News, Citizen Profile, Voncille Windham Tarpley, LaSalle Parish, La. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Submitted by: Craig Franklin of The Jena Times, Jena, LaSalle Parish, La. Features Wednesday, July 18, 2001, page 1, Section B A Times-Signal Feature "Citizen Profile" A Very Special Salute Voncille Windham Tarpley - Citizen Profile Her Students, church and family kept this lady busy For over 30 years, this week's Citizen Profile was an educator. It is her love however, for the students she taught, her school, her family, her church, and most of all her Lord, that she would forever be remembered for. Voncille Windham Tarpley of Belah was born August 9, 1925 in Belah, to her parents Anthony and Eula Ganey Windham. The Windham's had three children, Verna, Voncille, and Dale. Mr. Windham worked in the logging woods for the Good Pine Lumber Company for as long as the company existed. He then worked for Mr. Denton and his lumber company until he retired. Along with working cutting logs, Mrs. Tarpley's father farmed, which the entire family helped with. Mrs. Tarpley's mother did not work outside the home until all of the children had grown. During the depression years of 1943-1944, she worked at Camp Livingston in the laundry department. Later she worked in the Fellowship Elementary School lunchroom as manager until she retired in 1968. "It was my mother who taught me the value of looking for the good in everyone and also treating others as you would like to be treated," Mrs. Tarpley said. "Mama believed in the Lord and wanted everyone else to believe also. She was a precious, dear woman." Mrs. Tarpley's mother was also the foundation for the entire family, and always made sure the family attended church every Sunday at Fellowship Baptist Church in Belah. "My mother would carry us to church every time the doors were opened," she continued. "I've been a member of Fellowship all of my life, since I was a child." Mrs. Tarpley accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Savior when she was 11 years old. She was baptized in a creek near the church shortly after. It didn't take Mrs. Tarpley long to become involved in church work. Soon after accepting Christ, she began teaching a Sunday School class for small children. "I would read the little cards to the children and we would sing little songs together," she said. "That was my first experience in working in the church and I loved it." As she grew older, she continued to make the Lord and church work a high priority in her life. Throughout her life, she would sing in the choir, teach other Sunday School classes, and eventually accept the position as Church Clerk, a position she continues to hold today after 25 years. In 1930, she started school at the age of five years old. Because their family home was relatively close to the school, Mrs. Tarpley and her sister walked to school each day. The Fellowship School at this time was an old-time, small, community school with four rooms and four teachers. Each teacher taught two grades, except the principal, who taught only one grade. "I always loved school and never missed a day until I was in the fifth grade," Mrs. Tarpley said. "This is when I had the measles, but I still wanted to go to school even though I was very sick. I cried because I wanted to go so bad, but my mother said I must not go for I would expose all the other children." After completing the eighth grade at Fellowship, Mrs. Tarpley went on to high school at Trout-Good Pine. She continued to be very involved in school activities and excelled academically. She graduated in 1941 (from the 11th grade back then) before she'd turned 16 years old. "Following graduation, I wanted so badly to go on to college and become a teacher," she said. "I had always loved children so much, but my parents were not financially able to send me to college." Instead, she stayed at home and worked on the family farm and helped her parents until 1942. She got a job in a laundry in Alexandria and worked there until 1943 when she went to work at Camp Livingston with her mother. "This was during the war and my mother and I got to work together at the laundry at the camp," Mrs. Tarpley said. "It turned out to be great, because this is where I met my husband, Paul Tarpley." Mr. Tarpley, who was from Pollock, worked at Camp Livingston also in the base's PX. "We rode the same bus together and one morning we just met," she said. "Nine months later we were married." During the nine months of "dating", the couple would ride in Mr. Tarpley's 1938 Ford pick-up truck to Jena, to watch movies at the old Strand Theater. They'd also ride around and visit relatives. Mrs. Tarpley noted that during this time, there really wasn't that much for young people to do as far as dating was concerned, but just being able to spend time together was enough. The couple was married on June 16, 1945, as WWII ended. They moved to Belah where Mrs. Tarpley's parents deeded her some land to build a house on. "Times were hard back then," she recalled. "We didn't have very much money to make us comfortable like people today, but we did have each other and my family and his family were so good to us." For six months after they were married, the couple lived with Mrs. Tarpley's mother and father, as men of the community worked to help out the young couple. "The people of this community have been so good to us over the years, from the very start of our married life," she said. "Some of the men in the community worked to build us a house to live in, and we'd pay them a modest $3 per day. Everyone was so good to us. I don't believe I could ever repay them for all of the goodness they've shown." When the war ended, Camp Livingston closed and Mr. Tarpley went to work in the logging woods. The couple wasn't married long before their first child was born, a boy. "On June 14, 1946, our first son was born," Mrs. Tarpley said. "We were so proud of him and named him Paul Anthony after his dad and granddaddy. We called him Tony." During all of this time, Mr. Tarpley was working in the logging woods cutting logs. But on September 30, 1948, a terrible accident happened to the new little family. "My husband and a neighbor, Ben Curtis, were cutting logs between Rogers and Little River (close to Walkers Ferry) for the Trout Mill," stated Mrs. Tarpley. "Mr. Mitchell (from Olla) who was hauling the logs, told the men around 7:30 a.m. that he would take a load of logs into Trout and then he had to have his truck worked on. He told them that he would probably not get back that day but he would see them the next morning." "Soon after he left, Paul and Ben were cutting down a big tree and it lodged in another tree," she continued. "While they were working to get it loose, it fell on the two men and they were pinned to the ground under the big limbs." "They were there in the big thicket, all by themselves, and no one or any houses were nearby to hear them yelling," she said. "They stayed pinned for several hours in pain with no help but the good Lord. Paul said he prayed continually that someone would come and look for them and help them. About 2 o'clock, the Lord answered his prayer." "Mr. Mitchell came back, he said, to get another load of logs, because he got his truck fixed earlier than he expected," Mrs. Tarpley said. "I believe that he came back earlier because God had his hand in this." Mr. Mitchell found the men, cleared the limbs and tree from both of them, and loaded them in the back of Paul's pick-up and carried them to Webb's store in Rogers. The ambulance from the LaSalle Hospital was called, arrived and administered first aide, then took the men to Murrel's Clinic in Alexandria. Both men were hurt very bad. Mr. Ben had many broken bones and had to be put in a body cast. Mr. Tarpley had broken ribs that had punctured his lungs and he was bleeding internally. He also had a broken pelvis and hip. "After a day or so the bleeding around his lungs began to cake and crowd his breathing so he developed double pneumonia," Mrs. Tarpley recalled. "He spent 31 days in the hospital and when he finally came home he weighed just 92 pounds." Over the next few weeks and months, the tragic accident would test the love that Mrs. Tarpley had for her husband as never before. In the end, she passed with flying colors. "We stayed home about three weeks when he was sent to Shreveport for a bone graft," she said. "I was with my husband the entire time. My mother and dad had taken my little boy and kept him, and Paul and I just continued to put our trust in God that Paul would get well." Along with her parents, Mrs. Tarpley said that once again the people of the Belah Community rose to the occasion with help. "The people in our parish were praying for us and encouraging us," she said. "God did hear and answer those prayers while we were in Shreveport." Mrs. Tarpley remembers the bone doctor coming in one morning after another three weeks and asking her if she thought she could teach her husband to walk again. She said she would certainly do what she could and with the Lord's help, they would make it. "He said that if Paul could learn to walk again and gain strength he would not need the operation," she said. "So I began helping him to learn to stand and make a few steps each day. We did this for about three more weeks and the doctor said we could come home. What a great God we serve!" Even though Mr. Tarpley was starting to walk again, all of the doctors told them that he would never be able to work again. With this information, Mrs. Tarpley not only kept up her physical therapy with her husband, but she also started school at Louisiana College so she could major in elementary education, to get a teaching job to support her husband and little boy. After several years of recuperation, Mr. Tarpley did recovery fully from his injuries sustained in the tree accident. He would be employed with the LaSalle Parish School Board in the maintenance department, where he would work until his retirement in 1979. Not bad for a man who doctors first thought would never walk again, and certainly never be able to work. "I had been out of high school 10 years when I went to college following Paul's accident, so I knew it would not be easy," she said. "But with God's help I knew I could do it." By the end of August of 1953, just two years after starting, Mrs. Tarpley had finished her hours, graduated, and got a job teaching the fifth and sixth grade class at Fellowship School. She continued to teach these grades until 1968, when she was asked to be the acting principal of Fellowship School. Even though she was the principal, she continued to teach the seventh and eighth grade class. "I was just supposed to be a temporary principal, until the school board found a permanent principal for the school," she said. "Well, when the next school year rolled around, they still hadn't found anyone and the superintendent at the time said that I was doing a good job and he wanted to just keep me there. So I went on and got my master's degree in administration and stayed as Fellowship's principal." During the time Mrs. Tarpley served as principal, she remembers that things were much different than they are today at the school. "We didn't have a janitor at the school, so me and the seventh and eighth grade class would serve as janitors during the last hour of the day," she said. "It really worked out good, because it taught the students responsibility and helped them to keep the school pride. But we really did have to do everything." When she wasn't serving as principal, or janitor, Mrs. Tarpley could also be found coaching the boys' basketball teams, or serving as the school's 4-H leader, or helping in the lunchroom, etc., etc. To many who were a part of Fellowship during those years, they remember that Mrs. Voncille Tarpley was Fellowship Elementary School. "I don't want to take credit for anything," she modestly says. "I give God all the credit for everything in my life. He is the reason û not me." Two of the things Mrs. Tarpley took very much pride in while serving as principal was the way the school was always patriotic and always Christian oriented. "We said the Pledge of Allegiance, with hands over our heart each and every morning," she said. "We'd line up in the halls, say the Pledge, and then follow that with a word of prayer." She taught school and served as principal until she retired in 1984. During this time, she taught hundreds of students, including both of her sons. "On November 12, 1960, I had the privilege of being blessed with another son born into our family û Joseph Mark Tarpley," she said. "I also had the great privilege of teaching both of my boys. They were not perfect, but they never complained that their mother was their teacher. I treated them just like I did the other children in the school. I loved all of the children." During her time in education, Mrs. Tarpley has been recognized with many awards and achievements, including Teacher of the Year, Outstanding Louisiana Educator, Professional Woman of the Year, Honored by Woodmen of the World, 4-H Club Outstanding Leadership Award, and most recently, she had the newest wing of Fellowship Elementary School dedicated in her honor and named after her. Mrs. Tarpley said that nothing in this world is more rewarding than teaching children and watching them succeed. "I have had the privilege of teaching some very dear and sweet boys and girls at Fellowship School," she said. "They are now grown and have families but they are still my children. Most of the students have gone on and made great careers for themselves and I am so proud of them. May God continue to use them in a great and mighty way." Although Fellowship School and Fellowship Baptist Church are very dear to her, they are not at the top of her priority list. "I've always tried to put God first, my family second, and my church third," she said. "This is the order which God ordained and this is how I've tried to live my life." Working for the Lord in church has always been a very important part off her life, and the life of her families. "The main objective for my husband and I have been to support our church with our time, talents, and tithe," she said. "My husband has been a deacon since 1955 and has served as chairman of the deacons for a long time, and teaches adult classes. I have served I many places or jobs, wherever God would have me to be." "Although we're in our seventies, we are still able to have a garden, have chickens and cows with the help of our son, and we try to attend each church service and many times we have taken others with us," she said. "We believe that people should remain active as long as health will permit. We hope that we are remembered as two people who love God, serve Him to the best of our abilities, and will not give up working for Him until He calls us home." The Tarpleys today have six grandchildren of which they love spending time with and helping to have a part in raising. Last month, the Tarpleys celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary. "To those who have encouraged my family and myself all these years I owe a great debt of gratitude," she said. "We have some of the best and sweetest people in Belah and Fellowship Community. These people have worked hard to help keep Fellowship School a very dear and cherished place for our children, and my family is proud to be a part of a community that will work together to make it a better place." Throughout the ages of time, God has always placed certain people in certain places to carry on His work in all facets of life. For Belah, and the entire Fellowship Community, God's servant for 76 years has been Voncille Tarpley. From all of your former students, to those you have ministered to in the church, we take this time to say a special "Thank You" for your dedication to your Lord, your family, your church, and Fellowship School.