Archive Record
Metadata
Accession number |
2000.051 |
Catalog Number |
2000.051.014 |
Object Name |
Audiocassette |
Date |
14 Jun 2000 |
Title |
Blackshear H. Snyder Oral History Interview |
Scope & Content |
Original tape. Interview: Mr. and Mrs. Blackshear Snyder June 14, 2000 Interview conducted by Mrs. Nita Cole with Mr. Blackshear Hamilton Snyder and his wife Mrs. Margaret Pilkinton Snyder at their home in Elm Grove, Louisiana. Interview: Blackshear Hamilton Snyder June 14, 2000 [Mrs. Cole] Why don't we start off by having you, Mr. Snyder, tell me when and where you were born? [Mr. Snyder] I was born over in Franklin Parish on March 24th, 1918. And course I was raised over there, then raised partly here at Elm Grove. Because you see, my Mother was a Hodges and the Hodges had their place here at Elm Grove. It was quite a trip in those days to come from over there to over here. Even when I was smaller we rode the train, the railroad, into Shreveport and somebody would have to pick us up there. But later, I don't exactly what size I was then but we made the trip in the car. Mother drove and it took about six hours on a gravel road to get here and as I say, it was quite a trip. So when she came to visit, we would a lot of the times spend nearly the whole summer over here, the children and Mother. [Mrs. Cole] And who was your mother? What was her name? [Mr. Snyder] Mother was Linda May Hodges. She married W. M. Snyder who lived over on the other side of Winnsboro in Franklin Parish. So of course that's where she went to live, where all of the children were born over there. [Mrs. Cole] And do you know when she was born? When was your mother born? [Mr. Snyder] 1880? [Mrs. Snyder] I would have to look it up. [Mrs. Cole] And who were her parents? They were here in Elm Grove because the Hodges were in Elm Grove? [Mr. Snyder] That's right. Campbell Brown Hodges and Luella Sockwell Hodges married. [Mrs. Cole] And those were your mother's parents, yes, her parents. [Mrs. Cole] So do you remember your grandparents? [Mr. Snyder] Yes very well. I remember my grandmother very well 'cause she lived a long time after grandfather. Grandfather died in 1927. Do you know when grandmother died? [Mrs. Snyder] I think it was 1949. [Mr. Snyder] She out-lived Uncle Delton a little while I know. [Mrs. Snyder] Yes she did. [Mr. Snyder] Must have been 1945 maybe. [Mrs. Snyder] I think so. [Mrs. Cole] What do you remember about your grandmother? [Mr. Snyder] Well I remember quite a bit about her. She was a very nice lady. She pretty well ran the house there. She lived in the house after grandfather died. 'Course she lived there and my Aunt Mary lived there and my uncle, Delton Hodges, lived there. [Mrs. Cole] And she was the one in charge? Your grandmother was the one charge? [Mr. Snyder] Either she was or she thought she was, you know. But she would correct them when they were wrong. I remember a few kind of funny things about her. One was that she was a very religious person and I guess was probably one of the better people that I've ever known. She was very generous and kind-hearted. And during those days that we lived there, it used to be people that would come by, in those days they were called tramps. They were homeless people that would come down the road. And Grandmother's house being right close to the road, lots of them came there. And she would always give them a good meal and sometimes she would give them money too, I think, but she did it. One time, a tramp came by there and she fed him. And it was particularly cold, I think, and she got to feeling sorry for him and he didn't have a hat. So she went in Uncle Delton's room, whom we called Uncle Dub, and she got Uncle Dub's hat that he had just bought. He just bought a nice new felt hat and she gave it to this man and he wore it off and kept on down the road. And when Uncle Dub came in and noticed that his hat was gone and said, "Where is my hat?" And he found out that she given it to the tramp. (laughing) There was a colored boy there that worked around the house a little bit and chauffeured and did odd jobs and things. His name was Buddy __________. So he got Buddy to take his car and go down the road and overtake the tramp. He gave the tramp five dollars for the hat and brought the hat back. (laughing) [Mrs. Cole] So he had to buy it twice. (laughing) [Mr. Snyder] Yes. There are lots of other things. I remember her mostly at the dining table, you know, pretty well telling everybody how to do. Uncle Dub was quite a … he loved to eat you know and he would have quiet a front, you know, and grandmother was always after him about not eating so at the table. She'd say, "Dubbie, please don't take so much," you know or something like that. Course, he took it good-naturedly and all. [Mrs. Cole] So she was quite the matriarch of the family, then, most definitely. Was she a businesswoman, too? Did she run the farm? [Mr. Snyder] No, no, just the house, and chickens. She had chickens. They had built her a nice chicken house. There's a little diary there that she kept, a little book as she calls it and I'll let you read that and you can understand more about how she lived. (A copy of the book is in the Synder collection at the History Center.) But she was just a homemaker and attended to her chickens and they usually had several if they had somebody to do the milking and somebody to do the cooking most all the time. It's a little different now, we don't have anybody, we do all our own, all the work. [Mrs. Cole] What did she like to do in her spare time? I mean did she like to sew since she wasn't having to maintain her household? Did she have hobbies? Did she like to sew or paint? [Mr. Snyder] No just the chickens and of course everybody back in those days did a lot of sewing and it accounts for it in that book. She says this day I made so many blouses or so many shirts you know, but they stayed busy in the house. And I don't know if she did a lot of garden work, but they always had a big garden you know and the chickens. [Mrs. Cole] And did she have a large family? How many children did she have, your Grandmother? [Mr. Snyder] She had six I believe. W.H. (William Hamilton), C. B. (Campbell Blackshear), Joe, Mary, and my mother and Virginia. She had six children. I don't know if you know Son Mercer at Taylortown? He's older than I am by just a few years, I think about four or five years. And his mother and my mother were sisters. There was Uncle Joe, Joe Hodges and he married here, but he left here in about 1927 and went out to Phoenix and farmed out there. He worked for Boswell Company for a long time and then he bought his own land and farmed for himself. Then there was Uncle Black, he was a military person and he went to West Point and finished there. [Mrs. Cole] He was the one who was the President of LSU? [Mr. Snyder] Right. He had a military career and he was at one time Commandant of cadets at West Point. He was a military aide to President Hoover. Told him what he was suppose to do at gatherings and how to…and all that kind of stuff and then later he became President of LSU and he died while he was down there. [Mrs. Cole] In '44 I think, he died. [Mr. Snyder] Yes. And he's buried in at West Point. [Mrs. Cole] Now did your grandmother grow up in Elm Grove or did she come from some place else? [Mr. Snyder] No. Most everybody as you know from the history that you do of Bossier Parish, nearly everybody living here came from Georgia and South Carolina. And along about in, maybe 1850s along there, that's when my great-grandfather came over here. I don't know the exact date, but it was around 1850. When the people came to this area, they lived in the hills. The bottomland like we have here now was considered unhealthy. Well they had lots of overflows and they had a lot of mosquitoes, and they had the yellow-fever epidemic, and snakes, and other things. And people just didn't considered it to be a good place to live. And they didn't have good ground water, wells or anything. All of the water that they used here was caught off the rooftops into an underground cistern, mostly. You could have good water out in the hills, but when you drill a gopher well here as they did mostly, the water was real bad, a lot of iron and sometimes salty. [Mrs. Cole] Red River, probably from Red River. [Mr. Snyder] So they lived out at Springhill which is about…that was the old family home. And they had land there and farmed. Just about a mile and a half south of Koran. And then the men when they lived there, they would come down to the bottom. They had land in the bottom. [Mrs. Cole] So they farmed here, but they lived up there? [Mr. Snyder] They farmed here, but they would go back to the hills. I don't know that they went back and forth every day. It was about six or seven miles. Course they had people doing the work, you know. [Mrs. Cole] But they had to supervise and come check on them. [Mr. Snyder] I don't think at that time. I think all the slaves had been freed, they weren't slaves any more. But they had supervisors. The men would come down and then later they started staying down. I think there was a boarding house established up there at Elm Grove. I don't know if it was that early. But later on they did move on down to the bottom. My grandparents lived in a house it must have been about two miles west of here on the river. And that house burned. There's an account of it in my grandmother's book. I think it was 1880. I just looked at it a while ago. This is a copy of what's in the book. Yes, that's hand written. In 1888 the house was burned on the night of April 20, 1887 and by that time…'course they were living there, and I don't know how long they had been there. But the children, all except the two youngest I believe were in the house at that time. But none of them were harmed. They all got out alright. So they rebuilt this house, the first house that they lived in. And it was located somewhere further east than the first house was. But then later on, it was sitting too close by the river caving back. So we moved it and that house sat by the side of the highway up here at Elm Grove until 1975. And then it burned in 1975. [Mrs. Cole] And was there a name for the home? Was there a plantation name? [Mr. Snyder] Yes. Elm Grove Plantation. [Mrs. Cole] And your great-grandfather, what was his name? Which Hodges, 'cause I know there were several boys that came here. [Mr. Snyder] His name was John L. Hodges. He married Mary Hamilton. And he established the house at Springhill, south of Koran. [Mrs. Cole] And then his son, your grandfather, what was his name? [Mr. Snyder] It was C. B. His sons were W. H. and C. B. Hodges. That was the names that they operated under. And Mr. Mercer will tell you (He used to be on the Police Jury and go to Benton a lot, I don't want to misquote him, you can ask him about it.) I think he said it was the oldest trade name in Bossier Parish still in operation. But some years back we changed the name of the operation. It wasn't operated under W. H. and C. B. Hodges anymore. But it was just Elm Grove, Elm Grove Plantation. And that's the way it still is. W. H. Hodges, that was Grandpa's brother. When Grandfather died, he left each one of his children a piece of land. Some of them lost it. Some of them failed to change the ownership of the land and it was a large operation at that time. And it's still about 3000 acres here of farmland on the bottom. They had also over the years acquired some hill land and 'course they sold the house. I don't know exactly what the circumstances were, but they sold the originally place that they lived out in Springhill. But they obtained or bought other land over the years and now it's only about 3000 acres out in the hills too. When Uncle Black died, the one I was named for, he was Campbell Blackshear, C.B., he left part of his interest in the farm to me. And when I got out of the army and came back home (he died when I was in the army) he had left the place where they called Magenta to me. And when I got out of the army I was sort of between here and the old home, but I finally decided I'd come over here and live. And I did and I came over and lived with my Aunt Mary in the old home house, the old family house. Then I started farming in the place up in Magenta. 'Course after a few years, a good many, Margaret and I were married. We lived in a little house right there at Elm Grove below where the old family house was for a few years. Then I was able to buy this place down here, what they call the White House plantation. That's the name of it. Not anything to do with the President's home. There were some people named White owned the house, owned the place at one time. And I was able to buy the place and we built a house, this house. We have been living here every since. [Mrs. Cole] So that was probably around the 1950s that you built this house? [Mr. Snyder] In 1962 I think. Margaret was born right here. It was a little house right out there between those pecan trees, those big trees. That's where she was born, but it was just a small frame house. When we moved down here at this house, we left it there for a year or something. And then I said well, I moved it off up the road and used it for a tenant house, I had a tenant. I often joke with Margaret and tell her that…sometimes when she might be a little unhappy and . . . I told her I should have left that house out there for her to look at and maybe she would appreciate it. (Laughing) [Mrs. Cole] Yes. She could move back out into that house anytime she wanted. [Mr. Snyder] Let her see how much better off she is now than she was then. [Mrs. Cole] That's right. Well now, tell me how did you end up going to Elm Grove School then? [Mr. Snyder] Well, when…like I said, I sort of lived between here and over in Winnsboro and actually came over here I think it was in the eight grade. It was so handy there. I could just walk up to the school. And over home, we had to ride the bus, catch the school bus before good light and wouldn't get home until after dark sometimes, about seven or eight miles on a dirt road. It was little more comfortable over here and I liked it and I stayed over here. Actually I lived with my Aunt Virginia Mercer over there in Taylortown. She let me stay up there up to the eighth grade. Then I think I went back over there, I can't remember, but I think I came back over here in the tenth and eleventh. I made two grades over here, tenth and eleventh. [Mrs. Cole] And so you graduated… [Mr. Snyder] I never was too crazy about school. They didn't have but eleven grades in that time. [Mrs. Cole] So tell me about school. What do you remember about the tenth and the eleventh grades? I mean you must have known most of the children here anyway since you had spent your summers here. [Mr. Snyder] Well in the class that I graduated in was eighteen people I believe. Most of them, about seven or eight of them, were at the reunion up there. (Elm Grove School holds a reunion every June for all graduates.) The school area just went back down as far as, well not quite to the Red River Parish line down there at Ninock. And then up as far as Sligo. All the people from up that way, right above…well I tell you what, the furthest people that I knew that came to school down here lived just on that corner where the Jimmie Davis Bridge, the road that turns to go to the Jimmie Davis Bridge. Some people named Kounts and I don't know where and I don't know anything about where they are. But that's the furthest that I know of anybody that lived north and came down to school. Most of the children up there came from around Sligo. The gas field had been discovered out of Sligo and there's a good many people that worked in the gas field and a good many people lived right up here where the little church is now. There were two big pumping stations up there that they gathered the gas in the field here around Elm Grove and 'course the pipelines pumped it north and northeast you know. There were about six or eight families lived there. There were two stations. One of them was United Gas and the other one was Arkansas Louisiana Gas. And there were about six or seven families lived and work at those pumping stations. [Mrs. Cole] That's where Fabol Durham Powell lived. [Mr. Snyder] At one time Elm Grove was pretty much of a thriving community with the oil field activity, farming and everything together. [Mrs. Cole] Now did…was there a lot of the gas or oil discovered on Hodges land? [Mr. Snyder] Oh yes there was quite a bit of it. Shallow, not any major oil producers like they have today, you know thousands of barrels. Nothing like that. With shallow wells they're only about 1700 feet deep. It didn't take a whole lot to put the well down. They would pump a small amount of oil maybe on a better day you know 10 or 15 barrels a day, maybe a piece. And it was, coarse oil was…I'd be afraid to tell you how cheap oil was, but I know it was less than a dollar barrel. I don't know exactly what the price was. And all the gas, the shallow gas that came out with the oil which today would be marketable, they just flared it. Now on each well there would be a flare that burned all the time, burned the gas that came out with the pumping oil well and under that flare would be a pile of mosquitoes. (Laughing) [Mrs. Cole] It was a good mosquito control then anyway. [Mr. Snyder] Yes it was. We used to joke and joke, didn't have many mosquitoes and it never did get dark cause it was so many flares burning. They started producing them I think about 1917 or somewhere along in there or '18. And of course it was shipped…the oil was shipped by railroad. They had loading docks out there near the train. Pull the trucks up and pump the oil into the cars. The oil is not a very good grade. It was so full of tar and everything. We didn't use it much for refining gasoline or lubricating oil. Mostly burned it in the engines. Engines, steam engines would burn the oil at that time after they quit burning wood and coal. Those old derricks were wooden. They were just made out of boards. And I'm going to tell us something that…I have seen it done, building the big wood derrick. An old man would drive up in a little T-Model Ford or some sort. One of them in particular just had his wife with him. And he would go to that site and with that old truck. He'd start building that derrick. He'd jack up the back end of that old Ford and put a drum-like thing what you'd call…they called it a "dead man". And he would rig pulleys as he would build. He'd built it in sections. And put up another post and put a pulley on it and he'd have a rope going down to the ground and his wife would start that old T-Model engine and run it and the wheel would turn. And she'd wrap that rope around there a time or two and she would pull it and pull that timber up there and that man would take it and he'd build those derricks by himself. You can look at it and you wouldn't believe a person could do that. [Mrs. Cole] No, not at all. Were they very tall? [Mr. Snyder] Not in this day and time. They'd have big cranes later on. Those little oil wells had a gas driven motor, one great big cylinder on it. It had a great big wooden bull wheel with a crank on it. And the engine would turn that bull wheel and it was turning…it had a belt on it. It was around that…they called that thing a "pecker wood". That's what they called it. [Mrs. Cole] Oh yeah. Yes the rocker arm. Yes. [Mr. Snyder] It's that rocking arm. They called it a "pecker wood". It was a great big beam that would go up and down. And that's the way they pumped the oil out. Those things were real noisy. You could hear them pumping all the time. And when I would come over here to visit, I had to kind of get used to it before I could sleep at night. [Mrs. Cole] And there were a lot of them around the school weren't there? [Mr. Snyder] Yes they were all around there. It must have been 40 or maybe more right in this area, you could hear them all pumping. And it's kind of a funny thing, a neighbor up here, Mr. Caplis, he had a good many of them on his place. And somebody asked him if…they called him "Cap'in," and they'd say, "Cap'in, don't it bother you, all the noise of those things pumping out there keep you awake?" He said, "No. The only time that I wake up is when one quits pumping." (Laughing) [Mrs. Cole] He could hear that. [Mr. Snyder] You know the oil quits coming when they quit pumping. [Mrs. Cole] Well now do you remember passenger trains and the depots all up and down the river in Bossier Parish? [Mr. Snyder] Yes we had a depot here. We had a depot at Elm Grove. And they had one up in Taylortown. They had one down here at Poole. Every settlement had a depot. [Mrs. Cole] At Atkins, I think. [Mr. Snyder] In this old store here at Elm Grove we had a post office for years and years when I was coming up. And I remember sometimes I had to help put up mail, 'course I probably wasn't suppose to do that. But it wasn't a very tightly run outfit. We all happened to be working in the store so we had to put up the mail. They put it in a sack and a lot of times I remember the train would be coming. You can hear the train blowing and you had to grab that sack and you had to run out there and you hung it on an arm. And when the train came by, it had an arm on the baggage car, it stuck out, reached out and it'd hook that sack and throw it inside the baggage car. The mail went down…I don't believe it picked up…well I know it didn't. It just had the arm on this side. All the mail picked up went down somewhere down the road. I don't know whether it turned around and sent it back or sorted it or anything. That hadn't been too long ago that the Southern Bell ran a train down. I don't remember exactly when they quit running it. You know when they quit running the Southern Bells? Do you have any idea? You saw it? [Mrs. Snyder] Yes I saw it running. As a matter of fact, I saw one that looked like Southern Bell, like a little passenger train went up a few weeks back. It was some kind of thing. And I said how nice it would be if it were running again to the world. [Mr. Snyder] They don't have a passenger train anymore, but… [Mrs. Cole] But you could go all the way down to New Orleans from Elm Grove if you wanted to, you could get on the train? [Mrs. Snyder] Yes there was a Southern Bell. They would stop. [Mr. Snyder] Yes, used to. That's where that train wound up at, at New Orleans. It wasn't a fast train. It wasn't too fast. The track really deteriorated to the point that they couldn't run it fast or nothing. [Mrs. Cole] I think that's wonderful to be able to have that train so you that you could go back and forth. [Mrs. Snyder] Oh it would be so nice cause it's a rough trip to New Orleans now. By the time you have to go through, you can't by-pass Elm Grove, you have to hit part of the out-skirts and it's the traffic all the way. [Mrs. Cole] And tell me about the store. Was it operated then as a plantation store? And did you keep books for tenant farmers? How did it operate? [Mr. Snyder] The store was a plantation store. At the time it was in operation probably at first there would be maybe a hundred families. They rented small plots of land. And the way things were done in those days the plantation owner would furnish things for those people. They had no means, no money to amount to anything. So they would furnish them. They would buy all their groceries, staple groceries and some clothing and medication. Just most everything a person really had to have they could get at the store. And they would have the privilege to draw that for the whole year. Then at the end of the year when they made their crop, cotton was the main thing that they had to sell, then they would sell the cotton, and they were supposed to pay their debts and give the plantation owner a fourth of the crop. And that was the way things were operated in those days. [Mrs. Cole] So that was their rent essentially? When they gave over that fourth of the crop, that was their rent? [Mr. Snyder] Yes that was their rent. [Mrs. Cole] And then the store ordered supplies and got them from the railroad then? The railroad could just stop right there at the store and deliver supplies to the store? [Mr. Snyder] They said it was kind of a commissary. Had all kinds of produce, medicine, and staple groceries and just really most everything you have to have. Course they didn't…nothing like a grocery store these days, but they had dry-salt meat. That was the meat. Course the people that lived on the farm there, all of them were used to enterprising. Had chickens and hogs and gardens and everything. They mostly lived on their own things that they raised you know. [Mrs. Cole] So they could make a living and support their family then on cotton. [Mr. Snyder] Such as it was, there were not…no great big money. [Mrs. Cole] But it was enough to raise a family. [Mr. Snyder] Well I think so. It seemed to me that people were happier back in those days than they are now. [Mrs. Cole] You think so? [Mr. Snyder] They didn't miss anything and they never had anything. You don't miss air condition and electricity and all that if you never had it. And that store up there on ration day would be so packed, I bet it'd be a hundred people in there. You couldn't stir them with a stick. Just getting groceries you know. And this person would go to the office back there and they would tell them what groceries they could get. Give them a ticket for $20 worth of groceries. And then come out and select what they want. And you were supposed to add it all up and take the ticket, subtract that from it you know. And that worked pretty well until some of them got a little education or a little…I don't know how they learned it, but most of them couldn't do figuring hardly at all. Especially the black people. But some of them learned that they would take $20 and get about $10 worth you know. And then they would scratch out the 1 maybe…alter it some way like that then bring it back and shop with it again. Soon caught on and had to stop that. They could make a $20 ticket go for about $50 that way. (Laughing) [Mrs. Cole] Good while it lasted. (Laughing) Well now tell me about the school then. [Mr. Snyder] Well I started to tell you, the school it was built in 1921, I think it was. And it was several little schools around it. One down in Atkins. That's where Bubba went wasn't? They had a school at Atkins and they built this bigger building up here. Just the people in the neighborhood contributed and built it. They never had a tax collection. They didn't pay the school tax like that they do now. And as I said it went until I got to be a School Board member and I had to change it. [Mrs. Cole] And you ran for election didn't you? You wanted to do that. [Mr. Snyder] Yes I ran for election. We had to change things back then. That was along about when integration happened and we had to change. [Mrs. Snyder] Before that happened there was seven little schools, small schools, just one-room schools that the black people went to. They had no transportation. They only went a portion of the year, worked the fields the other part because most of their crops were sharecropped. Then when Black went on the Board, he combined all of those schools. But he combined all of those colored schools into one and closed the Elm Grove school and made it a 1-12 school. And they were very poor people before integration came. He renamed the school, of course. [Mrs. Cole] And that was Redmond Spikes. You renamed it for Reverend Spikes? [Mr. Snyder] Well we called it Redmond Spikes. A little colored preacher that everybody thought a lot of, his name was Spikes, and they decided to call the little school out there Spikes. They consolidated them all and brought them in. It was for the black people there. All of the white people went on into Bossier City. [Mrs. Cole] And that lasted until integration and then it went back to being an integrated school instead of being just a black school? [Mr. Snyder] Yes. Well first we turned it into a black school and then we turned it back into a white school. At the time we did close them all. They all went together. [Mrs. Cole] The present building that is there now, the new school, was that built when you were on the School Board? [Mr. Snyder] One of them was. You know when I was elected we didn't have any school tax down here. I thought it would be better to have a district. We were able to pass a tax election. And we built the school at Elm Grove, one at Curtis, and one at Sun City, and one at Parkway. Money went a whole lot further in those days than it does now. We were able to finance all those schools. But after I left the School Board they consolidated all the districts and everybody pays the same taxes and it all goes into the same "pot," you know. [Mrs. Cole] Now tell me about when you were on the School Board, I understand you were President of the School Board when the courthouse property was donated to the School Board, the old courthouse building before the present one was built in the '70s. [Mr. Snyder] When did they do it? [Mrs. Cole] It was probably in the late 60s I guess. They gave the property to the School Board. And there was some talk about renovating the old courthouse, but I guess that didn't happen, did it? [Mr. Snyder] Well the old courthouse was too far gone to renovate to be useful I think. I read in that parish history that…I don't remember too much…it was no big deal when they gave up the courthouse. I don't know whether we wanted it or not, from the School Board, but they did use the annex I think. There was a newer building to the courthouse. I saw it in Cardin's history I think. We used that old jailhouse courthouse annex, the School Board did, then they built a new one, a new building. [Mrs. Cole] Was there any talk of any renovating the courthouse, I mean we don't see very much left from old Bossier, you know the old buildings. But I think that was not a concern back then, was it? [Mr. Snyder] Yes. I don't remember very much talk, but I think it was all just…one conclusion was that it was just too far gone. [Mrs. Cole] Not cost effective. [Mr. Snyder] Too old-fashioned and it just wasn't practical to turn it into a useful building. It would cost a great deal more than the building one I guess. [Mrs. Cole] Now tell me about the National Bank of Bossier. I understand that you were a Director. Would you like to talk about economic development in Bossier Parish and how National Bank of Bossier participated in that? [Mr. Snyder] Well at one time Mr. Durham and I, he was the president of the National Bank of Bossier and he was the one on the School Board at the time that I was on the board. It was a new bank, a small bank, and it grew into a fairly large bank. Then later on it was acquired by Bossier Bank. It's Hibernia now isn't? [Mrs. Snyder] It's Hibernia. There was some kind of back and forth things, but Hibernia was eventually ended up with the building and so forth. [Mr. Snyder] That's the whole story. [Mrs. Snyder] Yes, but he served the Board of Directors for seven years. [Mrs. Cole] But wouldn't that have taken banking… Prior to that, banking really meant small banks, you know there was the Plain Dealing bank and the bank in Benton and that sort of thing. And I mean this had a little bit broader scope. But it wasn't just a state bank, I mean… [Mrs. Snyder] No, it was the first national bank in Bossier Parish. [Mr. Snyder] It was a national bank. [Mrs. Snyder] It was the first national bank in Bossier Parish. Course there was the First National Bank in Shreveport. And then they became the Commercial National Bank. [Mrs. Cole] Did National Bank of Bossier contribute more to the economic development? I mean were they doing more commercial loans, they would have a larger lending capacity I think than the state banks. Do you feel they kind of helped Bossier kind of come along or…? [Mrs. Snyder] I think it was the beginning of national Banks in Bossier. [Mr. Snyder] It was just a very active bank. It participated in all kind of building programs and whatever. [Mrs. Cole] Now tell me about farming. You've been farming in this parish for how many years now? [Mr. Snyder] Well I've been farming since 1946. [Mrs. Cole] So that's more than fifty years. [Mr. Snyder] Yes. [Mrs. Cole] And has farming changed in fifty years or is it just the same? [Mr. Snyder] (Laughing) Yes and no. [Mrs. Cole] Tell me how it's changed. How is it different now than when you first started out? [Mr. Snyder] It mainly changed that I used to have some help to do things. Now you don't have any help. [Mrs. Cole] But you all are mechanized now. You don't need help, do you? [Mr. Snyder] Well, it's just like back on Elm Grove. Say there were a hundred families here. Each one working a small area of crop with a mule probably. Sometimes they owned the mule sometimes they had to rent the mule. And now on Elm Grove there's one family, that's us. And my boy does the work. He has one trainee that he's trying to train to do the tractor driving. By using some custom workers, some custom harvesters, and that's the main thing. Well they used custom fertilizer distributors and airplanes too. Poisons they spray with. So he takes care of about 2000 acres, a little over 2000 acres of land with one person. [Mrs. Snyder] That's cultivated land. [Mr. Snyder] We have cattle too. We raise crops and have cattle. But when you…usually when we run cattle, if you have to have help with them, we hire cowboys to come in to get the cattle up and help do, vaccinate them or selling them, whatever you're doing. You wouldn't recognize it as being the same thing because it's still farming I guess, but it's so different. [Mrs. Cole] Well it's different because the population is not here anymore. I mean the number of people doing farming and… [Mr. Snyder] Well those people that used to be available and do that kind of work they are not here. They're all in town somewhere making more money in a month than they would make on a farm in a year. [Mrs. Snyder] Dealing at the boats. [Mrs. Cole] Do you see a future in farming here in Bossier Parish? I mean is it profitable enough that you could continue doing it for a period of time? [Mr. Snyder] You know that's hard to say. I will say this, without the government help, unless we had some other way of making a living, we couldn't continue to farm. It's not to our liking to have to depend on the government every time we have a bad crop or something to give us help, you know, to get us into another year. It's not what we like. I wish it would be where we could raise something that was in demand enough to where we could continue. We have no organization for pricing. We raise all these crops and we take them to market and ask, "What will you give us for this?" We're totally dependent on somebody else to set the price. We have nothing to do with it. We can't control it. If we could just get a decent price for what we raise. We're raising food and the government says that there's a third of the people in this country go to bed hungry every night. And they want to go over and give away food and help all those starving people which is fine if they can do it, but they never have found out how to do it. You know they go over there in Africa and try to feed those people and first thing you know those people over there they were making all the money off the distributing the food. Got into the "black market" into the wrong hands. Then the people that needed it never got the food. The gangs and everybody else, cartels would take it over and they'd make a profit out of it. But anyway, it was just if it was some way we could get a decent price for what we raise, then we wouldn't have to depend on the government. They wouldn't have to spend all that money on bailing the farmers out and supporting them. And every time they get a new President or new administration you know, each one knows better how to change the farming programs to make it better. The last one of course was the "freedom to farm". And the idea was so they wouldn't control crops anymore. They would let you plant anything that you wanted to. Instead of having control, they say you can plant so many acres of cotton and so many acres of beans and they would support the price. The idea was. "We're going let you raise what you want to. You would be self-sufficient." Well when we got to raising it we found out that we couldn't sell it for enough to survive. So the "freedom of farm" thing is…it really hasn't worked. And they passed many other bills you know to let the farmers be able to draw enough aid or whatever you call it to stay independent. If it wasn't for that, we couldn't…in other words if it cost $300 or $400 to make an acre of cotton, then you make one bail of cotton they can sell for $250, it's not hard to figure out if you don't make a living that way. Course we've been fortunate on the farm and we've had other things come along and help out. The gas wells down here sustained us, but of course we were on the family's farm for 150 years. We would have liked to keep on, but we couldn't do it. After a year you know you'd loose money. You're going to have to quit. You're going to have to learn how to do something else. But I figure as long as people are going to need food and clothing, there will be…course clothing doesn't have to come off the farm. Most of the food does. As long as people need food, somebody's going to have to provide it. [Mrs. Cole] Well you see cotton particularly has disappeared almost completely from the parish. In our parish it's hardly any of it left. You have to stay close to the river I think where it's mainly still grown. [Mrs. Snyder] Caddo is farming some. [Mr. Snyder] They still raising a lot cotton over in Northeast Louisiana where I came from. They planted more cotton over there this year and I don't understand how they do it. There's a whole lot of credit involved in farming. Most everybody that farms goes to the bank, makes arrangements to borrow enough money for them to live on and for them to buy their supplies to put the crop in. And as long as people can do that, they going to continue to do it. But when it gets to where when they go to the bank and they need $50,000 and all they can borrow is $25,000, well that's going to put a end to that type of farming. But that's the way a lot of farming is done. And most people, well there's lots of them, they do their own work you know and they're pretty large farmers. I mean they might have 200 or 300 acres of property or more. And they borrow a lot of money and if they live and take care of it and don't throw it away, they could easily make the wages higher. That's about what it amounts to. [Mrs. Cole] Most people are not satisfied with that anymore. I mean they want to go the casinos and make instant money. [Mrs. Snyder] People don't live like they used to or work like they used to. They just kind of lost the farm life it seems to me. Cause we have five grandchildren living right here. They have a wonderful time, but there is the addition of a swimming pool in the back yard. Black had somebody in his office I think and I was talking to somebody that had driven up in the driveway and here rides by our little six year old grandson on a dirt bike. [Mrs. Cole] Must be great to get around, to have that to get around in. [Mrs. Snyder] It's a wonderful place for him. And they have all sort of vehicles that they go in. [Mrs. Cole] So it's different from when you were growing up? [Mrs. Snyder] We didn't even have a bicycle. He had a bicycle, (Mr. Snyder) I didn't have a bicycle when I was coming up. (Laughing) Interview with Margaret Pilkinton Synder June 14, 2000 [Mrs. Cole] Now tell me who were your parents? [Mrs. Snyder] James E…every body called him Jim Pilkinton and May Merritt, both Bossier Parish people. I was raised with three brothers and had a sister who did not live passed 17 years old. I was seven years old when she died, but I was raised with three older brothers. They all stayed here. [Mrs. Cole] Was your sister Mildred Pilkinton? I just read her obituary in the Bossier Banner. [Mrs. Snyder] Yes, she died in the '30s. I was born here on this place. Even the same trees are there, the big trees out in the front. The brother that was a little bit older than I and the other family was…well a couple of them were born in Bossier…all of them were born in Bossier Parish. [Mrs. Cole] So you attended Elm Grove School in first grade? [Mrs. Snyder] I started later than Black did. My oldest brother, I guess was in the first year of school in Elm Grove in 1921. And of course he graduated from Elm Grove School, but not in the first graduating class. There were two Jolly sisters, twins that were in the first grade when he came. And he was I guess in about the third. They didn't mention any of that in the reunion. You know I can't even remember. That was not mentioned at the reunion on Saturday, which would be still a great deal of interest to some of the people that were there. [Mrs. Cole] Who the original graduates were. [Mrs. Snyder] He was one of the original graduates there. [Mrs. Cole] But that would be easy to do. Mr. Rich told me he did a history of the school. So I was going to call Candy Elston and see if she could still find it in the school records. He said he left it there at the school. So maybe he has some of that in there. [Mrs. Snyder] Maybe there is one filed with the School Board. I guess C. D. was the first principal of the Junior High School. C.D. Rich? [Mr. Snyder] Oh I was just trying to think about it. [Mrs. Snyder] Red Smith came to Elm Grove when we passed a bond issue and they built Curtis Elementary School, then Red Smith went to Curtis Elementary School. When Parkway was built Red (or Rudolph) Smith went to Parkway and C. D. went as principal of Curtis. But then when integration came, they made it into, this was the Elm Grove complex, was made into…they called it a Junior High. It's a middle school now. I believe C. D. was the first principal here of the Junior High. And then later, when Red Smith went to Central Office, he took Red's place at Parkway. And Jack Brice came down here to the Elm Grove Junior High. As time progressed, C. D. wanted a little less stress and he and Jack swapped places. And C. D. was here at Elm Grove when he retired. [Mrs. Cole] Tell me what do you remember about going to school here. I mean what did you like most about going to Elm Grove? [Mrs. Snyder] Well I didn't know anything else. I started there in first grade until I graduated in the 11th grade, at sixteen then. They are much older now. You know they get out of school with the 12 grades. And it seems like they're much older. I don't understand that part of it. We were just…we knew everybody. I graduated in a class of thirteen and I suppose that was about as larger class that there was. We kept in touch afterwards, but we were all…if you had a party everybody was there, in the age group. [Mrs. Cole] So it's like an extended family then? [Mrs. Snyder] It was sort of like you do in church, everybody knows everybody else. Where now, my grandchild is in Parkway school, my goodness, there's 400 probably in her class at Parkway. She doesn't know everybody. She doesn't know the people there and she's making friends of course. But it was truly like a private school. We evidently got a good education because there are many people that have come of there that have done well. I would say a great percentage of the people have excelled in the business world. There was a great influence upon me by certain people. And I am grateful for that. [Mrs. Cole] Who were your favorite teachers? Do you remember the names of your favorite teachers? [Mrs. Snyder] Well I would naturally go to those I suppose I stayed in contact with because they had such an impression on my life. One is Joyce Freeman and the other one is Hazel Samuel. And I supposed those two people had, whether teacher or otherwise, a greater influence on my life as anybody in my life other than my parents. [Mrs. Cole] And when you went off…did you go to college? [Mrs. Snyder] I went to Northwestern. [Mrs. Cole] And so after you went to college then came back to visit and did it look different to you? [Mrs. Snyder] The school? [Mrs. Cole] The school, the community, the people that you knew. How did you feel? [Mrs. Snyder] Well some of the people from the community were with me in school. Some of whom I graduated with were with me in school. When I came back I was not at home long. Well I suppose I went to work, I was supposed to if I could get a job. As soon as someone would hire me, I went to work. [Mrs. Cole] What did you major in? [Mrs. Snyder] Business. And then I had a teacher's certification. And then the teacher's certification was rescinded. So I never taught. I worked at the bank, so it didn't matter, but I imagine it did matter to a lot of people that had thought about teaching. [Mrs. Cole] Were there a lot of career options available to you when you got of school? Besides teaching, of course. [Mrs. Snyder] Well they always needed teachers. I didn't have any problem finding a job. The reason I went to work at the bank is because my Dad thought it would be safe. I was nineteen years old and still he felt protective. So that's when I went to work and did work there for a good while until the next job I had was with the oil company. The oil companies paid a lot more than the banks did. By that time I was a big girl, so I could seek my own employment so to speak. But it was…I still lived at home. I stayed in town for a while after World War II. I was in school during World War II. And there were no automobiles available so I stayed in town. [Mrs. Cole] And then when you came in, did somebody just come in and pick you up when you came to visit your parents? Since you didn't have a car, did somebody just come get you? [Mrs. Snyder] We were not even allowed a car in college back then. See I graduated from high school in 1942. You had to be…I don't know whether you had to have driver's license or…I don't think you had a driver's license, I think you just started to driving. But you were not even allowed to have a car until you were an upper-classman. And I don't think you could have one then unless you were married. A girl couldn't have one. The guys could have them later on. [Mrs. Cole] That would come as quite a shock to the grandchildren I would imagine if you tell them they can't have a car. (Laughing) [Mrs. Snyder] Can't you believe it? (Laughing) [Mrs. Cole] Women just didn't have cars! [Mrs. Snyder] They weren't allowed to have a car as a freshman I know. I don't remember any upper-classman that didn't live at home. Now those lived at home might. So it was a different life, for instance compared to what you did and going to college. But we didn't know any difference, so it didn't matter to us. [Mrs. Cole] That wasn't a burning issue then, in others words. [Mrs. Snyder] And we rode the bus home. Let us off at the farm. [Mrs. Cole] But it worked, it got you there. [Mrs. Snyder] Yes and most of the time my Daddy would carry me back. [Mr. Snyder] I wanted to ask where is that history of Bossier Parish. The one Clifton Cardin did? [Mrs. Snyder] The one where South Bossier was left out? (Laughing) I just brought this out of the file. This one is Joe Hodges' diary written in 1973. And she just might want to glance through that. This is the History of Education in Louisiana. And I have other files you might be interested in. [Mrs. Cole] Thank you both very much for your time. I look forward to reading these materials. |
People |
Snyder, Blackshear Hamilton Snyder, Margaret Pilkinton |
Search Terms |
Elm Grove Oral history |
Lexicon category |
6: T&E For Communication |
Interview place |
In the home of Mr. and Mrs. Synder |
Interviewer |
Nita Cole |
Medium |
Plastic |
Recording media |
Cassette Tape |
Lexicon sub-category |
Sound Communication T&E |
Inventoried date |
2025-06-12 |