Edward L. Short, Franklin Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller

Sept 2001





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Edward L. Short.  Among the younger high public officials of Franklin Parish perhaps none have

been entrusted with such heavy responsibilities or are more capable of performing them as

Edward J. Short, who was elected to the office of sheriff of this parish in 1924.  He is well

and favorably known as a member of an old, respected and substantial family of this section,

while personally, socially and in business connections he has been held in high esteem here and

elsewhere for years.



Sheriff Short was born on the old family plantation on Boeuf River, in Franklin Parish,

Louisiana, April 29, 1890, son of F. P. Short, who has born on the same plantation in 1857 and

died there in 1902.  During his entire life he had been a planter, resident on his own Property

except during 1896 and in 1898 when he served as a member of the police jury at Winnsboro.  His

widow survives and lives at Natchez.  There are three daughters and three sons in the family:

Carrie, the wife of V. B. Wheeler, who is in the transfer business at Natchez; Edward J.;

Alice, who is a teacher in the public schools at Natchez; Florence, who is the wife of P. A.

Bartimess, connected with the United States Revenue department at Shreveport; and Frank P. and

Ben C., twins, the former of whom is engaged with the Mississippi highway department, and the

latter is a commercial traveler.  Both these brothers are veterans of the World war, the former

going to France as first sergeant in an infantry regiment, where he took part in long continued

lighting, and the latter being assigned for about the same period to chemical work in New York

City.



Edward J. Short received his early educational training in the schools at Winnsboro and

afterward was graduated from the Natchez High School, following which came a course in the

Wilber-Smith Business College, Lexington, Kentucky.  For one year afterward Mr. Short was

bookkeeper for the Cumberland Telephone Company at Lexington, then became connected with a

lumber company at Quicksand, near Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky, and then spent another

year with the Cumberland Telephone Company at Louisville.  He then returned home to become

accountant and salesman for the firm of L. Lowentritt & Company at Winnsboro, where he

continued for seven years.  From the counting room Mr. Short then went into a political

atmosphere when, at this time, he was appointed deputy to Sheriff J. S. Gilbert, and with so

much efficiency performed the duties of the office during the seven remaining n-months of his

chief's life that when the office was vacated there was no question in Franklin Parish as to

Sheriff Gilbert's successor, and in 1924 Mr. Short was elected by a majority that showed his

former good work had been noticed and appreciated.  Although but young in the office, he has

well indicated that he has not only physical but also moral courage, and that his

administration will be one without fear or favor and the law administered irrespective of

wealth and position.  This determination of the young sheriff, with proof that he means what he

says, has already had a discouraging effect upon law breakers.



In November, 1917. Sheriff Short married Miss Nora Lazarus, daughter of W. H. Lazarus, of

Gibsland, Louisiana, and they have two children, Edward J., Jr., and Gussie.  The family

belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which the sheriff is a steward.  He is a Royal

Arch Mason, and in 1917 was master of his Masonic Lodge, and he is a member also of the Knights

of Pythias and the Woodmen.



A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 389-390, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The American

Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.