Willis Home Place; St. Landry Par., LA
Submitter: Randy Willis
Date: July 2001
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The Old Willis Home Place

Ilie Close (b. 1907) wrote to me about the Old Willis Place: "The home was
a gathering place for all the family.  There was always food cooked for
family and friends. There was lots of blackberries, huckleberries and fruit of all kinds for good
pies. The home was about a quarter of a mile from Barber's Creek,  known to be one of the coldest and
clearest waters in the area.
Grandma  [Julia Ann Graham Willis] would walk down and swim sometimes twice
a day. She said that was what had prolonged her life. All of the children
and grandchildren loved to go swimming with her.

She was reared a Methodist but later joined the Baptist Church and was a
devoted Christian.  She read the Bible daily.  We use to joke and say 'she
didn't think there would be anyone but Baptist in Heaven.'  Her hobby was
making quilts and she kept the family supplied with her hand work.  She was
bitten by a ground rattler at the age of 75 and survived with home
remedies.
Her  son, Dr. Daniel Oscar Willis, said at the time she would live to 90
and she lived to be 92.  She was a very wonderful and a remarkable woman, a
real pioneer."

Another grandchild of Julia Ann, my uncle Howard Willis, told me she would
sit on the front porch of the Old Willis Place and eat an orange and latter
eat the orange peal. He ask her why she ate the peal and she said "I don't
know, I think it's good for you."  He said "she would read her red-lettered
Bible on the front porch and then sometimes pull out her late husband
Daniel's  Civil War picture and get a tear in her eye.'  He died 36 years
before her.

The Old Willis Place is gone and replaced with a huge gravel pit.  Barber's
Creek is full of sand and gravel from the pit. The tall pine trees that
surrounded the old place have long since been harvested.

About The Old Willis Home Place Photo at www.randywillis.org (1906)
Babbs Bridge [extinct], Louisiana (near present-day Long Leaf,
Louisiana)

Robert Kenneth "Ken" Willis Sr. (b. 1877 d. 1951) has the reins in his
hands, Robert's first wife Eulah Hilburn Willis (b. 1884 d. 1919 of the
flu) is in the back seat, Julia Ann Graham Willis (b. 1845 d. 1936) is holding a fish and standing and
Robert and Eulah's baby girl Flossie Litton Willis (b August 5, 1905) is held by an unknown lady.
Flossie told me that this photo was taken on her  first birthday.

Footnote: Ken Willis, after Eulah's death, married May Johnson, and had
three sons. One of those sons Robert (Bobby) Kenneth Willis was the first
soldier killed in action in World War II from Rapides Parish. The Pineville
American Legion Post is named in his honor. He was killed on December 7,
1941, and his body lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor aboard the USS
Arizona.