Friday, September 26, 2014

Sacred to the Memory exhibit

Our exhibit “Sacred to the Memory: Gravestone Symbols in Bossier Parish Cemeteries” is back for the fall season.  The display cases in the Historical Center will feature the exhibit through November. Although not as widely publicized as the cities of the dead in New Orleans and South Louisiana, the graveyards of North Louisiana are equally fascinating due to the wide range of tombstone symbols and imagery.

Plain Dealing Cemetery grave of John Gayle


Gravestones reflect the culture of the people who produce and erect them.  Nineteenth and twentieth century monuments in Bossier Parish contain symbols that were recognizable to the people of the past, but the meanings are no longer as familiar. This exhibit shows how tombstones in our area cemeteries can give us clues about the age, birthplace, family bonds, religious affiliation, clubs and social organizations, and military service of the deceased.


As the weather starts to cool down, plan a visit to some of our local cemeteries and see the gravestone symbols for yourself.  Please check on hours and be respectful of any regulations. Don’t forget to take one of our handouts with you so you can easily identify the symbols you may see. If you are searching for specific ancestors, check Clif Cardin’s book Bossier Parish Headstones: A Complete Inventory of All Known Cemeteries, Family Plots, and Lone Burials. It is available at all Bossier Parish Library branches, including here at the Historical Center. 

Thursday, September 4, 2014

W. P. O'Neal, Small Town Boy and a Big Time Financial Story

The O'Neal Store at Bellevue 1900's-1910's

In her latest column for the Bossier Press Tribune, “The Bossier Parish Boy who More than Made Good,” our Director Ann Middleton excerpted the words of a writer for the June 28, 1928 issue of The Bossier Banner who took pleasure in introducing a friend, former playmate and schoolmate named W. P. O’Neal, known to him as “Pierce:”


“Mr. O’Neal was born and reared at old Bellevue, removed with the members of his father’s family from that place to Benton about the time the town became the parish seat and his employment during the days if his youth, when not a student in the home schools, was to clerk in his father’s general merchandise store, both here and in Bellevue.  He left Benton for New Orleans twenty-eight years ago, and we happen to know that he reached that city with only 75 cents in change in his pocket—and fewer changes of underwear in his weather-beaten suitcase.  But he had the determination to succeed—bulldog tenacity—and did.  Being stranded and in a city, among strangers, did not daunt him in the least, as his rapid rise in commercial life reflects.  Recently he was elected president of the Louisiana Bankers’ Association, which is the highest office the bankers of the state can bestow upon any one of their members."

I would add that “Pierce” ‘made good,’ no doubt, but he was also lucky. Mr. W.P. O'Neal was president of the Louisiana Bankers Association for the year 1928-29 in a "bull market." Imagine the year his successor must have had for 1929-1930, the time of the Great Stock Market Crash of (late) 1929. Ironically, the mass of stories like Mr. W.P. O'Neal's, rural Americans emigrating to cities with hopes of a more prosperous life in the rising industrial sector, is often blamed as a significant factor in the crash. While American cities prospered, major migration from rural areas and the resulting neglect of US agriculture created financial hopelessness among American farmers and instability for the US economy.