Bios: Henry Willis, Winn Parish, LA Submitted by: Laura L. Weatherford, 161 White Oak Lane, Natchitoches, LA 71457 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Source: Enterprise - News American, Thursday, March 23, 1961 WINN PARISH AS I HAVE KNOWN IT by H.B. Bozeman Article 218 Henry Willis, A Great-Grandson of Joshua Willis, One of The Pioneer Settlers That Came with Richard Cole, The Peters, Risers, and Other Families from South Carolina. To the Hebron Church Area 130 Years Ago Became A Country School Teacher On Bayou Buckoo In 1908. Henry Willis' Experience Getting and Teaching This School Reflects What School Teaching Was Like In Winn And Nearby Parishes Half A Century Ago. I thought that I would do my concluding article this week about the early pioneer settlers of the Hebron area, but have not yet been able to get confirmation concerning certain events and dates. Instead, I am going to relate an interesting and amusing school teaching experience my old friend, Henry T. Willis, told me. Henry T. Willis was the father of our fellow townsman, Welby Willis, and the great-grandson of Joshua Willis, one of the pioneer settlers that came with Richard Cole, the Peters, Risers, and other families to settle in the Hebron area in the late 1820's and early 1830's from South Carolina. Henry Willis' grandfather, William Willis, homesteaded 320 acres about a mile south of Hebron Church in 1859. Here Henry Willis' father, Luther Willis, was born. After getting grown, Luther Willis got married and moved off down into the Flat Creek community. In 1907, Henry Willis came out to Winnfield to attend the Winnfield high school. After that year's high school term ended in May, 1908, Henry went to the Summer Normal that was held here in Winnfield. He then took a teacher's examination, and was granted a teacher's certificate. With this teacher's certificate in the inside breast of his "Sunday" coat, Henry mounted his dun colored saddle pony and "lit out" to find a teaching job. Then there were one and two room schools in all the rural communities of Winn and nearby parishes. Each of these rural schools then had a local board of trustees that actually hired the country school teachers. The members of the local board of trustees were hand picked, by the Ward Parish School Superintendent. Back in 1908, the parish superintendents of education, usually were paid about $100 a month, and the Ward school board members got $2 and mileage for each board meeting at the parish seat. The local school trustees got no pay at all in money, but many of them felt they had been highly compensated by having a lot of authority given them -- that made them "big men" in their little communities. Teachers or would be teachers, besides having a teaching certificate, had to contact the local board of school trustees and sell themselves to each individual member. Then if enough of the school trustees were favorably impressed by the teacher applicant, a meeting would be called and the applicant was invited to appear and submit to a question and answer quiz. If the local trustees' after due and solemn consideration, and maybe sometimes some "chimney corner politics" finally decided to approve the applicant for their school teacher, he or she had the job "in the bag." The Ward school board member and the Parish school superintendent then would formally approve the teacher's appointment. Teacher applicants, back in 1908, with just a teacher's certificate and no experience, had a hard time landing their first teaching job, unless they had an extra good "drag" with the local school trustees -- such as having a close relative the dominant member of the board of trustees. After Henry Willis got his teacher's certificate in the late summer of 1908, he rode day and night trying to line up a teaching job in of the Winn parish schools. Because of his lack of teaching experience, and not finding any board of trustees in Winn parish loaded with his kinfolks, he had not been able to find a teaching job by early September. Henry told me by September he had just about given up the idea of being a school teacher, and was considering going to see Tommy Weems about a job driving a "bull" log team for the Urania Lumber Company, when he got word to come see Education Superintendent Warner at Columbia. Superintendent Warner of Caldwell parish told Henry Willis, he had a one room school open down between Buckoo and Castor creeks, near the Winn parish line, a few miles southeast of Hebron church. That the job would pay $40 a month, and it was his, if you could get the local trustees to give him the O.K. As this community was rather isolated, no teacher had applied for the job, and Henry Willis had no trouble getting the local school trustees to approve his application and Superintendent Warner ratified Henry's appointment. Henry found a good boarding place for $8 a month with one of the trustees and had the school house all ready for the pupils opening day -- ready to teach anything from the ABC's to McGuffey's Sixth Reader. Henry Willis told me everything went along fine and smooth in his school until afternoon during possum hunting time in November. Then two of his 12 year old boy pupils, who had always been "buddies" and well behaved, suddenly began fighting in the schoolroom -- fighting viciously. Henry said it took him some time to get them separated and find out about why they were fighting. Here is substantially what Henry told me about the cause of the boys fighting. Each boy said the other boy had insulted his mama, by calling her ignorant. The boys said the night before, they had gone possum hunting with some older boys. That when the dogs treed two possums up a persimmon tree, both went up the tree and shook the possums off the limbs. We will just call these boys Joe and Jim, that's not their names. On the way home from the possum hunt they first stopped at Joe's home, where Joe's mother said "them older boys should not have let you little fellows 'clamb' up that simmon tree." When Jim got home, he told his mother, that Joe's ma said the big boys should not have let them 'clamb' up the simmon tree. Here Jim's mother said: Joe's ma should have said 'clumb' up the tree -- not 'clamb' up it. When Henry had stopped the fight and both boys told him why they had been fighting, they asked the same question: "Fesser Willis which is right 'clamb' up or 'clumb' up?" Here Henry said the thought flashed into his mind that Solomon had an easy decision to make in deciding which of the two contending women was the mother of the child both claimed, as each of these boys was a son of a school trustee -- to tell them, both, their mamas were wrong, no doubt would end his teaching career at the school in a hurry. Then Henry had an inspiration. He said: "Everybody don't say the same thing the same way. Joe's mama says 'clamb', that's her way; Jim's mama says 'clumb,' that's her way, and I bet both of you boy's daddies say 'climb' like it is in the dictionary." Henry said his talk to the boys pacified them, and he never had any further trouble while he taught that school term. Henry Willis must have been a pretty popular teacher at that country school. Twenty-four years later, in 1932, when I was a candidate for State Senator from this district, Henry Willis introduced me to the old timers of that community in Caldwell parish, and my vote at that precinct was better than I expected.