Obituaries: Bryan W. Bailey, 1961, 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: February 9, 1961 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American B. W. Bailey, 92, Dies; Was Pioneer Citizen; Second Oldest in Winn Bryan W. Bailey, 92, second oldest citizen of Winn Parish and also one of it's most colorful and remarkable personalities, passed away Friday, February 3, at 7:45 p.m. in a Winnfield hospital. He had been in failing health for several years but had entered the hospital only a few weeks ago. Funeral services were held Sunday, February 5, at the First Methodist Church with the Rev. R. H. Staples officiating, assisted by Rev. P. M. Caraway. Mrs. Hiram Wright sang, "In The Garden." Burial was in the Winnfield Cemetery under the direction of Southern Funeral Home. Pallbearers were Tracy Harrel, Troy Smith, Willie Gaar, Holmes Harris, E. J. Buchanan, Bob Reinhard, John Peters, Sr., and Ebb Machen. Mr. Bailey is survived by his widow; one daughter, Mrs. Leary Rickerson, of Winnfield; a sister, Mrs. Maude Long of Winnfield; and many nephews and nieces. Many Achievements Scholar, newspaper publisher, hotel man, bank president, and always a builder of his community and a quiet persistent promoter of civic and state betterment, Mr. Bailey was the last surviving member of the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1898 which wrote the 'grandfather clause' into the statute books. He was one of the sons of Winn Parish, including Huey Long and O. K. Allen, who "carved his name into the annals of state history." As Mr. Leonard Allen, a friend and admirer, says, "A self made man if there ever was one." And we are living in an era when there are not so many self- made and self-educated pioneers left, men who have helped to build up our country and make it what it is. Born here in 1869, soon after the Civil War, he was the son of a farmer who moved from Georgia to Louisiana in 1859. His family lived eight miles out on the Old Alexandria Road, and young Bailey had to walk eight miles to and from the small rustic schoolhouse, presided over by a "Mr. Taylor." His educational opportunities were indeed almost nil. He never had a high school course, and books in the parish were scarcer than the proverbial "hen's teeth." (Compare out beautiful library of today and the Bookmobile which carries books to outlying communities and parishes.) Anyway, the pioneer lad devoured every book or scrap of reading matter that came his way. When book agents began to come through the country and he had money to buy, he purchased many fine sets of books, which are still in the library of his spacious and beautifully landscaped home on St. John Street. Some of the titles are of interest, throwing light on his wide ranging eclecticism. A complete set of Shakespeare, Pilgrim's Progress, eight volumes of Byrne's "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," the American Encyclopedia, a "Library of Original Sources," "The Living Universe of History," the National Geographic from 1926, and many other fine literary classics. And our librarian, Mrs. Ruby Hanks, says he was one of the most constant patrons of the library, almost to the time of his death. All his life, in fact, Mr. Bailey was an avid reader, over an unusually kaleidoscopic range of subjects. Politics, economics, history, literature, agriculture, nature study; all was grist to his mill. And even when he was 90 years old and his sight had failed so that he could read only with a powerful magnifying lens, friends would find him almost always squinting at the pates of some book or magazine. A few months ago his daughter, Mrs. Leary Rickerson, secured for him a Talking Book Machine. With this he was able to keep up with world news and many developments which had prophesied years before would come to pass. When he was stricken by the final illness which proved to be fatal, he was reading "Gone With The Wind." Published The Comrade He published one of Winn Parish's earliest newspapers, "The Comrade." The building on the corner of the square where Troy's Supermarket now stands and which housed the paper was expanded little by little into an extensive frame building and became the famous "Comrade Hotel." This hostelry, with Mrs. Bailey as its cheerful, efficient, and ever gracious hostess, became known far and wide as the cleanest and most comfortable inn anywhere about. And the cuisine, which Mrs. Bailey personally supervised, was so superior that traveling men always tried to arrange their itineraries so as to spend weekends in Winnfield. Like her husband, ever a passionate lover of plants and flowers, Mrs. Bailey kept the big bow windows at the front of the hotel filled with magnificent pots of ferns, with gay flowering geraniums, and begonias. The Comrade Hotel with its friendly atmosphere, its old fashioned parlor where guests could gather round the upright piano to sing hymns on Sunday evenings and its luscious food became a kind of institution. "A home away from home for bored and lonely drummers." Mr. Bailey was elected to the constitutional convention on the Populist ticket. He was for years an active organizational man "in the type of hardnosed politics" common to rural areas at the time. Yet he was strictly an individualist and always thought things through for himself. AS Leonard Allen comments, "He never wore anybody's collar." Served As Sheriff In 1900 he was elected sheriff of Winn Parish on the Populist ticket and was the last public official elected here from that party, which indeed soon passed out of existence. He was always on the side of the common man an interested in any movement that might improve his too often hard lot. But he was quick to reject the false and evil philosophy of Communism, with its pretense of helping the common people while in reality murdering millions of them and making slaves of the rest. Mr. Bailey wrote and talked against this pernicious new gospel. In the early 1900s Mr. Bailey sparked oil drilling on Cedar Creek south of Winnfield and lived to see a promising Wilcox oil spread erupt in the Joyce- Colgrade and Crossroads field where oil excitement is now at fever pitch. Before 1928 he entertained the idea of creating a fish and game preserve by throwing a dam across the Saline Bayou west of here. He talked, wrote letters, interviewed politicians, did everything in his power to promote this extremely worthwhile project. And Mr. H. B. Bozeman credits this dream's coming to reality to Mr. Bailey's efforts. While Bozeman was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee under the 1928 Huey Long administration, he secured $125,000 to build the dam. The result was the present Northwest Louisiana Game and Fish Preserve, an economic boon to Winn and Natchitoches Parishes and a paradise for hunters and fishermen. This project embraces thousands of acres of timberland and waters in the Saline, Clear, and Black Lakes area. It is a favorite rendezvous for picnickers, vacationers, and holiday makers in general. Mr. Bozeman says that B. W. Bailey was both "father and grandfather to this scheme which has brought so much of both pleasure and profit to our section of the state. And Mr. Bozeman feels that it was perhaps a bitter disappointment to Mr. Bailey that the dam was not named for him. He tried desperately to promote another civic enterprise which would have been of permanent value and beauty to Winn Parish. He wanted to save the magnificent tract of virgin long-leafed pine near the Trading Post on the Dodson Highway and have it decreed a state park. But he was unable to save this monument of natural beauty from falling into the hands of the timber barons, who were moving into the area, bringing temporary prosperity but leaving also devastation and ugliness behind them. Mr. Bailey worked indefatigably for good roads in the parish. He had much to do with laying out of the fine wide streets which are now such an invaluable asset to Winnfield. He and Judge R. W. Oglesby worked with a group of civic minded women to get cows and hogs off the streets. He Loved Nature Mr. Bailey was an ardent lover and student of nature. When he retired from the bank in 1933 he and Mrs. Bailey devoted much time and effort to planting and beautifying their new home, now one of the most attractively landscaped in our city. They had a small greenhouse and raised many beautiful pot plants which adorned the wide porches in summer. He was a great lover of birds, too; put up many boxes and housed for them and studied their habits. For some time he had surveyed timberlands for Hodge and Hunt, and that gave him a keen interest in trees and reforestation. His daughter says that he could tell at a glance the name of any tree in the woods. In short, a man of remarkable gifts. As one of his friends says, "If he had had greater opportunity and a larger environment, he might easily have risen to some position of real eminence, and certainly he had earned for himself a Ph. D. degree." Perhaps we shall not see so many men of his caliber again, because only the hardships and challenges of a pioneer country can produce such sturdiness and independence of character. But looking back on his long life may make our young people of today appreciate more keenly the wonderful educational and other opportunities which their state gives them. A few months before his death Mr. Bailey made a request that the following be inscribed on his gravestone: "He died like he lived, fighting for full recognition for the rights of the underprivileged." The request was read in the funeral sermon. It expressed his philosophy of life.