Biography: Mrs. Annie L. Duringer, Caddo Parish La.
Submitted by: casteel@hiwaay.net (Thomas J. Casteel)



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MRS. ANNIE L. DURINGER,
Clerk Caddo Parish Police Jury.

MRS. ANNIE L. DURINGER, widow of Leonard Duringer, was born in Clinton,
East Feliciana parish, Louisiana, but for more than fifty years she has
been a resident of Shreveport, to which city she moved in the early 70's.
For the past 33 years, she has been clerk of the police jury of Caddo
parish. In continuous service in public office in Louisiana few, if any
women, have equaled her remarkable record, and the same may also be said as
to men in public office. She has served as clerk under the presidency of
seven chief executives of the Caddo police jury, namely: J. M. Foster,
Peter Youree, Perry P. Keith, Richard Furman, Jules Dreyfuss, W. T.
Crawford, and the present incumbent, John M. Sentell. No better evidence of
Mrs. Duringer's popular and efficient service in the same public position
could be furnished than the consecutiveness with which she has been
re-elected and the regularity with which she has continued in her office
regardless of many changes in personnel of police jurors and in conditions
in which the police jury in its multitudinous duties has had to deal.

As a woman of pronounced business ability and other qualifications, Mrs.
Duringer enjoys unique distinction. During the many years she has occupied
the office of police jury clerk, she has been entrusted with the creation,
recordation and preservation of numerous records of vast importance. The
loss of one of these records, referring to legislative and other matters of
vital public concern, would mean inestimable confusion and probably
disastrous damage, but Mrs. Duringer, as her record shows, exercises
extreme care always in accordance with a rigid system of her own
initiation, with public welfare constantly foremost in her mind and heart.
Because of this method of meeting her many responsibilities she has enjoyed
a record of satisfaction that no public official could surpass, a record
that may always be pointed to profitably by those wishing to serve the
public with thorough approval of their efforts

While she has been continuously in the position of clerk of the Caddo
parish police jury for thirty-three years, Mrs. Duringer's brilliant career
as public servant has not been confined to that office. In the early years
of her contact with the public she was an employe of the Louisiana State
Supreme Court, formerly with its headquarters at Shreveport, also as an
employe of the Assessor's office and as a deputy clerk during the
administration of Mr. W. P. Ford, clerk of the court of Caddo parish. These
early experiences proved helpful in building the foundation upon which, for
so many years, first in 1894, she has served the Caddo police jury. Her
Christian ideals and her devoted and capable efforts in this important
office have caused her to become one of Caddo's most valuable and beloved
women. The service she has rendered has been of immeasurable benefit, and
chief among the many tributes that can be paid her is her eagerness to
always perform her duties satisfactorily and be of utmost usefulness to her
constituents.

Mrs. Duringer is a woman of high culture and splendid education,
representing the "old school" that so distinctly reflects the grace and
charm of the women of the Southland. Her literary education was completed
in the Silliman Institute at Clinton, Louisiana, following which she was
married and then moved from her girlhood home to Baton Rouge, La., where
she resided until the early 70's, when she adopted Shreveport as her home.
She was widowed with a family of young children, but this experience did
not cause her to be despaired; instead, she determined to earn a living for
herself and her dependents, and, with the same spirit that has guided her
through all the years of her successful life, she entered the business
world, having the distinction of being one of Louisiana's first women to
take this step.

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From Chronicles of Shreveport and Caddo Parish, Maude Hearn O'Pry, 1928,
Page 348
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