Hon. Tolbert L. Dowling, Ozark, AL., then DeSoto Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller ************** ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ************************************************************** Hon. Tolbert L. Dowling, member of the Louisiana State Senate, is secretary-treasurer of Dowling Brothers, Ltd., merchants and planters at Gloster, De Soto Parish. In the public life of the state Senator Dowling is doubtless best known through his determined advocacy of a plan for a state wide system of good roads, a system that is now tar on the way towards completion. He was born at Ozark, Alabama, July 2, 1862, son of Samuel L. and Sarah Jane (Windham) Dowling, both natives of Dale County, Alabama. Samuel L. Dowling spent four years of his early manhood as a Confederate soldier, taking part with an Alabama regiment in some of the heavy fighting in Virginia and was once wounded. After the war he became a well-to-do farmer and planter in Alabama, and for a short the in 1871, engaged in merchandising. His principal forte was farming. He was also a leader in local politics, serving as tax collector of his county, as county treasurer from 1907 to 1915, and was once urged to accept office by the populist party, replying that he would rather go to defeat under the democratic banner than hold office given by any other organization. He was a devout Methodist. His death occurred January 17, 1919, at the age of seventy-eight, and his widow is now eighty-seven and lives at Ozark, Alabama. They had a family of six sons and one daughter: Tolbert L.; Robert Young, a stock dealer, who died June 1, 1924; Mason M, who is president of Dowling Brothers. Ltd., at Gloster, Louisiana; H. Porter, a farmer at Grand Cane, Louisiana; Miss Leila B., of Ozark, Alabama; Dr. Hardee B., formerly a dentist, now president of the Dowling Motor Company, at Greenville, Alabama; and Dr. Judson D., health officer of the City of Birmingham and Jefferson County, Alabama. Tolbert L. Dowling grew up on his father's Alabama farm, attended the common schools, and made the best use of the rather limited advantages afforded boys who grew up in the years following the close of the Civil war. On September 1, 1883, at the age of twenty-one, he went to work as clerk in a store at wages of twelve and a half dollars a month. The first four months he spent all his salary, and then settled down in a determined way to saving, so that at the end of two years he was able to supplement his early educational opportunities. In the Columbia Collegiate Institute he took the normal course and for thirteen years was engaged in school work; for twelve months teaching in rural schools in Dale County, and then for five years was principal of schools at Chipley, Florida, two years at Midway, Alabama, five years at Louisville, Alabama, finally giving up teaching on account of his health. For three years he wrote insurance for the New York Life Insurance Company at Louisville, Alabama, and was a merchant there one year and continued in business two years in Abbeville. In 1903 Mr. Dowling came to Louisiana and at Gloster joined his brother, Mason M., who had been conducting a store there for ten years. In 1907 they incorporated the Dowling Brothers, Ltd. This firm does a very large business, handling all the goods required by the country population around Gloster, and they own and operate four thousand acres for general planting purposes. Mr. Dowling while in Alabama served as secretary of the Barbour County School Board from 1892 to 1897. He was elected senator in 1914 from the old Thirty-first District, comprising Dc Soto, Sabine and Vernon parishes, to fill the unexpired term of Judge Boone, who went on the bench. In 1916 he was elected for a regular term and in 1920, reelected, his present district comprises De Soto and Caddo parishes. In the Senate he has been a member of many important committees, including penitentiary, corporations, basin canal, chairman of the committee on agriculture lands and levees, and vice chairman of the good roads committee. He won a determined fight in securing the adoption of his good roads plan, a plan involving the construction of seven thousand miles of improved roadway in Louisiana. More than half that mileage has now been completed. Senator Dowling married, in 1892, Miss Polly Thomason, of Aberfoil, Bullock County, Alabama, daughter of Dr. W. B. Thomason. She died in 1890. She had been an associate teacher with Mr. Dowling at Louisville, Alabama. In 1899 he married Miss Laura Newman, daughter of George Newman, of Abbeville. They have one son, Robert Newman Dowling, born December 21, 1905, and a graduated Bachelor of Science from Centenary College at Shreveport. Senator and Mrs. Dowling are active members of the Methodist Church, and for fifteen years be has been chairman of the local school board and has been a sincere friend and devoted worker in behalf of better schools. In 1907 he served as cashier of the First National Bank of Mansfield, and from 1908 to 1915 was a director of the Peoples Bank of Mansfield. NOTE: The sketch is accompanied by a black and white photograph/drawing of the subject. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 371-372, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.