Laurissa Jane Chambless Moffett, Winn Parish, LA
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483


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>From the August 24, 1961 Winn Parish Enterprise-News-American

MOTHER OF THIRTEEN GIVES CHILD REARING POINTERS

"DON'T PAMPER THEM"


PHOTO WITH CAPTION:  Three Generations:  Mrs. N. M. Moffett, daughter of
Linnie (Mrs. Dayton Jones) and granddaughter Mary (Mrs. Jones daughter).  One
of the earliest settlers of Winn Parish, Mrs. Moffett, 95, came to Louisiana
from Texas when she was three, and moved from Lincoln Parish to Gansville when
she was 10.


Mrs. N. M. Moffett Came From Texas With Dad in '69

Iron tires on the oxwagons swirled dust past the Indian huts as Christopher
Columbus Chambless picked his way toward Louisiana with the orderly air that
surrounds all blacksmiths.

He could do just about anything with machinery, and figured to set up a gin
right in the middle of North Louisiana cotton country.  Anyway, there just
hadn't been as many people around Carthage, Texas as you'd like to see, and
what with the war and all, one place was just about as good as the other.

Laurissa Jane was three, and she noticed the sparsely settled country was
pretty raw, but was more occupied with the millions of things that keep a
three year old going.  

It was 1869, which didn't mean anything to her, but naturally she was excited
about the trip, even though when they finally stopped in Lincoln Parish, there
wasn't much to see.

"I think it was a town called Woodville, near where Ruston is now, and the
second year we were in this part of the country, we moved to Longstraw,
another little place near Ruston,"
Mrs. N. M. (Laurissa Jane) Moffett recalled.  (She will be 95 August 24, and
lives with a daughter, Mrs. Dayton Jones near Calvin).

"There wasn't anything around Ruston as I remember, but I did go to school
three months during the summers at a little house in the middle of a field
around Ruston.  Then we moved to Gansville when I was about 10", she added.

Mose Moffett, a Gansville merchant, had a nephew called Nathaniel Moffett, who
sort of followed his uncle's trade in an easy fashion.  

Chris Chambless had put up his gin and was coming along well with it and the
smith business.  

Nathaniel boarded with Chambless and being a bachelor, took in most of the
play parties around the countryside, and being a settled man, was allowed to
take Laurissa Jane along for company.

When Laurissa Jane was 19, Nathaniel found himself proposing and she had
herself a husband.

Thirteen children are not hard to care for, that is if you don't pamper them
to death.

"Young folks get too much attention these days.  It puts ideas in their heads
they're important, and I don't think that's good", Mrs. Moffett commented.

"We brought our 13 up on a 200 acre place (about 5 miles west of Dodson) and
if any of the neighbors went visiting, I usually kept their children, too."

There were nine sons and four daughters in the family.  Six sons and four
daughters are living.  Their father died in 1927.

The living children include:  Mrs. E. T. Bishop (Rena), 75, of Natchitoches;
Mrs. P. P. Nelson (Ola), 73, of Buna, Texas; Mrs. J. R. Watts (Merle), 57, of
Lake Charles; Mrs. D. D. Jones, (Linnie), 63, of Rt. 3, Winnfield near Calvin;
T. C. Moffett, 67, of San Antonio, Texas; Dudley Moffett, 65, and N. C.
Moffett, 61, both of Houston, Texas; Mertz Moffett, 57, Fillmore, Calif., C.
M. Moffett, 55, of Jennings.

(Submitted by Greggory Ellis Davies, Winnfield, Winn Parish, LA.)