Remembering Lettie Van Landingham

In 1987, Congress declared March as National Women’s History Month to serve as a time to remember great women in history who made a difference. In the History of Bossier Parish, we have had many extraordinary women that have made remarkable differences in and for the communities of Bossier Parish.  

One such woman was Lettie Van Landingham (1893-1968), or Miss Van as she was known to friends and associates. Miss Van served as an educator of Home Economics in various high schools in the state from 1914 until 1929 when she accepted the position as the first Home Demonstrating Agent of Bossier Parish. Miss Van held this post until she retired on December 30, 1960. She was so loved and respected that she was given a surprise party on the day she retired which was broadcast during the Jean Harris Open House program on KWKH radio. 

As Home Demonstrating Agent Miss Van conducted full-scale programs on every aspect of homemaking which includes food, clothing, family life, and home planning and management. Her work teaching food production, preservation, and conservation was especially important during the Depression, World War II, and after World War II to help bring famine relief to dozens of nations.  

Some 23 canning centers were built and operated under Miss Van’s supervision. And, she served as secretary-treasurer for the Bossier Frozen Foods Committee, which would lead to the establishment of the Bossier Frozen Food Plant.  

Miss Van also organized the Farm Bureau, several 4-H Clubs, numerous Home Demonstration Clubs, community recreation groups, and at least 28 home garden clubs. And, with the cooperation of approximately four hundred women in sixteen Home Demonstration Clubs, she paved the way for securing the Rural Electric Association (REA) in Bossier Parish to bring electricity to rural Bossier Parish. 

During the depression, she was instrumental in building community houses for families on relief rolls to use for religious and educational purposes, as well as assisting in the Sunday School Program throughout the Depression. In cooperation with the Army Community Service, Miss Van supervised making 4500 mattresses and 2300 comforters for 3118 families. In 1936 Miss Van took an active lead in plans and preparations for Bossier Parish’s first Folk School. She conducted health clinics with the assistance of local doctors and the Webster Public Health Unit, thus paving the way for the establishment of a Bossier Parish Public Health Department in 1937.  

During World War II, Miss Van was vigilant in teaching others how to produce and preserve food, as well as ways to conserve and make the best of rationing food. She also addressed the need to conserve clothing while taking the time to be concerned with the changing styles of women’s wear. She taught girls in 4-H how they could repair clothing and plan their family’s wardrobe while stressing the war-time need for clothing conservation. 

Lettie Van Landingham was recognized for her service to the community in many ways. Just to name a few, she received a certificate for outstanding work from the National Home Demonstration Association, Beta Sigma Phi presented her with the “First Lady of the Year” award, and she was awarded the Outstanding Civic Leaders of America Award through the Quota Club. In tribute to Miss Van’s many years of service to the Bossier Parish Community, Mayor George L. Nattin made August 21, 1968, Lettie Van Landingham Day. 

To learn more about Lettie Van Landingham and other great women of Bossier Parish visit the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center. 

By: Amy Robertson

TRIBUTE TO A BELOVED PLAIN DEALING CITIZEN

The January 5, 1950 issue of the Bossier Banner reprinted a touching tribute to Leon Sanders, Sr.

“A worthy tribute to the memory of the late Leon Sanders appeared in last week’s issue of the
Shreveport Journal. This we reprint and express to that excellent writer our personal appreciation for that well placed and thoughtful tribute.”

“The tribute follows:”

Plain Dealing’s Loss

“The north Bossier Parish area sustained distinct loss when Leon Sanders, Sr., passed away the other day. He was born in that community 79 years ago and had spent his life there in useful service which contributed greatly not only to the progress of his home section but to the expansion of opportunity and improvement of conditions throughout the parish.”

“Among the enterprises to which he devoted helpful efforts were the Bossier Parish Fair Association and the Bank of Plain Dealing. For years the fair association conducted a parishwide exhibition at Plain Dealing, also at Bossier City, and because of its operations with varied resources, excellent advantages for agricultural development and other enterprises was widely publicized and recognized. He was one of the organizers of the Plain Dealing Bank and served on its board. This bank a few months ago occupied a new home, one of the outstanding evidences of progress at Plain Dealing.”

“Principal attention was given by Mr. Sanders to the Plain Dealing weather bureau of the government. He and his father, the late L.T. Sanders, had charge of this service for 60 years.”

L. T. Sanders

“He was active in religious and civic affairs, and was always working for the welfare of the general public. His career in citizenship was outstanding in accomplishments. He was held in esteem and appreciated as a man of finest character. The family circle which he headed has members who are following in his footsteps in civic-minded activities, including a son, Doyle Sanders, who is serving Plain Dealing as its mayor.”

Visit the Bossier Parish Library Historical Center to read the journals of Leon Sanders, Sr.’s father L.T.Sanders. The journals record weather conditions, crop planting and production, livestock production, orchard (peaches) production.

By: Ann Middleton

Bossier Bios: Lambert W. Baker

Lambert William Baker was born in North Carolina in 1818. In 1844, he married Martha Allen in Walker County, Alabama. Their first daughter, Theodocia, and only son, Percy, were both born in Jasper, AL. By 1849, the family had moved to Minden, LA, where they had four more daughters: Josephine, Alza Dora, Elizena, and Martha Cassandra. Their last child, Maniza Louisa, was born in Bossier Parish in 1860. Lambert, a republican, was elected as Bossier Parish judge in 1868 with 945 votes. He was re-elected in both 1870 and 1872. Richard Welcome Turner defeated Baker in the district judge election of 1876.

As a republican in Reconstruction-era Louisiana, Baker was known as a “scalawag” by the democratic majority of Bossier Parish. The term was mainly used in a derogatory fashion to refer to white republican Southerners who sided with Reconstructionist policies after the Civil War. Baker writes to Governor Warmoth in July of 1868, “I have not been molested, but hear threats of assassination in every direction and it seems to aggravate them that I treat such talk as a joke. My son [Percy] was assaulted on the 26^th instant by a squad of cut-throats, with whom he was unacquainted, in the presence of Mr. Hill, sheriff of the parish, but he did not intercede to protect the life of a republican (of course not).” At the time of these threats, Baker’s seven children still lived with him at home. Maniza, the youngest, would have been about 8 years old. Sheriff Hill, who would go on to become US Marshal of Louisiana, wrote a letter to The Bossier Banner editor, William Scanland, proclaiming the account a falsehood. The Congressional review into the Presidential Election Investigation of 1878-79 mentions that Hill was one of the leaders during the Bossier Riots of 1868.

Baker’s political career came at a tumultuous and dangerous time in Bossier Parish. In 1868, an event known by several names (Shady Grove Riot, Bossier Riot, Bossier Massacre, and Gibson’s War) occurred in the parish. While the exact number of victims is not known, it is thought that around 200 black citizens of Bossier Parish were murdered and possibly another 100 wounded. Baker’s accounts of this time are recorded in the Session of the 44^th Congress, known as “Use of the Army in Certain Southern States”.

“Bossier, This parish...has had enacted within its borders during the last six years some of the most atrocious murders ever put upon record by the historian's pen. As no language of mine can add to the extracts taken from official records and personal experiences hereinafter set forth, I shall simply give the statistics as I have been able to collect them, with the remark that, in my opinion, the "Bossier negro-hunt" or massacre, during the month of September, 1868, was, without exception, the most thoroughly wanton, unjustifiable, and in every respect uncalled-for slaughter of innocent and unoffending people, solely on account of their color and political sentiments, that ever occurred among civilized people.
"I have often conversed with men who took an active part in what is known as the Bossier Riot of 1868, and who participated at different places, and they place the number killed at from two to three hundred. Some say more than three hundred. Of that number two were white men and the balance were negroes. No prosecutions were had for that riot.”

Baker and his son Percy both went to the polls with their shot-guns in their hands, as they cast the only two votes for the Louisiana Constitution of 1868 in Bossier Parish. The Bossier Banner newspaper published an article noting that “only two white men in Bossier parish voted for the mongrel Constitution!...Who are the men of nerve among you?...Who are the two greatest skunks in Bossier!” At the time, Percy was a state representative from the parish, but this position offered him no protection. Both father and son report that election fraud was rampant in the 1872 election, and “wholesale intimidation was practiced throughout the parish. Terrible threats were made to revive the fearful election massacre of four years ago [a reference to the Bossier Riots], at which several hundred colored men were killed…A body of Ku-Klux, commissioned as constables, did the work.” Lambert writes to republican politician Stephen B. Packard that armed guards in Bossier Parish are well-known as members of the KKK, and claim not to be White-Leaguers, preferring to call themselves ‘Governor McEnery’s militia’.

In September of 1874, Baker wrote to Packard again and described a threat leveled against him by a White League committee. Baker was told to cease to act as parish judge and United States commissioner and ordered not to make any report of this threat under any circumstances. He was told that disobedience would result in his inability to leave the state and that he “could not live here twenty-four hours.” Baker told Packard that armed White Leaguers held the courthouse and had all elected officials under surveillance. The scope of the situation is not readily available as “outrages are daily committed but not reported by the papers. Anarchy prevails.” The newspaper that fails to report these outrages must be The Bossier Banner.

There is evidence that Baker’s political ideals made even small matters difficult within the parish. In 1875, he applied with the Police Jury to change the Bellevue and Fillmore road in front of his residence. The jurors rejected his application on the grounds that it would lengthen the road. Sheriff W.H. Hill, the same man who failed to intervene during the attack on Percy, submitted the report and reason for rejection.

Baker and his family continued to live in Bossier Parish. Lambert Baker died in 1902 and is buried in the Bellevue Cemetery. 

Bossier Bios: Dr. S.E. Prince

Dr. Shea Edward Prince was born in the Bossier Parish town of Princeton (yes, named for his family!) on August 8, 1869. He was the son of Joseph Wilson Prince and Virginia Alice Locke Prince. He went to school in Bossier Parish and was a resident student at the Shreveport Charity Hospital in the early 1890s, where he worked with Superintendent Dr. T.E. Schumpert. He continued his education at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated in 1896. He returned to Northwest Louisiana and married Pauline Trigg in March of 1899. Prince’s marriage announcement in the Bossier Banner notes that he is a prominent and popular young physician. He practiced medicine in Bossier, Webster, Ouachita, Caddo, and Sabine Parishes. During World War I, Prince was medical examiner for the Bossier Parish draft board. Shea and Pauline had three daughters: Emmaleen Virginia, Helen Beverly, and Hallula Sue.  

In addition to his medical practice, Prince was very involved in the banking industry. He organized and served as president at the Noble State Bank in Sabine Parish. He founded the Bossier State Bank and was also president of the Plain Dealing State bank. On February 6, 1941, Prince had been at the Bossier State Bank as usual, and then spent the evening with his family at his home in Shreveport. He suffered a heart attack later that night and passed away.