Thomas Andrew Tycer, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Mike Miller, Aug. 2001

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Thomas Andrew Tycer.  In recent years drainage, cultivation and road building, under expert 
surveyors and engineers, have done marvels in many sections of Louisiana, and the time is 
fast approaching when this section of country will own the finest modern highways in the 
South.  One of the farseeing, practical men of Tangipahoa Parish, who has had much to do with 
progressive movements here, is Thomas Andrew Tycer, engineer and surveyor of this parish.

Thomas Andrew Tycer was born on a farm situated eleven miles southeast of Amite, 
Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, December 6, 1881, and is a son of Thomas E. and Minerva 
(Stevens) Tycer, and a grandson of William R. and Amanda L. (Robertson) Tycer.  The 
grandfather was born in 1820 in Ascension Parish, where his father, a boatman at that the, 
had secured land on which he spent the rest of his life.  William R. Tycer came in early 
manhood to a farm ten miles southeast of Amite, served in the Confederate army all through 
the war between the states and died on his own property in 1885.

Thomas B. Tycer was born in Tangipahoa Parish in 1859, acquired a farm and cultivated it 
until 1903, when he came to Amite and went into the dairy and truck business, which he 
continued until about 1914, since when he has been practically retired.  In middle life he was 
quite active in local politics, and served as constable in the Fifth Ward and also on the parish 
school board for many years.  He married Minerva Stevens, who was born in 1862, near 
Tickfaw, Tangipahoa Parish, and they have five children:  Thomas Andrew;  Millard Arthur, who 
is a traveling salesman, with home in New Orleans;  Warren I., who lives at Columbus, Ohio, 
owns and operates a pottery;  Katie Corinne, who is the wife of Benjamin W. Morris, farmer 
and poultry raiser and hardware merchant at Kentwood; and  Stella Ernestine, who is the wife 
of James H. Harris, an automobile salesman at Summit, Mississippi.

Thomas Andrew Tycer had both public and private school instruction in his youth, and in 1902 
was graduated from the Amite High School, later becoming a student in the Louisiana State 
University at Baton Rouge, from which he was graduated in the class of 1908 with the degree 
of Bachelor of Science.  He returned then to the home farm and followed an agricultural life 
until 1914.  In the previous year, however. Mr. Tycer had been appointed surveyor of 
Tangipahoa Parish, with his offices in the courthouse at Amite, and every four years since 
that date he has been reappointed.  In 1923 he served as engineer of road construction at 
Amite, in 1922 and 1923 was engineer for the Fourth Ward parish road construction, and is 
holding, the same contract for road building at Independence.  His methods are practical, 
economical and scientific, and the completed work reflects great credit on Mr. Tycer as well 
as on the entire parish.

At Amite, Louisiana, December 1, 1909, Mr. Tycer was married to Miss Inez Johnston, who is a 
daughter of the hate Thomas E. and Sarah Ellen (Herndon) Johnston, the latter of whom still 
resides at New Orleans.  Mr. Johnston, who died in the spring of 1923, was superintendent of 
the Gullett Gin Company of Amite.  Mr. and Mrs. Tycer have seven children:  Marion Inez,  Alice 
Pauline, Herndon A., and  Elliott Andrew, all attend school at Amite, while  William Arthur,  
Sarah Ellen and  Marshall Douglas are yet in the nursery.  In political life Mr. Tycer has always 
been identified with the democratic party.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 310, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The American 
Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.