Bios: William Thomas Norman, Webster Par., Louisiana  -  b. 1868
Submitter: Greggory E. Davies
Date: Nov. 1997



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===William Thomas Norman


William Thomas Norman, son of Carter Brown and Fanny Winham Norma,  was born
October 20, 1868 on his father's  plantation in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. 
His maternal grandfather was Rev. Allen Winham, who came to Louisiana 
from Georgia as a pioneer Baptist minister and throughout a long and
beneficent life he preached and organized churches over the country.  When he
came to Louisiana as one of a colony of 645 individuals, traveling by ox-team, 
he was accompanied by his family, and his daughter Fanny.  

The Norman family is undoubtedly of English ancestry.  Generations ago it came
from Virginia to Georgia, and the father of William Thomas Norman was born in
1835 in Elberton County, Georgia, and in 1857 came to Louisiana.  He had
attended an academy in Georgia.  He settled in Bossier Parish and owned a
small plantation near Benton.  When the war between the states came he was one
of the first in his neighborhood to volunteer for military service, although
not originally for secession, and served in the Confederate army all through
the war, participating in the siege of Vicksburg.  Personally, he was a man of
peace, a loyal, Christian gentleman, a deacon in the Baptist Church, and for
many years, a justice of the peace.  He died in 1922 at the age of
eighty-seven.

Nine children were born of Mr. and Mrs. Norman.  Those living in 1925:  Frank,
a farmer, Lelia, who married dairy farmer C. D. Sandidge, William Thomas,
Tura, wife of Ernest Reed, also a dairy farmer, Alla, wife of John Bunday.

William Thomas Norman grew up on the home place and received his early
education in the schools of Bossier Parish, later attended Mt. Lebanon
College, and still later attended Keatchie College, and in 1896 received his
A. B. Degree.  By age 20, he was a teacher in Bossier Parish, and later in at
Atlanta in Winn Parish, and Georgetown and Verda in Grant Parish.  

Politically, Mr. Norman was a democrat and served in the Louisiana legislature
from 1912-1920  representing Winn Parish.  He became superintendent of Winn
Parish schools in 1922.  

He married Mattie Allen, daughter of J. G. Allen of Plain Dealing, Bossier
Parish, Louisiana and they had two children, Perry and Alline.  Perry attended
Washington and Lee University where he was captain of the track team and an
excellent pole vaulter.  Alline graduated from Louisiana Normal and was for
many years a teacher in the Winn Parish school system.  She married Duffy
Hoffman.  Mr. Norman and his family were Baptists and was fraternally a Mason,
belonging to Eastern Star Masonic Lodge, Winnfield, Louisiana.


(Source:  Chambers' History of Louisiana, 1925; personal information known to
submitter.  Submitted by Greggory Ellis Davies, Winnfield, Winn Parish, La.)