Cotton Belt is the one the street that runs right by the railroad.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, so Lynch would be there where Annie Lou's is, well I'm not sure where this is. Okay it's where Walker Brother drug is now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Is that the one on the corner?

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh, the one up on the corner there next to the railroad, Walker Brothers.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That's the one that I stopped and the lady told me exactly which house you were in.

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, well this is, this is the one on that corner then, this is kinda turned around

[Mrs. Middleton]- Is Giles snack shop in an old building?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah is in that old building on the corner right as you go back up the street you see the Rexall Drug store?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok then its across that side street of the Rexall drug store and I'm thinking that side street there is Lynch. I get these side streets messed up living here but I think that street is Lynch.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ok we will look for Lynch Street

[Mrs. Williams]- She's got worlds of old pictures in there just around the walls

[Mrs. Middleton]- I have not just stopped and looked at all of them but I always look at a few of them on the table there by the door.

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok this is the insurance office that's there now right, its catty-cornered across from the snack shop, the little snack shop.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh alright I know where

[Mrs. Williams]- See you will recognize that building by seeing it.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok that was the bank back then, that's the bank that was robbed years ago

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes, yes we have photographs of that. Have you seen them?

Mrs. Carter- No

[Mrs. Williams]- Well that is the bank that was robbed and this is the building right over here was where the Rexall drug store is now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes

[Mrs. Williams]- And that building up there the Rexall drug store contains the oldest, the oldest elevator in Bossier Parish.

[Mrs. Middleton]- For goodness sakes.

[Mrs. Williams]- Kitty did a thing on "One Hundred Years of Medical History" in North Bossier Parish

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes

[Mrs. Williams]- She did it back in the fall.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, she has that in her write-up, in everything she had about that.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- Dr. Bell had a heart attack and Dr. Willis and Dr. Knighton who started Willis Knighton Hospital made a house-call-- came up here to check on him and they thought he should go to the hospital so they had him taken down to the hospital stayed several weeks down there and when he came back up here and resumed his practice he owned the drug store and the office was upstairs.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes, I've been up stairs with Kitty I think

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, well he didn't think that he should be climbing the stairs or they didn't or something so he put in the first elevator in Bossier Parish.

[Mrs. Middleton]- How interesting

[Mrs. Williams]- So when they put a bank in Bossier Parish way back in the fifties or sixties well they billed that as the first elevator and someone wrote them a letter told them "no it's not" so they wrote a retraction you know that there was an elevator here before that elevator was ever put in there. [Group laughs]

[Mrs. Middleton]- [Laughing]

[Mrs. Williams]- Look at this car isn't that

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh my, it's got the wooden spokes in the wheels that's an old

[Mrs. Williams]- And look here this is the well, I guess where people watered their horses and things. See in the middle of the street and

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes

[Mrs. Williams]- They probably tied them up there and everything and are you looking, did you want to look at this some more? Ok, I this house right now our house would be way down here somewhere.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- Umm, see that bell, that Gray Hotel would be down here. Have I showed you a picture of the Gray Hotel yet?

[Mrs. Middleton]- You mentioned it in one of the others

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah but I have a picture of the Gray Hotel, here it is right here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ah

[Mrs. Williams]- There's the Gray Hotel, judging from these trees here, I would say that the Gray Hotel this is probably the side of that Gray Hotel wouldn't you say?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Probably

[Mrs. Williams]- The front porch of it

[Mrs. Middleton]- I wish I had brought a loop with me

[Mrs. Williams]- Well I have a magnifying glass will that help you? Or do you need something even stronger than that? [[Mrs. Williams] speaking as she walks away, unable to transcribe what she is saying] [Lots of background noise]

[Mrs. Williams]- This thing here to use and for a time

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- For a time I was able to use it to pay my bills and things I don't now, but put it under let's put this under here and see if we can, yeah that's the side of that hotel. We might could even, does that bring it up any bigger to look see there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh yes, I believe you're right yes you look too.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know if sometimes when, I have swelling on my macular but thank goodness it's going away now, but for a time I was having to use both of these so um,

[Mrs. Middleton]- There's a little old thing like this called a loop that will magnify many, many times.

[Mrs. Williams]- I wish I had one

[Mrs. Middleton]- You can only see a small area

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh, uh huh, well now see when you use both of these, try using both of them and see if that brings it in closer to you. Does that bring it clearer?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes it does

[Mrs. Williams]- And I'm almost certain that's the Gray Hotel there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well what street did the Gray Hotel face?

[Mrs. Williams]- Palmetto

[Mrs. Middleton]- Palmetto?

[Mrs. Williams]- Palmetto-- the one you're on right here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- And this street is?

[Mrs. Williams]- Palmetto, this is Palmetto right here. Ok Giles snack shop would be over here on this corner right here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Un huh

[Mrs. Williams]- This is the building the insurance office, Doyle's insurance now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ok

[Mrs. Williams]- It used to be the bank back then it was the bank and I don't know what this is here with this dome, I don't ever remember that

[Mrs. Middleton]- I've seen that dome or turret or whatever it is.

[Mrs. Williams]- But see this is the Gray Hotel and this is the Benton Boggs' house.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Which is now gone?

[Mrs. Williams]- Which is now gone across the street from it, ok you would go on up and look here look the way our street looks our house would have been way up here someplace.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Looks just like a dirt road, isn't that amazing?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes up through there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- [Sneezes and excuses herself]

[Mrs. Williams]- Lets see if there is anything else in here we want to look at closer up. Ok this now is also looking up the same directions but with the snow on see and it's a little further up, because this was made right by the Baptist church.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes, I recognize the Baptist church

[Mrs. Williams]- And, well shoot oh this must be the Gray Hotel right here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I was thinking it looked like the last picture you showed us.

[Mrs. Williams]- That's got to be the Gray Hotel right there so that would mean, oh ok this house is still here, this is still here this is the Brown house I believe well maybe not, this house right here used to be behind the Baptist church it was Mrs. Hudson, I'm not sure that's this house here, I believe this is the Brown's house that's still here. Who's Emily Jennings mother was raised in the grey house up here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- The grey house up here that would have been her mother was a Brown, so that would have been that house there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well now is the whole building of the Gray Hotel still there?

[Mrs. Williams]- No, the building's not there at all anymore none of it is. See ok we are still looking up the same way this is the

[Mrs. Middleton]- The Hotel?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes and this is the Brown house right here and this little house right here, right here this is the Brown house this little house was Mrs. Hudson's house and it's gone. Okay this is the Benton Boggs house right here, it was across from the bank.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well I wonder why it was destroyed-- it was torn down?

[Mrs. Williams]- I think it burned I am not sure, I am not sure but this man Benton Boggs was a state senator at one time.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Any relation to Hail Boggs?

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know I hadn't thought about that, but his name was Benton Boggs and at the time he had this house, but see this house kinda compares I would think it kinda compares to this one, its still here up the street.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Um hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- You know that house you know that house they were both FINE homes at that time so I would think that it kinda compares to that. Then this is Robert Schumpert Bixler at age 14 and friend Georgia Brock on Carolina Street in Plain Dealing.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well we, I'm wondering if Brock would be related to Eric Brock the historian who writes the columns.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know I don't know

[Mrs. Middleton]- Who was going to marry the lady from the state museum.

[Mrs. Williams]- Where else did I see Bixler, I thought I saw Bixler someplace too, but I thought I saw it in one of these pictures. Oh, oh I know its back here in these the J.P store I believe it's the people standing in front of that store, yeah T. Benton Bixler is that man right there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh

[Mrs. Williams]- So this was probably his daughter, look how dressed up they got just to go riding around in the buggy.

[Mrs. Middleton]- In the buggy

[Group laughs]

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know what these houses are here in the background Carolina Street is the one I believe goes up to the school, but I don't know.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It would be hard to tell wouldn't it?

[Mrs. Williams]- Rob tried to and this is the same picture that's on the front of the brochure of Dallas brought me.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yeah, yes Pam brought one along too.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah this is the same picture that's there and that is the Gray Hotel.

[Mrs. Middleton]- And it was empty then and, and

[Mrs. Williams]- No, no it was in use

[Mrs. Middleton]- It was in use? [Sounding surprised]

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah in 1915 it just had those big tall trees grown up there. Yeah it stayed in use for years and years and years. Yeah it was in use you can even see they do have a window shade up here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yeah I see it.

[Mrs. Williams]- Probably everybody else just had their window shades up, but ok these are the ones Bryce just made me the other night when we went over there and for some reason I don't know if he didn't have any paper to make the 8x10, but he said would it be ok to make…ok this is the house down the street we rented for all those years.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- He made these pictures for me that I would have liked to have 8x10s of those I might take them down to Wal-Mart and have them blown up.

[Mrs. Middleton]/Carter- They can blow them up

[Mrs. Williams]- Or you can do them yourself. This is the house we lived in down the street.

[Mrs. Carter]- 306 East Palmetto, that the one?

[Mrs. Williams]- Probably is. Now this is the picture he used cause on our invitation we're going to have this on the front of the invitation we're going to send out. So Bryce made me an invitation that I can have copied. However, my husband wants to try a picture of the way it looks now with the garage there and you know, the way it looks now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Umm hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- So if we do that we will get Bryce to take another picture.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I love that don't you?

[Mrs. Williams]- I do too and he makes one that is really good, probably basically from the same angle and if umm, but this is the one I have already made and I have made this picture after we moved out of that house down there. There was snow and I took the picture, but it looks basically the same way it did when it was built, because it still had a tin roof so it's basically the same thing. And then this is the man who built the house Mr. B. Spell. He was the builder for this house.

[Mrs. Middleton]- He was the builder? Ok

[Mrs. Williams]- And also the builder for that house right up the street here that had the turret on it. He did not build this house; this one was built before he came here. Um and this is his family, Bryce copied this, him and his family after they were grown people here, his granddaughter sent me all these. Oh ok this is the for sale house that Mr. Bruce Procell built these houses around here, he built this one the next year after he built.

[Mrs. Carter]- Well is he based out of Shreveport or?

[Mrs. Williams]- No, he lived here and I'm going to show you, here is the invitation and I don't want to lose it either there are some addresses I want to send people an invitation and I don't want to lose these. This is the, what Bryce made up for me to use.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh

[Mrs. Williams]- Course the inside he just used something that they had on there, we have to redo that.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Umm hmm

[Mrs. Williams]- But this is what our invitations are gonna look like without, unless Joe gets another picture made showing the garage and the little porch the way it looks now, otherwise that's what we're going to use for the invitation.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Was Mr. Procell like a developer?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah I'm going to show you in just a second here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Is there still a Procell who sells land around here?

[Mrs. Williams]- No, not that I know of

[Mrs. Carter]- Was he the architect too?

[Mrs. Williams]- They didn't have architects back then they just built the house. You know that man that built it just built a house they didn't I mean in big cities they probably did but not here they didn't use architects.

[Mrs. Carter]- Ah

[Mrs. Williams]- Now here, his granddaughter sent me…this and ah this is the history of, would you like me to read it to you or would you like to read it?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Please read it.

[Mrs. Williams]- [Contents of the letter] Mr. Dick was born December 29, 1871 in Blackhawk, Mississippi and died at his home in Plain Dealing in 1943. Now the granddaughter wrote this up and sent it to me so I could have it for my house's birthday party. He was the 3rd of the 13 children born to James Slicer Procell and Francis Melissa Coe. (I didn't realize they had 13 children) Mr. Dick came to Plain Dealing in 1897 when his older brother Rev. George D. Procell became ill with Typhoid Fever and needed a family member to nurse him back to health. Rev. George Procell had come to Louisiana from Mississippi earlier that year to serve as junior preacher on the North Bossier Circuit of the Methodist Church under Rev. J.R. Roy. Rev. Procell was later appointed to the North Bossier Circuit and served as pastor of the Methodist Church in 1900 and 1901. He was sent for the express purpose of constructing a new church building which he did undoubtedly with the help of his brother Dick. Rev. Procell and his wife Ella are both buried in the Plain Dealing cemetery, Mr. Dick and his family were faithful members of the Plain Dealing Methodist Church through the death of his daughter Mildred Adams in 2003. When the first brick structure was built around 1923 Mr. Dick was the builder. (He's the same one that built this house) his grandchildren found the blue prints while going (I guess there was a architect that drew up the blue prints) his grandfather…his grandchild found the blue prints while going through papers at his home in 2004. (That was last summer, I went over there when they were going through things at the old Procell house, they hope they have it sold. There is someone who wants to restore it.)

[Mrs. Middleton]- How wonderful!

[Mrs. Williams]- [Continues reading letter] And gave them to the church. Sometime around the 1900's the brothers moved their parents and younger brothers and sisters to North Louisiana. Among the children that settled in Plain Dealing was their 10th child Nettie May who married Celise Cooper Bar.

[Mrs. Williams]- (Ok so that was the grey house not the one on the corner, but the one that used to have the turret on it. Ok, this is who, ok this is the man who had that house built down there and his son was Alice Bar and he was the father of Emily who lives there now. Ok she was a Procell and married a Bar and Emma Jones' little boy is named Celise Josh and Celise.)
[Mrs. Williams]- [Continues letter] Celise and Nettie's home is now occupied by their granddaughter Emily Jennings is their (great granddaughter, wait a minute; no she's their granddaughter) their granddaughter Emily Jennings her husband Michael and their sons Joshua and Celise. James Slicer Procell and Francis Melissa Coe are both buried in the Plain Dealing cemetery as are a number of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. R.C. Procell married Ethel Cabot Procell in (so that's him R.C. Procell) married her in Plain Dealing on December 20, 1906 (see he completed our house in 1905 before he married, the year before he married) she was the 8th of 10 children born to James Richard Cabot and Martha Ann Doles. He built a home for him and his bride that same year and it still stands in Plain Dealing. (That's the house around the corner from here, I will show you when you start to leave) They had 7 children born to them in that house: Ethel Dean, Jimmy Dicks, Harold Abner, Mildred Cabot, Raymond Cole, Bruce Canard, and Ethylene Lou Ella, Mr. Dick and his younger brother Barton were both builders and had a hand in constructing many of the homes in Plain Dealing. The house that Mr. Dick built for his parents now known as the Miller house for the many years that Rev. Miller and his family lived there is still at its original location and lived in. The homes lived in by Jimmy Dick Procell, his wife Ruby and their children Rebecca, Bruce and the home of Harold and his wife Mary Elizabeth and daughter Glory Jean (she is the one that got this to me) were both built by Mr. Dick as rent houses and deeded to his sons when they married these houses have been moved to locations, but are still being lived in.
So umm.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That is really interesting

[Mrs. Williams]- See this

[Mrs. Middleton]- She was really nice to send you this.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah, and I hope that, I hope that Richard and Ann will get something that good on Mr. and Mrs. Kelly and get it to me and that's why I would like to have a transcript of your stuff too.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Of Mr. Green Allen?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes

[Mrs. Middleton]- I will send you a copy of everything I have.

[Mrs. Williams]- See this is the house that he built in 1906, 1907 because he married in December 1906 or maybe he was in the process of building it at the time, I don't know.

[Mrs. Middleton]- He must have known her and knew he was going to be married

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah and maybe he built that house you know during the time they were going together; I don't know, because it says he built the house in the same year you know. Ok, so what else can I tell you or show you whatever?

[Mrs. Middleton]- We would love to see the quilts.

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok, well here are some I hung up here now these are all old ones, now they aren't hundred years old or anything like that and this one has never been washed. My mother-in-law, my first one, made this one so it's probably I will say probably 60 years old.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Can we take it down?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes you can take it down, is that what you said? This one was made by my grandmother and it's probably 60 years old and this one was made by my grandmother and it's probably 60 to 65 years old something like that. I think it's probably.

[Mrs. Middleton]- They have certainly been well taken care of.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah, mother kept them wrapped up she used some of them, but she had so many she didn't use all of them so she kept these wrapped up in old sheets or something and

[Mrs. Middleton]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- Then I kept them in pillow cases ever since I've had them and umm, so. [Hear walking around] I can move those if you would like to have them in a better location where you can get to it.

[Mrs. Carter]- So there are two different ones?

[Mrs. Middleton]- There are three different ones.

[Mrs. Williams]- We can take those down and spread them over a chair or something if you want to, would you like to do that?

[Mrs. Middleton]- They have different stories Pam.

[Mrs. Carter]- Ok

[Mrs. Williams]- Ok let's see this one, let's just spread it over something.

[Mrs. Middleton]- They all have a name didn't they the pattern?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah, yeah let's see

[Mrs. Middleton]- That looks like a fan.

[Mrs. Williams]- This is a fan quilt it sure is, lets spread it out in the living room so we have room to spread it out, we will have plenty of room to spread it out. Ok this one is called a fan quilt and it was made by my mother-in-law Addie Mariel.

[Mrs. Carter]- About what time would that be do you know?

[Mrs. Williams]- I imagine it's about 60 years old so how long would that be…probably 1940s, on that one.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Beautiful handiwork.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah, yeah and she was she did I guess you can say my grandmother wasn't as polished, I'm going to bring them all in there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I'm following you with the tape recorder. [Laughing]

[Mrs. Williams]- I'm going to bring these down in there and we can just spread them all out in there. My mother-in-law was a little more polished with hers, but my grandmother used really simple patterns for her quilts, but she loved to do it. Now this quilt

[Mrs. Middleton]- And she needed them probably in a hurry whereas maybe your mother did not need them, mother-in-law didn't.

[Mrs. Williams]- I imagine this one is also around 60 years old.

[Mrs. Carter]- Oh it's beautiful.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Isn't it though

[Mrs. Williams]- This one is called an "Improved Nine Patch" it's improved because they made the little squared off nine patch. They made this little rounded thing here, so that one is called improved nine patch.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Do you recall any umm dresses or anything from?

[Mrs. Williams]- Let's see, ah I think I had a dress out of this fabric right here, other than that I know it has sort of, well I do remember this was my grandmother had a dress made out of this material right here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That looks like a grandmother dress. This says Dallas, Miami, someone had a dress with the place names on it.

[Mrs. Williams]- I guess so

[Mrs. Middleton]- New York, Vegas

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh I believe my grandmother had one out of that grey and white strip there. She wore just you know just moody colors like grandmothers did.

[Mrs. Middleton]- My grandmother did too.

[Mrs. Williams]- None of the others, I think I had a dress, I know I did mother made me a little sun dress out of this and a little red bolero to go with it.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Everybody had a little red denim dress.

[Mrs. Williams]- This one now is the, this one has a hole in it. [Surprised] This one is called a 16 patch pattern.

[Mrs. Carter]- Your mother made this one too?

[Mrs. Williams]- My grandmother. My mother never made quilts but my grandmother made quilts all the time. She used simple patterns the fan my mother-in-law made was more elaborate than what my grandmother got into. She used that improved nine patch was probably about the most complicated she used. Now come on in here.

[Mrs. Carter]- What do you think the years were on the last two?

[Mrs. Williams]- The last two probably all about the same age 50 or 60.

[Mrs. Carter]- And those were made by your grandmother? What's her name?

[Mrs. Williams]- Her name was Liza Davis.

[Mrs. Carter]- And she was in Arkansas when she made those?

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh yes, yes she was in the Ouachita Mountains which is called Olla which is about 50 miles north of Hot Springs on HWY 7.

[Mrs. Carter]- Ok and the one by the mother-in-law what was her name?

[Mrs. Williams]- He name was Addie Mariel and she lived in the Holston, Myra, Gilliam area of Louisiana.

[Mrs. Carter]- Alright

[Mrs. Williams]- Now this is called, she called this one a "Post Card" quilt and the reason she used a penny post card to cut that out.

[Mrs. Middleton]- [Laughs]

[Mrs. Carter]- And that's your grandmother?

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh that my grandmother made; all the rest of these will have been made by my grandmother.

[Mrs. Carter]/Middleton- [Talking but inaudible]

[Mrs. Williams]- Now this my grandmother had started a quilt and she died in 60s and she had started this pattern, this is the most complicated pattern I have ever known her to use and she had made nine of these squares when she died, so my cousins and I took them years and years later and made pillows out of them so everyone in the family could have a pillow, you know a square like that, but now this one is also a 16 patch here and this one is called a "Spool Quilt"

[Mrs. Middleton]- Because it looks like a spool?

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes, because it looks like a spool and then this one was my daughter's.This quilt is 48 years old, because my daughter is going to be 48 and my grandmother made that for my daughter a baby quilt since we didn't know if she was going to be a boy or girl she made it pink and blue.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Perfect

[Mrs. Williams]- This one is one that I used for many, many years. I imagine this one is 40 vintage, because I didn't marry till 55 and this is a quilt top my grandmother had had for many years and when I was engaged my grandmother, my aunt and I went to work and we quilted all these quilt tops she had, but I'm sure she made this one in the 40s and then it wasn't quilted until then. Ok then this one was made by my mother-in-law again Addie Mariel and you can see she was a little more elaborate with her quilt making and I will say all of these are probably late 40s or early 50s.

[Mrs. Carter]- What's this pattern called?

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know I do not know what that's called; it kinda looks like a ship to me.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It does to me too. I was thinking that.

[Mrs. Williams]- But then it has stars see this is the same pattern as that one over there which is the, what an 8 point star. [She begins to count] yeah that's called an 8 point star so I don't know what the little ship looking things are in there, but this is also that improved 9 patch that my grandmother made and this one is a little later. This one was made probably; she died in '65 she probably made this one around 1960 that's the latest.

[Mrs. Middleton]- She was still quilting?

[Mrs. Williams]- Right up to till the morning that she died that afternoon, she was 83 and she was working on her piecing quilts that morning before she died that afternoon.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That's remarkable.

[Mrs. Carter]- Wow

[Mrs. Williams]- This is my mother's doll right here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ah

[Mrs. Williams]- And she had kept it all these years in you know in the drawer all wrapped up and everything so I brought it home and this is the original clothes it had on .and I'm so scared to try and wash the clothes.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh I would be too.

[Mrs. Williams]- But this dress after Mrs. McFatter who taught school for many, many years and her husband was the agriculture teacher here for years and after she died after the family got what they wanted they had an estate sale and I got this little dress and she had made that for her daughter when she was a baby or before the daughter was born and the daughter is in her 50s now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh my word!

[Mrs. Williams]- Well I thought that was the perfect dress to go on

[Mrs. Middleton]- For your mother's doll

[Mrs. Williams]- And the little bonnet came from my daughter-in-law from some of her babies and had a little dress on it, but I just thought I needed to have that old dress on it.

[Mrs. Middleton/Carter]- Yes

[Mrs. Williams]- And this bedroom furniture belonged to my husband my present husband and I don't really know how old it is, but its old.

[Mrs. Carter]- Where is he from or?

[Mrs. Williams]- He bought this in an antique shop many, many, many years ago and that piece over there was mine, the bed and the dresser were his.

[Mrs. Carter]- Oh that piece right here?

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh that piece was mine and ah it came from across the river near Myra, Louisiana and ah I can't remember the name of the family that had it, but it was someone my first husband had always known and when they got ready to sell this well they talked to his sister and she called and told us they wanted to get rid of it and we bought it for $35.00.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is beautiful, the wood is?

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know, we refinished it, it was really dark when we bought it and we refinished it so I don't know what the wood is.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Its absolutely beautiful wood.

[Mrs. Williams]- I think so and it's a very good match for Joe's bed and dresser which is behind you here.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes

[Mrs. Williams]- Lets finish with the quilts and then I will show you these other things. This is also a 16 patch but see this is a smaller one, I sleep with this one on the couch all the time I keep it in there. This one you must see this one unfolded and my clock you must see my clock in there. This is what they called "Speckled Puppy" and the reason, I don't know what the reason is, but this is called a "speckled puppy" pattern and they start with one block and they add this block, this block, and this block to it and they fill in

[Mrs. Carter]- Uh huh

[Mrs. Williams]- And they just go around you just start with one little piece and you just go on and on and on and so that's called a "speckled puppy".

[Mrs. Carter]- Hmm, and your umm your grandmother made that one?

[Mrs. Middleton]- The stitching is so precise.

[Mrs. Williams]- This is, these are machine-quilted--the later ones.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes, but even that part is so precise.

[Mrs. Williams]- All the piecing was done by hand and I want to say this is one of her later ones this was probably mid to late 50s on this one and probably that one too probably mid to late 50s. Then this is called a "Spool Quilt" here this one is a "Bow Tie" quilt do you see the difference?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh yes!

[Mrs. Carter]- [Laughs]

[Mrs. Williams]- That's a bow tie
[Tape goes blurred picks up in mid sentence]

[Mrs. Williams]- My cousin who lives in Springdale has really gotten into quilting big and so she has pictures of all the quilts we have and all that and she has a lot of them. See my son took, my grandmother had stacks and stacks of quilt tops in two or three different closets, in the shelves in the closets she had two or three closets with just stacks and stacks of quilt tops and after a number of years she died in 1965 and it was in the 80s late 80s that we decided HEY we need to do something with these things, so my two cousins…[Tape ends on side one, Side two is blank.]

TAPE 2-Side 2 - transcribed June 15, 2015

Side 1 is blank

[Mrs. Williams]- My grandfather's mother was the daughter of the lady that wore the bonnet, and my grandfather was born in 1881 and he was among the younger children. He was second from the youngest in his family. So, I don't know how old this purse is, but probably somewhere between 1864 and 1881. Well, she probably had this purse at that time. So, it was before 1900 I feel sure.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh

[Pam Carter]- What treasures you have.

[Mrs. Williams]- Ah, let's see if there is anything else.

[Mrs. Middleton]- What about the little rocking chair? Did you talk to Pam already?

[Mrs. Williams]- That was my daughter's little rocking chair. She got that when she was about a year old. It is about 47 years old. But doll now predates 1915, because if they have a red line above the eye (we researched this at the library) if there is a red line above the eye then the doll was made before 1915, because at that time they stopped doing that, making the red line above the eye. So we don't know how old she is. My husband found… my first husband found her in a dump. Someone had just dumped.

[Mrs. Middleton]- For goodness sakes!!!

[Mrs. Williams]- You know…

[Pam Carter]- Was it done here in Plain Dealing?

[Mrs. Williams]- Near Bodcau. He was a forester and he was in charge of the Bodcau Reservation out there. And someone just dumped a load of stuff. You know they would just drive down the road and dump things and someone would come along and find it. So apparently someone was just cleaning out an old house or whatever and she was in the dump. Laughter So, anyway.

[Pam Carter]Was the dress…

[Mrs. Williams]- No, no I made the dress. I made the dress for her. And I already told you this doll belonged to my mother, and she got this doll for Christmas when she was nine years old. My mother was born in 1918. So that would be 1927. She remembers her daddy walking… (they lived out in the country) and he left early on Christmas eve morning and walked into Walden, Arkansas, to purchase Christmas presents. He came back with that doll for her. Of course she didn't see it until Christmas morning. He walked into town about six miles into town and six miles back, you know, to get the Christmas presents for them on Christmas Eve day.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Ah,

[Mrs. Williams]- You know back then people did not shop ahead of time.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Right Laughter Well, this is a lovely room. When you all acquired the house were there furnishings in it?

[Mrs. Williams]- The only furnishings that I have that were in the house I will show you in the back. There was a bedroom suite, which is not antique old. I don't know what you consider antique anymore. It is over fifty years old.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well, it very well may be.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes, we have been here say thirty-one years, so at the time we bought it I did not consider it an antique, but it probably is now. After all (Laughter) I have turned into an antique since I moved here. LAUGHTER So, let's see, I don't know if you noticed this little…

[Mrs. Middleton]- high chair

[Mrs. Williams]- My daughter's doll here, but this little high chair I bought at just a second-hand shop, you know, here in town and I bought it for five dollars. Of course, you see it is broken and I had hoped to get a new back made for it, but I never did so finally I just decided I would just refinish it anyway. So that is that, and I am trying to think if there is anything else in this room. Well, this doll here was mine. So even though I didn't have my grandmother's doll, I figure that one is from the era when she would have been growing up. And this one was my mother's doll and this one was my doll and that one is my daughter's doll.

[Pam Carter]- So you have four generations of dolls!

[Mrs. Williams]- Four generations of dolls is what I say, and I know that that one belonged to my mother and that one belonged to me and that one belonged to my daughter. So I am just going to kind of pretend that that one belonged to my grandmother.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I think that is legitimate. Laughter

[Mrs. Williams]- I believe that is all in here. Well this picture, the lady that the bonnet belonged to, this was her son. This was my grandfather's uncle, my grandmother's brother. So he would be a great uncle to me. His name was John Richardson. Of course the pictures up there is just pictures of me and of Joe when we were teenagers. After we got together I wanted to, you know, frame us together and this is Joe's mother when she was young. They lived in Spring Hill and later years in the Haynesville area, but was when they lived in Spring Hill. He was just a little boy, I guess.

[Mrs. Middleton]- So she would have been the one that…

[Mrs. Williams]- No. She was my second mother.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, I see.

[Mrs. Williams]- My first mother-in-law was Addie Merrill. This lady's name was Tressie Williams. She was Tressie Merritt before she married. She was one of 15 children.

[Mrs. Middleton]- My goodness. That is hard to imagine.

[Mrs. Williams]- Ann, now this is the house the way it looked. See that is the picture that Lois made for me on this side and this is the picture that we had taken. So wanted to frame them both together so we could see the before and the after. This piece I don't know how old it is. Joe also bought this at an antique shop in Homer and I have no idea of the age of it. This couch I purchased at a second hand store in 1959 for $10 and I reupholstered it and I have had it reupholstered one time since then.

[Pam Carter]- I love this entryway.

[Mrs. Williams]- Oh I do too. Let me tell you something about the house. See when the house was built that was the back wall. This hall where the bookshelves are now, that was the back wall there. The room that you were just in was the parlor. The room here which is now my husband's office was a big room. This was the big room here. Kelly's youngest child was born in this room. Then the dining room and the kitchen and that was all the house consisted of before they remodeled it. See if you look here and see… see how the roof line was… They took the roof off and brought it like this. The porch had a separate roof at that time. See how the roof extends out over the whole thing and this is a room all the way across here where they kept boarders. But anyway the house was only five rooms at that time: the parlor, two bedrooms, dining room and kitchen when they first built it and this hallway. I am sure they used this hallway probably as a sitting room or whatever.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Where did you say where the kitchen was?

[Mrs. Williams]- It is back through… the same place where it is now. The kitchen has always been in the same spot where it is now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I see.

[Mrs. Williams]- And this old chest here… Oh I forgot to show you this clock. This clock is probably close to a hundred years old. It was second hand when my grandparents bought it and mother said they had had it ever since she could remember and she would be 86 now if she was alive. So I am sure it is close to 100 years old and it keeps perfect time when I remember to wind it. I wound it this morning. Laughter But this old radio lamp belonged to my grandparents and I don't know… It has to be at least seventy-five years old and this chest belonged to my first mother-in-law's parents and I have no idea how old it is. It had sat out in the weather until I could not sand all the gray off of it so I just decided to stain it green. It was back then many years ago when I did it when green was real popular and it is popular now.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Right, it is.

[Mrs. Williams]- But we sanded and sanded and it was so hard and it had sat outside in the weather. It is a wonder that it did not fall all to pieces.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Warp or something.

[Mrs. Williams]- But it didn't and so when we got it. Maybe if we used an electric sander and everything it would have worked, but we just sanded by hand. The gray was not coming off so we just decided to…

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is just lovely the way you have done it. The handles are original?

[Mrs. Williams]- The handles are original. I did spray paint those gold at one time and I could take them off and do it again because the gold has worn off of them.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I like them. I think it gives them character.

[Mrs. Williams]- Do you like them as antiqued looking like that?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes, I do. Well why would the key surrounds….

[Mrs. Williams]- People used to lock their drawers.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well, what ever happened to the hardware that…. I wonder.

[Mrs. Williams]- I have no idea what happened to the hardware.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Someone may have needed to get into the drawer and lost the key or something.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know. I have never… That is a question I had never even thought about before. Laughter You know, what happened to the hardware. But this picture frame, now of course this has my son, he is 44 now and he was about…. He must have been three at that time. That old frame was a frame that was in the possession of my sister-in-law at the time and I have no idea how old it is. But it was just hanging up out in her garage and I talked her into letting me have it. She had decided at one time that she would take the finish off of it and redo it, so she started stripping and she found out this pattern is made of plaster of Paris and ….

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh we have some like that in a collection, I think, not the collection but the History Center.

[Mrs. Williams]- So I just went on ahead and painted it like it was, you know.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is beautiful. It looks like it came that way.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well, (Laughter) this one over here my daughter went with her uncle at the dump of at the Gilliam area one time to take the trash of and she found this old picture frame and I had already put his picture in this one. So she wanted her picture in one too, so she got that and brought it home. She was only five years old. That is her at five. Nothing would do her but she was going to bring that home because her mother liked those kind of frames. So when she brought it, we had her picture made and put her picture in there also. Hers just wasn't as big, because at that time Larry Robinson studios…

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, I remember them well.

[Mrs. Williams]- They had put a coupon in the paper where you could get a certain size picture for 99 cents or $1.99 and the coupon they happened to have in the paper when we got this one was for the larger size. The coupon when we had hers made was for the smaller size, so that is what we did. (Laughter) Anyway she got her picture up just like she wanted.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That is a nice story.

[Mrs. Williams]- Oh, I wanted to show you this is Joe's (my present husband) Joe Williams' grandmother and she was about 100 years old. She was 104 when she died and she is about 100 years old in this picture.

[Mrs. Middleton]- But her hair is not gray!

[Mrs. Williams]- No, she does not have a gray hair in her head. She is from the Evergreen area, over near… out from Minden, out from Homer, that area is where she is from in Claiborne Parish.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, okay, Claiborne Parish.

[Mrs. Williams]- And this is actually her granddaughter that she raised because her daughter died when she went through childbirth when this lady was about three, and she lost the babies. She had two babies and the babies died and she died. So the grandmother raised this granddaughter here. I didn't get them down, but a lot of those books up there are old books. Some of them have the name of the lady who boarded here and taught school-the E Books. I also have an old, old dictionary here somewhere that I was going to get out because it has the description of (let's see this is a math book here) of a vessel that I am going to show you. The vessel is called The Egan and I would have never have dreamed… You can see good, now look up Piggen I believe is the way it is spelled and I have one of those and it predates the Civil War. My grandmother, my great grandmother, who owned the purse in there, her daddy who was the husband of the lady that wore the bonnet in there. That man built this Piggen for his youngest daughter because they all worked in the field, and when they went to the field they needed to drink water. Her job (she was five years old) and her job was to go to the spring and dip up the water and carry it to the family who was working in the field in a Piggen. This Piggen that you have.

[Pam Carter]- A small wooden vessel as a pail or tub having a ???? extending upward as a handle. I had never heard of that before.

[Mrs. Williams]- I thought that my family had made this name up. I thought they had probably made this name up, but see when he built it it had wooded bands on it, but see how the wooden bands have gone. See here is where they come together. I don't know how this happened but my granddaddy said that when he was a boy this handle came off and see this belonged to his mother and it was so precious to her because her daddy had made it and so whenever the band came off his daddy made another band for it because they didn't want to lose it. But isn't that…

[Mrs. Middleton]- I can just see a little girl walking through the fields carrying that.

[Mrs. Williams]- Just carrying the water, and she was eight years old when the Civil War started. When the Civil War started her daddy went off to war and never returned. They never did find out what happened to him. But the reason probably that they never found out what happened to him was because when I tell you the rest of the story. Her family, she and a half sister and her brother (the picture you saw up here at the front) they moved in with another family who turned out to be my grandmothers great aunt and her family. Both the men went off to the Civil War. They stayed together until the Civil War was almost over. The two families lived together just toward the end of the war when my grandmother was about twelve at the time, my great grandmother was about twelve at the time. Well, the bushwackers came through robbing and burning and all that kind of stuff and they ran them away from their home and burned it. So they had family in Missouri. They had originally come from Missouri and they had family in Missouri. My great grandmother had two or three step-daughters there. So they left with a one-horse wagon and they took this because they kept salt in it.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well, this is what I would have guessed it was. Laughter

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes, they kept salt in it and when they left to make this trip from Scott County, Arkansas to Dade County, Missouri they knew they would have to kill wild game and fish and all that and they would need salt. So they took a one-horse wagon. My great, great grandmother was wearing that bonnet right there. They took this with salt in it and they took this one-horse wagon, they took a feather bed that my brother-in-law has now and put on this wagon and they set out on this trip to Missouri. Well, when they got somewhere near Pea Ridge, Arkansas, my great, great grandmother got sick with dysentery, probably from drinking water from all kinds of streams and things. They had to stop and camp along the side of the road and in a day or so she died. The children who were like twelve, fifteen and seventeen or eighteen had to bury her and then make their way on to Missouri. This Piggen and that bonnet were so precious to my great grandmother. So that made them so precious to my grandfather and my grandmother because it was his only heritage that they had because they lost everything else, you know.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Was there any record made, written record, of her death and burial.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't think so. You know in later years some of the different family members went back to try to locate where the grave was, but they were going along this dirt road and they just dug a hole some way and buried her and there was no… You can just imagine how distraught you would be if you were 17 or 18 and your mother died and your home has been burned, you have been run off and you don't know what you are going to find when you get to Missouri.

[Mrs. Middleton]- So they kept on.

[Mrs. Williams]- Oh, yeah! They went on and they got to Dade County, Missouri. They located an older… it was my great grandmothers' half-sister who was married and living there at the time. They located her and my great grandmother and her brother, John Richards in the picture up here. That picture, of course, was made years after that. But anyway they lived with Becky, the half-sister that they had gone to. They lived with her until they were old enough to be out on their own. The older sister I think… the one who was about 17 or 18 married shortly after they moved up there.

[Mrs. Middleton]- And they stayed in that community in Missouri?

[Mrs. Williams]- In Missouri until my great grandmother married my great grandfather who had been raised there. His name was Peter C. Davis and his daddy's name was Alex Davis. Anyway they married and lived there for a number of years and then they moved back to Arkansas. In fact they moved there once when my granddaddy was about five or six years old and he and my grandmother met for the first time at that time. They were there only a year because their son got killed in an accident so they left and this is a good story too.

They joined a covered wagon train and went to Colorado with no intentions of living there. They were doing this as a diversion because my great grandmother was about to have a nervous breakdown so they just sold out. They were renting the farm and they sold out and bought this wagon and all that and made the trip out there. It took three months. Then after they got out there they sold the team and wagon and got train tickets and they came back to Dade City, Missouri where my great, great grandfather was living there, where my great grandfather's parents lived there and they came back to live with them until they could get started on their own again.

After he died, my grandfather, he was about twenty years old, and he, his mother and his two sisters, who were all still living together. It was after his daddy died and my great, great, grandmother had a sister living in Scott County, Arkansas, and she wanted to move back there to be near her sister. And they did and my grandparents were… You see they were not related to each other, but Bill Dodd was my grandmother's second cousin and his wife was my grandfather's aunt. So that made them in the same family so when they got back together and married when they were 21.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I just love the story.

[Mrs. Williams]- I thought so. He had even asked my grandmother when they were five or six years old. He said, could I have that pretty little black haired girl because her daddy was a full blood Cherokee Indian, so she had black hair.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I love this story!

[Mrs. Williams]- So he said, could I have that pretty little black haired girl to take home with me. So his mother said, you will have to ask her mother. So he went over and asked her mother and she said, when you both get to be 18 and if you still love each other you can have her. So when they were 21 they married.

[Mrs. Middleton]- That is wonderful.

[Mrs. Williams]- Grandmother's mother had died when she was 13 years old and she had been an orphan all those years and had just lived with first one person and another. So grandpa's was an established home for her and they were married 62 years and they worshipped each other. They would sit down here and just visit like they had been apart for years and years. They would just sit and visit with each other. They just lived for one another, you know because she had not had a family. She had just been an orphan all those years, so it was just really great when they got together.

{Mrs. Middleton]- It sounds like it was.

[Mrs. Williams]- This is my grandmother in later years. This is the two of them together with my daughter when she was little. If you look at her you can tell. See she has a lot of Indian in her. Can you tell that by the picture? See she is half Indian. This is my mother when she was probably somewhere in her twenties. This is my grandfather with me when I was a little girl. It is my grandmother with me.

[Mrs. Middleton]- And the dogs.

[Mrs. Williams]- And this is my uncle with me. He always lived with us. We lived with my grandparents, mother and I. He always lived with us. He never married and he died when he was forty of cancer. And this was my grandfather's retarded sister, who always lived… Grandfather's mother after grandfather and grandmother married about a year later. His mother and this sister moved in to live with them. So after his mother died, of course, he always cared for the sister and she died three years before they did. She was 83 when she died and they were 83 when they died and my mother was 82 when she died. This was my mother on her last birthday. This was in October before she died in February. She had lung cancer and she had it at that time, but she did not want anybody to know it. She was so active and everything until about six weeks before she died.

[Pam Carter]- Wow, my goodness.

[Mrs. Williams]- She did want anybody to know she was sick at all.

[Mrs. Middleton]- So she didn't get treatment at all?

[Mrs. Williams]- She did not want to take treatments, so we did not try to force her to, because she did not want to do that. She said I want to live as good as I can as long as I can. Well two months after she died we found out that Joe's mother also had lung cancer. She went through all the treatments which is sick from the beginning and mother said I don't want to be sick the whole time. I want to just live until I die and she did. I am glad she didn't…

Oh, let's see these are old watches in here that…

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well I was intrigued by these when we were looking at the photographs.

[Mrs. Williams]- Now, this is a real old one here. This one belonged to my aunt and this one belonged to my mother. I have always thought that one was so pretty and the rest of these are not that old but not that old. Now I do have a couple of old gold watches. This one came out of my first cousin's family and then I have my grandfather's in a safety deposit box. But see they are solid gold. I just had all these old watches after mother died and I thought you know I want to do something with them to display them some way. One or two of them are mine, but most of them belonged to my mother and my aunt.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is a clever way to display them.

[Mrs. Williams]- I found that little thing in an antique shop in Walden, Arkansas. Joe and I went to Queen Wilhelmina and we went out to where my mother's family were buried and all that and we went on into Walden and were looking around and here we found this little thing.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is perfect for a watch collection.

[Mrs. Williams]- I said, this is what I want for my watch collection. Well come on in this way.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Now are these the original pine floors here?

[Mrs. Williams]- Um hum.

[Mrs. Middleton]- They are lovely. They are beautiful. Are they pine under your carpeting?

[Mrs. Williams]- Right, it is pine even in that little closet over there. Now the ones in the front up there where we were looking at the quilts…. I don't know if you noticed or not but those have not been refinished. This has been refinished.

[Mrs. Middleton]- No, I didn't.

[Mrs. Williams]- The pine floors up here have never been refinished and I just put coats and coats here. See you can see where an old rug has been along here. These have never been refinished.

[Mrs. Middleton]- But, they are beautiful!

[Mrs. Williams]- Well, thank you. They are original to the house when it was built. The pine flooring was so pretty back then, you know.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is still pretty, but it is very expensive I think.

[Mrs. Williams]- You know it is so much easier to keep than the hardwood. It does not get scuffed and things on it like the hardwood does. Maybe because it is softer.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It could be.

[Mrs. Williams]- This old thing is not native to the house because that is a real fireplace, but it has been in there for years and years and years. The Kellys had put it in there. This table, Joe had bought at the same time he bought the other furniture at an antique shop in Homer. Some of these things in here are old and some of them are not. Now this one is old. It came out of the old "For Sale" house over there last summer when they were cleaning that out. I got this one and this one is not so old here. This one with the gold around it and the picture that matches it. But this is a real old one here and these were my grandmother's and I don't know how old they are, probably 40s or something like that.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Everything you have is just lovely.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well, thank you.

[Mrs. Middleton]- You have it arranged so nicely.

[Mrs. Williams]- I wanted to show you this. I have been collecting this old silverware here since way back in the early sixties I guess. The first pieces I found were this. It all needs to be polished, but by the time I thought of it yesterday, I did not have time to polish it. So you just have to…. Laughter

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well, I would not have known or I wouldn't have known if you had not said that.

[Mrs. Williams]- Do you see that little school desk over there? A little old timey school desk.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh yes!

[Mrs. Williams]- I turned that into a china cabinet. The top lifts up where you put your paper underneath. I just lined it and made it a china cabinet, I mean a silver chest. But anyway the first pieces I got of this were six of these forks and six of these knives and I paid 25 cents a piece for them up in a junk shop up in Arkansas. I had to have the knives replated because they were in kind of bad shape but the forks did not need to be replated. So then I have just picked up pieces when I find them. I found all six of these in Norfolk, Arkansas.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I love these because the handles are tiny.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well, these are butter forks and these are cake forks and these don't exactly match it but I found these in Alma, Arkansas one time. Used to when we would go on vacation we just hit all the antique shops, but better than antique shops we like flea markets and junk shops, because you can get the good bargains. These are two that I just picked up. I want you to notice there are three different patterns, all the shaped handles. Look you will see this pattern and this pattern and this pattern. Do you see the difference in them? The handles are exactly the same.

[Mrs. Middleton and Pam Carter]- Yes.

[Mrs. Williams]- And it is William Rodgers and Sons and is dated 1910.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Wow! I have been told that the older silver has more silver in it. The sterling is heavier.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well this is not sterling. This is silver plate.

[Pan Carter]- It is??

[Mrs. Williams]- And that is why I had to have these replated. They plated them five times. They put five coats on them.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is amazing. They still look so wonderful.

[Mrs. Williams]- Knives, you know, don't have silver blades.

[Mrs. Middleton]- No, they don't.

[Mrs. Williams]- And see these do. So that is why they had to plate them more back then. But anyway I don't even know where I got these grapefruit spoons, but I picked up those somewhere along the way and I picked this up in Florida a few years ago and I think I picked this up in Mt. Pleasant, Texas years ago when a friend and I went over there to visit a friend of hers and I picked that piece up. Oh, I wanted to show you this piece doesn't match but I just thought it was real pretty and I found it somewhere for about a dollar or so.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, it is! It is a meat fork I guess.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yes and this belonged to my grandmother. Back years ago like in the twenties or thirties along in there when you bought certain things in a store like you bought coffee or flour they gave away premium plates. She had a whole set of these but they had gotten broken through the years so this the only one I got after mother died and grandmother had already given me this. This was the cake fork. Leon Sanders who was the Mayor here, the store that he later ran… but these predate his running the store. Bryce Turnley's daddy ran that store to start with, you know. I got this from Sale House last year when I went over there. They are in good, good condition. I have used them a few times.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is a beautiful pattern isn't it.

[Mrs. Williams]- Yeah. This was and Audrey Davis had two full sets of these that she got from doing (no audio for about one minute) Anyway this was premium glass that they gave away there. I think Bryce told me or Audrey told me that if you bought a certain amount of groceries like so many dollars worth… Back then it couldn't have been much. I think I am right about this one, I am not sure, but I know grandma said she got these with like flour or coffee or something like that. But anyway with these, I think if you bought a certain amount, but anyway those were at the Sale House. I carried something in this bowl and used one of platters to a church function and somebody else had something there in an oval shaped bowl and I said somebody has got this. Audrey said, that is mine. Audrey is 91 herself and she said I got two complete sets of that from that store up there from buying groceries. (Laughter) And she gave one of them to her daughter and she still has one set of them.

[Mrs. Middleton]- It is a beautiful pattern and I like it personally.

[Mrs. Williams]- I thought it was a real pretty pattern, you know. And these old plates that I have got the table set with, Joe's cousin brought these by and said, maybe you can sell them in a yard sale. I said, I am not going to do it. I think they are pretty. She said when her kids were growing up she picked up plates at yard sales or whatever because she was a single mom at that time. She has later married a very nice person, but at that time she was single and she is about 80 years old herself now. But anyway she said back at that time when she was raising them she would just pick up a plate here and there and she and each one of her kids has their own certain plate. She worked and they got their plate and each person was responsible for washing their own plate. So she thought I would sell them at a yard sale. I said, no!! I am not going to do that.

[Mrs. Middleton]- On these gold chargers they look beautiful.

[Mrs. Williams]- Well, that is what I thought and you know even though there were two of those and then the rest of them… I have got so much back there in the back that are different, you know, but in here I have got… I have got to show you this. This is my mothers tea set when she was a little bitty girl.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh, how adorable and she no doubt had many tea parties.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know. And this came from the For Sale House. It is probably not that old, I don't know. But that plate up there, I feel like, is old. And these belonged to Joe's mother and they were out in the barn. They were all chipped up and all over at Haynesville when we married. They were out in the barn and I got them out and I don't know how old they are. But this one is also one of the ones that Doris gave me and that is an old plate.

[Mrs. Middleton]- I don't know about china or anything like that but it looks old.

[Mrs. Williams]- This is an old plate but see this is the saucers that go with that. This is from my very first set of everyday dishes in 1955 and these are some that my grandmother had that I know are old. I don't know which way that goes, oh yes, there is a candle holder. That is the way that goes. I have just got some odds and ends like that that different family members gave me. They are just old dishes. They are not even china. They are just old…

[Mrs. Williams]- They are still fun to have and to tell stories about. Yeah, I think so, but I just had to brings mother's tea set home when I brought her doll home. So I just had to put her tea set out somewhere, you know. Oh, this platter… no it is in the other room. This platter right here. I tried to stand it up there but it fell over and scared me. I said, oh I have broken my tureen and I have broken this old platter. I don't know what this one is but it has a mark and newer things don't have a mark like this.

[Mrs. Middleton]- No, they don't. It is true.

[Mrs. Williams]- What does it say on the back of it?

[Mrs. Middleton]- Trademark Royal Premium Semi-porcelin T&R Boot England.

[Mrs. Williams]- I found this one in Florida at a flea market years ago, but I know it has to be old. Can you tell what that mark says?

[Pam Carter]- That is just a line and then it looks like that can be… I might be looking at it upside down.

[Mrs. Williams]- Do you want to try to do a rub on it?

[Pam Carter]- R1 maybe

[Mrs.Middleton]- I wonder if it says only so many were made.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know. I don't really know about marks. I just know that old things had that mark in them and I don't really know a lot about that.

[Pam Carter]- The last few numbers are 31196 maybe.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know, but this came from the For Sale House last summer. I imagine this was probably the forties or fifties judging from the pattern. A lot of these things I put down and just leave on the counter all the time. Well I keep this up on that shelf. Now those bowls up there belonged to my grandparents and that pitcher on the far end belonged to my great, great grandmother the one the purse belonged to.

[Mrs. Middleton]- The corn pitcher?

[Mrs. Williams]- Uh huh. And these ale bottles were dredged up out of the Red River up here near the bridge. The story I get about that is when Red River used to be navigated and the ships would come in from England and different places bringing goods in that the sailors drank ale out of those bottles and they threw them over. So there was quite a number of those dredged up. One time when they were dredging the river out here and Bessie Johnson, who had a little antique shop, had those in her shop and I got those from her. They were not broken. She had a bunch of them. Somebody who had been dredging out there dredged up a whole bunch of them. So that is where those came from and I usually keep this Piggen up on that far corner. Of course all these jars are like what my family used years and years ago. Some of them came from my family and some of them I picked up and I don't know which is which. See now this is an old bottle that my first husband found. We know it is old because it has an applied lip.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Oh yeah.

[Mrs. Williams]- See the applied lip on it.

[Pam Carter]- Uh huh.

[Mrs. Williams]- And this is kind of old here too. I don't know how old it is. Look at this bottle. This one, my brother-in-law had a drainage ditch on his farm dredged out and this came out of the draining ditch. It was dredged up from there and it also has the applied lip.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Yes, it says neurologist.

[Mrs. Williams]- It says M. Pearl and Company, Inc.

[Mrs. Middleton]- New Orleans. It says D M Pearl and Company.

[Mrs. Williams]- Peruvian Bar Bitters, New Orleans, Louisiana. I wrote to the Chamber of Commerce in New Orleans to see if I could find out anything about it and the letter I got back said that back then all these medicine shows sold these things and they just bottled this stuff and went around selling it. They did not actually have an address like a business in New Orleans where there would be a record of it.

[Mrs. Middleton]- Well, why would they stamp New Orleans on the bottle.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't know, I don't know, but they didn't have any record of it. I thought gosh I have had that for probably 35 years and I really wanted to find out about it. I used to go to the library and try to look up things like this and in all the bottle books they do not have that one listed. They have a lot of the other bitters bottles listed, but they don't have that one.

[Mrs. Middleton]- We have some New Orleans City Directories on microfilm. I don't know where we got them, but should you decide to write again I would write to the Historic New Orleans Collection and see what they would have. So you might send them a photograph. They don't charge to do research. They charge for copies.

[Pam Carter]- When they wrote you back were they saying that they were not on the up and up, you know. They were just selling bottling whatever and just selling it as medicine and that is why they don't have an address.

[Mrs. Williams]- They didn't say, but see bitters was mostly alcohol, you know, and back during prohibition they sold bitters all the time as a tonic. It was supposed to be a blood cleanser, you know and everything. So people… I don't know who made the bottles but it was before…. Well that bottle was made in the early 1900s because they started making the bottle with the lip on it.

[Mrs. Middleton]- There were many bottling companies in New Orleans. There isn't a date on the bottom of the bottle.

[Mrs. Williams]- I don't think so. I don't believe there is anything on the bottom. This, see the lips made on the bottle. It was not applied. You can see the difference in this one and this one. See how that lip was put on there. Feel that.

[Pam Carter]- Yeah, yeah. That is sharp.

[Mrs. Williams]- And see they started doing this later on. So, no this bottle is older than that one. Anyway my grandmother used to take Periona? which is something you bought out of a store, which was a tonic. So bitters was supposed to be a tonic, but it was mainly alcohol.

[Mrs. Middleton]- So they sold tonic for the alcohol during prohibition. Laughter

[Mrs. Williams]- Now these two here came from my family. When I was a little girl we canned everthing. We canned sausage. We killed our own hogs. We ground up the meat and made the sausage. You fried it.

END OF TAPE

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Search Terms

Doyle Insurance Company
Gray Hotel
Restaurants, Hot Dog Palace
Quilting
Walker Brothers Drug Store
Winham Grocery

Interview date

2005-05-12

Interview place

620 E. Palmetto St. Plain Dealing, LA

Interviewer

Middleton, Ann

Recording media

Cassette Tape

Inventoried date

2024-04-22