James Tanner Keator, M. D., Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller



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James Tanner Keator, M. D.  A physician and surgeon whose home
and work have been in the Bermuda section of Natchitoches Parish
for thirty years, Doctor Keator has also satisfied a passion for fancy
stock farming, and enjoys the attractive advantages of a beautiful
country place, where he raises blooded Jersey stock and chickens.

Doctor Keator was born at Cheneyville, Louisiana, August 6, 1866,
son of Dr. James Elias and Rose (Meullion) Keator.  His father was
born at South Courtright, New York, in 1832, and his mother was a
native of Louisiana.  James E. Keator attended college in
Connecticut, and for a the taught school in South Carolina at South
Courtright, a village bearing the same name as his birthplace in New
York state.  He also taught at Thibodaux after coming to Louisiana,
and finished his medical education in a college at New Orleans that
is now the Medical Department of Tulane University.  After
graduating he practiced medicine at Cheneyville until his death in
1909.  He had served in the southern army under Colonel Van
Zandt.  He married in Louisiana and his wife died in 1903, at the
age of sixty-five.  They had a family of three sons and two
daughters:  Dr. James Tanner, Mayo S., a civil engineer with the St.
Louis Terminal Railway; Mary D., wife of Doctor Breazeale, of
Campti, Louisiana; Charles D., who is representative at Campti for
the New York Life Insurance Company; and Kate, a resident at
Campti.

James Tanner Keator grew up at Cheneyville, attended school
there, also the Louisiana State University, then read medicine in his
father's office.  He also attended the Georgia College of Eclectic
Medicine and Surgery at Atlanta, where he was graduated in 1887. 
Subsequently he did post-graduate work in Tulane University in
1906-1907.  Doctor Keator for six years was engaged in practice at
Alexandria, and in 1894 moved to the Cane River at Bermuda,
having a beautiful country home on the banks of that river.

He married Miss Lelia A. Prudhomme, daughter of Alonzo
Prudhomme, and a niece of the late Matthew Hertzog, and
granddaughter of General Bossier.  She was born in the home
where they now live.  Doctor and Mrs. Keator have three children:
Miss Meda was educated in the Louisiana State Normal College
and now is a teacher at Jennings; Rose M. is attending the
Louisiana State Normal; and the son is James T.  Jr. Doctor Keator
is a member of the Episcopal Church, while his wife and children
are Catholic.  He belongs to various medical societies.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 368, by Henry E. Chambers. 
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and
New York, 1925.