Newspapers, GRASS ROOTS AND COCKLE BURRS- Do You Want This Chair?, LaSalle Parish,
La.
By Jack Morgan Willis
Submitted by: Pat Ezell
From the Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal.
Thank You to Jack Willis and The Times -Signal for allowing the following to
be added to the Archives.
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Grass Roots and Cockle Burrs
"Do You Want This Chair?
When the phone rang, and I answered, the voice on the other end gave away
the identity of the caller She was a female, but you'd never guess that if you
were hearing that voice for the first time. It was rough and gravelly, and not
too far removed from the guttural sounds of Louis "Sachmo" Armstrong. Her
whole family sounded gruff like her. She went on to say, "You don't know who
this is, do you?" I gave her the answer she was expecting, "Yes I do! I'd
recognize that voice in a steel mill". This was a very special person to me.
Mary Dee "Jack" Douglas had been reared in the Nebo community, not far from
where my Mother called home, and was "almost" family. One reason being, she
saved my Mother from drowning, when they were children, while swimming in
Hemphill Creek.
Jack: My Father and his two brothers were able to homestead their own places,
one in the Whitehall community and the other two on the west banks of Hemphill
Creek, which was a major accomplishment for a Negro family.
When Jack's father was a child, he walked from the Nebo community to near
Rhinehart, Louisiana to be tutored by a black schoolteacher named Cora Jane
Finnister. By the time he got to her house, it was almost time to turn around
and start home. In this way, he was able to achieve a third-grade education,
which was much more than many of his race was able to obtain in that day and
age, at the turn of the Twentieth Century.
Jack: Times was hard around the end of the First World War. And I never will
forget my Daddy owed a sum of just over eight dollars in taxes…and he couldn't
pay it. There just wasn't no way to make that much money at that particular
time. We was in what they later called a recession. My Daddy and his brothers
Lucious and Granville lost their places and so did Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Hailey,
neighbors of Nick Douglas.
One main reason entitled these Black folks to live in Nebo when no other
members of their race did, was the presence of Jack's grandmother, "Aunt"
Sally Douglas. She was THE midwife of the Nebo and Jena communities. The local
Judge from Jena got up in the middle of the night, when his wife's labor pains
started, saddled his horse and rode to Nebo to "fetch" her. She told him to go
on, that she'd be there when it was time. The Judge was nervously pacing the
floor wringing his hands when Aunt Sally drove up in her buggy. He helped her
out of the buggy and into the house with her black bag. A healthy baby
daughter was delivered about 20 minutes later. She said she'd be there in
time, and she was.
Jack: After the cyclone blew our house away, and after Papa lost his place, we
moved to the Mars Hill community just south of Jena, and that's where I got
what schoolin' I got.
E.E. and Lil Jones employed various members of the Nick Douglas family in
their steam laundry and dry cleaners for years. Some of her folks migrated to
California where they remained for the most part. Jack had a cousin named
Anthony, who was employed by Richmond Walker at his gristmill and cotton gin
located on Mason's Branch in Nebo. The mill/gin were located under the hill
from the Dave Shapiro Store and U.S. Post Office. A violent cyclone hit the
mill/gin on the afternoon of January 11,1912 and killed Richmond Walker and
his son Ervin Moses Walker. It fatally injured Anthony Douglas. He died one
month to the day after the storm devastated the Nebo community. Jack's family
lost their house along with many Nebo residents. This and the tax burden made
them start to relocate to the Jena area.
Jack: In later years we lived next to your Uncle Abe Flower's Welding Shop.
They (his wife Bertie) give me this chair, that she said belonged to her
Mother. She said her sister Alice had bought it for her folks when she started
teaching school. So, I want to know, do you want this chair?
I didn't have any idea what kind of chair it was, but I jumped at the chance
to obtain a keepsake, which had its origins at my grandmother's house. When I
got to Jack's house near the new Evergreen Church, she met me on a walker at
the door. Considering she'll be 88 years old the day after Christmas, I
thought she was doing very well. The chair turned out to be a platform rocker
of the 1920s manufacture. Though it's factory made, it is a beautiful
representation of the furniture manufacturers skill. The only thing
detrimental was the worn, faded original fabric. My Uncle Abe had stabilized
the back and arms with a brace on either side, where the original wooden pegs
had pulled apart. Restoring it will be easy chore to accomplish, for even me.
There is no way to estimate the sentimental value I place on this treasured,
nondescript piece of furniture. And I'll always be grateful to this very fine
lady for being considerate enough to remember me, and not allowing it to be
discarded in a dumpster somewhere. That's what family is all about.
Jack Morgan Willis