Charles C. Leonard, Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

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Charles C. Leonard conducts one of the largest and most metropolitan drug stores in 
the City of Alexandria, Rapides Parish, and through its effective equipment and 
service the establishment, at 1801 Third Street, controls a large and representative 
supporting patronage.  In addition to thus owning one of the leading drug stores of 
Alexandria and having status as a progressive business man, Mr. Leonard has contributed 
to the advancement of the material interests of the city by the erection of a modern 
brick building of two stories, completed in 1924 and affording fourteen rooms for 
renting for business and office purposes, besides providing accommodations for the 
drug store of the owner.

Mr. Leonard was born at Thibodaux, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, in the year 1891, 
and is a son of Oleos J. and Azelie (Kern) Leonard, both natives of this state, where 
the father became a prosperous sugar planter and where he passed his entire life, his 
widow now being a loved member of the family circle of her son Charles C., of this 
sketch, who is the youngest of the family of nine children.  Mrs. Leonard is a devout 
communicant of the Catholic Church, as was also her husband.

The earlier educational discipline of Charles C. Leonard was acquired largely in the 
Jefferson Convent, at Convent, St. James Parish, and thereafter he was a student in 
the Navy Medical School in the City of Washington, D. C., his course there including 
two years in medicine.  While in this institution he was one of the thirteen to pass 
the required examination and gain admission to the United States Navy, the service of 
which he entered September 6, 1911, and in which he continued eight years, including 
the period of American participation in the World war.  Before the World war he was 
first stationed in Virginia and from there transferred to Annapolis for laboratory 
service, and when that was completed was transferred to the Bureau of Fisheries at 
Washington, D. C., making analysis of water and fishes of Chesapeake Bay.  Then to 
the Navy Medical School at Washington, D. C., and remained there a period of two years 
and nine months and was then transferred to the Canal Zone at Panama, from there making 
a cruise around the world, returning back to Virginia, and remained there doing 
laboratory work until the declaration of war and was transferred to recruiting service 
with Dr. William McKinney, of Kansas City, and was in that service in three states, 
Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.  Completing services there, he was transferred to New 
Orleans and then to Port Au Prince, at Santa Domingo, Haiti, and was in the convoy 
service during the balance of the war.  Previously to entering the navy Mr. Leonard 
had, in 1908, come to Alexandria, where for two years he was employed in the drug 
store of J. P. Campbell, and after retiring from the navy he came again to Alexandria, 
in 1920, and here engaged independently in the drug business, his original store 
having been one of modest order, and he having purchased in 1922 the property on which 
he has erected the fine new building for the conducting of his large and representative 
business,

Mr. Leonard is one of the stockholders of the Plough Chemical Company of Memphis, 
Tennessee.

Mr. Leonard is a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party, but has had 
no desire for political preferment. he is affiliated with Alexandria Lodge, Benevolent 
and Protective Order of Elks, and he and his wife are communicants of the Catholic 
Church.

In the year 1912 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Leonard to Miss Ruby St. Clair, who 
was born at Peoria, Illinois, and the two children of this union are Margaret Lorene and 
Charles C., Jr.

NOTE:  The sketch is accompanied by a black and white photograph/drawing of the subject.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 349-350, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The 
American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.