Bio: Jerome Ingle, Winn Parish, LA Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From the January 18, 1935 Winnfield News-American Grandpa Ingle, 107 Year Old Hero of Indian Wars Comments On Long Life by Jimmie Smith Grandpa Jerome Ingle, hero of the Indian Wars, looks at you clear-sighted and alert from eyes that have gazed out on the light of day for more than ten decades-one hundred and seven years, this coming July-to give his age exactly. And, this long span of years isn't guess work either. It is borne out by military records from the War Department of the United States Government; records which Grandpa Ingle fishes out of an old metal-topped trunk that looks like an ancient treasure chest. Grandpa Ingle lives about two miles south of Winnfield with his daughter, Mrs. J. H. Howard. He gives you a firm, steady, friendly handshake when you are introduced to him, and his voice comes clear and unwavering when he speaks. For a moment you are puzzled. It seems incredible that this man was born during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, and that he was a two-year old boy tugging at his mother's homespun dress in a pioneer cabin in Colorado, when Daniel Webster and Robert Hayne were engaged in the greatest debate ever heard on the floor, arguing the question of whether a Sovereign State had the right to secede from the Union, a question taken up by John C. Calhoun and one that required all of Henry Clay's persuasive powers to settle without bloodshed. But, the official records show, and there is not doubt about it, that Grandpa Ingle is 107 years old. He was a strapping, yearling boy when Sam Houston was elected President of Texas, before it sought admission into the Union. Grandpa Ingle was twenty-four years old, and an Indian fighter of repute, when the first police jury met in Winn Parish in 1852. He had already lived out man's allotted span of three score and ten, when the town of Winnfield was granted a charter-he was seventy-one. I began to question him about other days and a far away wistful look came into his eyes as he gazed out across the distant expanse of cut-over hills into the dim tree-lined horizon beyond. He was thinking of days infinitely bygone; days seen by few other living men. A pot-likker hound flashed across a nearby pasture full-mouthed chasing a cottontail rabbit interrupting his reverie. "You asked me what I attribute my long life to," he queried, "Well, I tell you, I never worried. I have done more worrying since I have gotten to where I can't work here in the last year, than I ever done in my life before. I remember the time that I buried nine of my companions on the banks of the South Platte River after they had been ambushed by Indians. I slept under the stars that night wrapped in buffalo skins with nine companions buried nearby and a dead horse, which was shot from under me before I escaped, along in a vast unsettled country, filled with hostile Indians, and on foot and nothing to eat but some dry Buffalo chips. But, I didn't worry. I always just figured to do the best I could under the circumstances, and if that wasn't enough, worrying wouldn't help any." "I learned lots of things, in the Indian Wars," he continued, "few people know where cooties come from, but I do. I found out while fighting Indians. They start and multiply in woolen clothes. When we could wear cotton clothes we weren't bothered, but as soon as we put on woolen clothes and began sleeping out, we all got cooties. There wasn't much chance to bathe and wash clothes out in the woods and plains, we had a terrible time with the cooties, until we found how to get rid of them without soap and water. And you would never guess how we done it. Well, sir, young man, there was lots of these big red town ants in that country, and we would just put our clothes near one of these ant settlements, and when they got through working on them clothes there wasn't a big nor a little cootie on them. We merely shook the ants out of the clothes and went out way." "The biggest surprise I ever got? Well, sir, that was a time when about twelve of us scouting under General Tackett, came up on a Sioux Indian village and found a white woman among the squaws. We got two of the older Indians off and threatened them until they told us the truth. A patent medicine salesman with his wife and another man were crossing the country in a wagon. he was selling bitters for ten dollars a bottle. The Indians killed both of the men and kept the woman. She had red hair, and they thought her hair was painted and tried to wash the red color out, so she would look like an Indian instead of a white woman. We found that two Indians had done the actual killing of the white men, we got them off into the woods and hung them both, but when we reported to General Tackett, we left the hanging part out, and said we didn't know what happened to the two Indians, we supposed that they had got scared and left. The woman was later taken back to her people. "I could tell you stories that would fill lots of books, about the Indian wars and the Civil War, but what you want to know is how I have managed to live all of these years and have good health. Well, I think it is because I have enjoyed living," and here he smiled, a friendly, good natured fearless smile, one that had flashed across his strong features, through all kinds of fortune for over a hundred years. And here, you realize is the key to his long life. He has lived joyously, lived as much as possible without fear, "and I have lived without worrying." "I have never overdone things either" he said in conclusion, "I never used tobacco until all of my eight children were born, and then I did not use tobacco to excess. I never drink to excess, but I have always taken a little nip when I felt like it and still do. My chief advice to younger people id not to be so awful smart that older people can't advise them, and also for them to respect their parents more. My advice to everybody is to worry as little as possible." Grandpa Ingle leaned back to begin another Indian story; a stranger knocked at the door and passed through into another room where he talked to Mrs. Howard. "Isn't that man a preacher?" Grandpa asked me. "I think so," I said. He has just asked Mrs. Howard to come hear him preach. "Well," Grandpa said, "when there ain't no wars and nothing else much to do, the country gets full of preachers. Had you ever noticed that?" I thought a minute and nodded affirmatively to be agreeable. Later as we started away the car got stuck near the house. We were glad to have the preacher help us get out of the mud. Grandpa Ingle came down the hillside when he saw the car stuck, and pushed on the car with great vigor, as though he might have been twenty-seven, but he pushed on the other side of the car from the preacher. The preacher who helped us out was Reverend Jack Wiggins of the Methodist Episcopal Church South of Winnfield, a fine gentleman and no doubt a very excellent preacher. We drove back to town, I thinking of an old man's youthful smile, and of his simple statement: "I have enjoyed living-and I haven't worried." (Somewhere along the way, the name "Engle" became "Ingles" in Winn Parish. Submitted by Greggory Ellis Davies, Winnfield, Winn Parish, LA.)