Robert L. Robinson, Jackson Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller


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Robert L. Robinson, principal of the Berwick public school in St. Mary
Parish, has been a school man for a number of years and has been identified
with the progressive forces in Louisiana school affairs.

He was born near Vernon, in Jackson Parish, Louisiana, January 2, 1889. His
father, Jeremiah A. Robinson, was born in Clarke County, Alabama, February
2, 1854, grew up there and when a young man moved to Lincoln Parish,
Louisiana, where he married and where he engaged in farming. Since 1888 his
borne has been at Vernon. He is a member of the police jury and deputy
sheriff of Jackson Parish, and has filled that office for a number of years.
In politics he is a democrat, is a Mason and a member of the Baptist Church.
Jeremiah A. Robinson married Addie E. McCormick, who was born near Choudrant
in Lincoln Parish in 1865, and died at Vernon October 12, 1892. She was the
mother of two children: Robert L. and ha, the latter the wife of Horace L.
Cassidy, a carpenter at Ruston.

Robert L. Robinson acquired his early education in public schools in Jackson
and Lincoln parishes, and began teaching before he was twenty years of age.
In the intervals of teaching he has kept up his studies in normal school and
university, and in 1915 graduated from the Louisiana State Normal College at
Natchitoches, and nearly every summer since then except during 1917-18, when
he was with the colors, has attended the Louisiana State University,
studying for the Bachelor of Science degree. Mr. Robinson's successive
engagements as principal of schools has been as follows: The Jackson Chapel
School, 1908-09; Johnson Bayou school in Cameron Parish, 1909-10; Prospect
school in Grant Parish, 1910-12; following which he was in residence as a
student at the State Normal School. In 1916 he became principal of the
public school at Bonami in Beauregard Parish, and was principal of the
Longville public school until he was called to the colors in December, 1917.
He was sent to the Aviation Corps at Gerstner Field, Lake Charles, was made
a corporal, and served there until honorably discharged in January, 1919.
For several months following he was principal of the Lapine school in
Ouachita Parish: during 1919-20 was principal of the Esterwood High School
and then came an interval when he turned to commercial work, serving
fourteen months as purchasing agent of the Caddo Winn Lumber Company at St.
Maurice. In the public schools at Jena he was professor of history and
science until the fall of 1921, at which date took up his present duties as
principal of the public school at Berwick.

Mr. Robinson is member of the Louisiana State Teachers' Association, is a
democrat, a Baptist, and is affiliated with the Eros Lodge No. 295, F. and
A. M.; Brashear Chapter No. 81, Royal Arch Masons, at Morgan City; and
Morgan City Lodge No. 1121, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

He married, August 27, 1914, at Verda, Louisiana, Florence M. Courtney,
daughter of M. and Alice (Stagg) Courtney. Her mother resides at
Ponchatoula. Her father, a farmer, died at Verda. Mrs. Robinson finished her
education in the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. They have one
son, Robert Howard, born January 21, 1919.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 362-363, by Henry E. Chambers.
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York,
1925.