History: Last Parrot Reunion, Sabine Parish Source: Sabine Index, Many, La., Apr 21, 1999 Submitted by: Carl Dilbeck carlrad@earthlink.net ********************************************************** ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ************ by Robert E. Parrott Knoxville, Tennessee On a warm, sunny Sunday in June 1939, five of the six remainig sons and daughters of John Robert Parrott and Alda Woods Parrott gathered for a family reunion, at the home of Dr. Reezin L Parrott of Zwolle. Inside the rambling frame house on Obrie Street, then one of the last houses on the highway north toward Mansfield; and in the yard surrounding the house, a crowd of forty or more kinfolk and friends gathered for food, conversation, reminiscing, coffee-drinking, picture taking, and the unique style of story-telling characteristic of the Parrotts. Centerpiece of the crowd, as photographed standing in a row, were Dr. James Crittington (Crit) Parrott (65) of Natchitoches; Elizabeth Anne (Bettie) Parrott Mason (63) of Los Angeles, California; Hattie Texada Parrott Armstrong Stone (72) of Shreveport; Daisy Dean Parrott McComic (58) of Zwolle, and Dr. Reezin Lawrence (Reeze) Parrott (61) of Zwolle. One other sister, Mary Virginia Parrott Greer (59) of Muskogee, Oklahoma, had been prevented from attending because of a broken foot she incurred in Muskogee while waiting for a taxi to arrive to take her to the train depot for the trip to Louisiana.. The brother Doctor Parrotts (known to many as "Dr Crit" and "Dr Reeze") vied with each other in telling and re-telling old Parrott stories, including their father's claim that he once met Jesse James in the Sabine woods, stories of the rigors of practicing medicine in the first years of the century, the story of the resident ghost in the old Parrott house on Bayou San Miguel, and the story of the building of the Methodist Church in Zwolle in 1898, and the story of a wounded Federal soldier found (following the Battle of Pleasant Hill in 1864) and nursed back to health and then hidden for a year in their mother's family homestead at Bayou Scie. The five gathered siblings knew Zwolle and Sabine Parish well. Dr. Crit Parrott had practiced medicine in Zwolle from 1903-1907, in a joint practice with his brother Dr Joseph Bowers (Joe, or Bud) Parrott, and in Many from 1907-1911. (Dr. Joe Parrott had begun his practice in northern Sabine Parish in 1892, several years before the founding of Zwolle.) In March 1898, at age 21, Bettie Mason had been widowed when her first husband, Marshal Johnnie McComic, was killed in a street duel with Nick Sepulvado. Hattie Stone had also been widowed early, at age 22, when in 1889 her first husband and cousin, Dr Thomas Alexander Armstrong, had died during an epidemic; she was widowed again in 1901, when her second husband, Dr Norburn Cecil Stone, formerly of Zwolle, died in Shreveport. Daisy McComic had lived in the town of Zwolle since 1917, when she and her husband Robert S. McComic moved "into town" with her parents (living across the street from Dr. R. L. Parrott) from the Parrott plantation, three miles north on Old Pleasant Hill Road. Dr. Reeze Parrott had practiced medicine in Zwolle since 1907, when he transferred his practice from East Texas. At the time of this last reunion, four of the original ten Parrott siblings were no longer alive. Dr Joe Parrott of Church Point, Louisiana had died in 1936, and was buried in the Parrott Cemetery, near the site of the old Parrott house, Pennie Loraine Parrott Locke, wife of Ben Locke of Marthaville, had died in 1929, at the age of 57. The oldest sister, Effie had died in 1867 at the age of two years; the youngest brother, John Andrew, had died in 1885, at the age of three months. Their parents, John Robert and Alda Parrott, were known as among the earliest post-Civil War residents along Bayou San Miguel. John Parrott had died in 1918, Alda in 1927. A set of Kodak snapshots was made of the assembled crowd as they mingled in the yard. The oldest family member present, Thomas Andrew ("Uncle Andy") Tyler. age 73. a first cousin of the Parrott siblings was photographed with the youngest family member there, Robert E. (Bobby) Parrott, age 8, the son of Dr. Crit. Also photographed were the oldest and youngest first cousins present (children of these siblings), Joseph B. Parrott of Zwolle and Robert E Parrott, of Natchitoches. Of particular interest that day was the new 16mm hand-held movie camera ,(an innovation in 1939), belonging to Fayette ("Pet") Gay, a close family friend of the Parrott siblings, used by Mr Gay to take "movie film" of the gathering as they moved about under the trees. For years the movie film of the reunion was a family curiosity. Following Fayette Gay's death, it mysteriously disappeared, or was destroyed. A special reunion tradition and pilgrimage, later in the afternoon, was the trip "out" to the Parrott Cemetery and the site of the old Parrott house, which had been built in 1881, burned in 1915, rebuilt, and finally razed. They walked among the tombs, and pointed to the ring of cedar trees which once surrounded the house. They remembered that their mother had called the house "My Beautiful House." On that day in 1939 in the course of the family reminiscing, they likely quoted the old adage of the three Parrott doctor brothers, "Life is uncertain and death is sure." But the Parrott siblings probably imagined they would enjoy other family reunions perhaps many others but they did not, for never again did the family gather in such a fashion. Within eleven months (in May 1940), Dr. Crit Parrott and Daisy McComic, and Ethel Toms Parrott (wife of Dr Reeze Parrott) all died within two weeks of each other. Hattie Stone died in Shreveport in 1944. Dr Reeze died in the fall of 1950, after a Zwolle practice of 43 years. Bettie Mason, relocated in Shreveport from California, died in 1964. And Mary Parrott Greer, whose accident had prevented her being present with the others in 1939, died in Shreveport in 1974, at the age of 91, the last of an interesting Sabine Family circle.