A Lake Bistineau Fishing Story for National Hunting and Fishing Day

This past Saturday was National Hunting and Fishing Day, an event celebrated by all 50 states every year on the fourth Saturday in September. It was established in 1972 when Congress passed two bills to have a day to celebrate the conservation contributions of U.S. hunters and anglers. So it seems a perfect time to share a fun fishing story (with some hunting thrown in, too) brought to me by a reader of this column, JoAnne McDonald.

Mrs. McDonald and her late husband Jerry had a house in Bossier Parish with a private pond near Lake Bistineau. It was highlighted in the Shreveport Times in 1995 because of a Minden, Louisiana centenarian, Miss Mary Babb, who, with the McDonalds’ invitation, would fish from a boat on their pond with her friend Lydon Taylor. Miss Babb fished at least once a week, from morning to sunset. With nonarthritic hands, she could she set the hook on the bluegill bream herself and see the slightest jiggle of a bream hook, no glasses needed.

At that stage in her life, fishing was one “Miss Mary’s” favorite past-times, but as a girl growing up on a farm in Cotton Valley from 1905 to 1924, she wasn’t included when her father and brothers went fishing. A friend introduced her to fishing’s pleasures as an adult. She also was an honorary member of the Sailes Hunting Club in Bienville Parish. She and her friend Margaret Stewart of Benton were the only two women at the deer camp. When someone bagged a buck, Miss Mary would help prepare the meat for the freezer, or make sausage with it. Additionally, the centenarian was still gardening and raising chickens and gathering their eggs. She knew how to live off the land, and never set foot in a mall until just prior to the 1995 article, when a friend took her to Pierre Bosser for some new shoes.

In Cotton Valley, Mary and her ten siblings worked on the family’s 160-acre farm until they moved to Minden in 1924, in the historic Killen Place, one of the oldest homes in Webster Parish. She lived there for the rest of her life. As a young woman, Miss Mary was active with the local home demonstration club, hosting meetings and reporting club doings to the local newspaper. She also taught school, worked for her father’s store and trained and worked as a nurse.

Early to mid-twentieth century Minden newspapers are filled with some of Mary Babb’s accomplishments, such as her work for the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), binding books so they can continue to be used, working to cleanup automobile graveyards across the region, keeping accurate demographic statistics such as births for the parish, becoming a WPA supervisor, and clerk at the Minden courthouse, keeping World War II selective service records. She also contributed to the war effort at the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant in Minden.

Mary Babb died Nov. 22, 1996, at Minden Medical Center after a brief illness, less than a month shy of her 102nd birthday.

Like Mrs. McDonald did, we’d love for our readers to visit us with stories, clippings and photos of other remarkable people and memories from around Bossier Parish. We are located at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to visit the History and Genealogy Resources page at Bossierlibrary.org or follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok.

Images: 

• Illustration from Plain Dealing’s Roach-Strayhan-Holland American Legion Post #20 Home Dedication Cookbook, 1950
• Headline from The Minden Herald February 17, 1939, page 1.

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Blind Man Hunts Again

Walter Hill was a Benton resident and avid outdoor sportsman who probably planned to spend his retirement hunting and fishing at the Sailes Hunting Club in Bienville Parish. On May 13, 1975, a valve on a storage tank filled with anhydrous ammonia malfunctioned while working, causing severe damage requiring 27 surgeries and four transplants. In the end, the Doctors were unable to restore Hill’s sight. Now, legally blind, he was forced into early retirement and feared that his disability would prevent the retirement he always imagined.

Walter Hill and "Junior" Williams
Shreveport Times Photo by Reeves Feild

Hill learned that there’s not much one can’t do, where there is passion, will, and good friends. It was not long, maybe about a year or so after the accident, he began fishing again with the help of a friend, part-time fishing guide, Vardaman “Junior” Williams of Williams and Son Plant Farm in Keithville.

Ten years later, he learned that his neighbor, Margaret Stewart, loved to hunt and fish, so he made her a deal, “if you get me there, I will pay all of the expenses.” From that point forward, Hill and Stewart began “hunting” and fishing together. Though he could not hunt, he enjoyed being in the woods and sitting in the deer stand.

Over the years, Hill lost his wife, Dorothy, and eventually, he and Margaret married on Valentine’s Day 2006. As a mother of a legally blind son and an avid hunter herself, she started making phone calls when she heard of a blind person in Texas hunting using a laser sight and partner. Margaret called the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries to learn that, in Louisiana, this would be illegal. Next, she called Louisiana State Representative Henry Burns, a long-time friend, and resident of Haughton. 

Burns went on to sponsor a bill (HB 39) through the Louisiana legislature, which was signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal, just in time for hunting season. “The new law authorizes the use of laser scopes by visually impaired hunters while hunting with a sighted individual.” Louisiana is the 17th state to pass such a bill allowing the blind to hunt with the assistance of technology and a sighted partner.

The last time Hill shot a gun for hunting purposes was on New Year’s Day in 1975, just five and a half months before losing his sight. Finally, with the new law in place and family and friends’ help, Hill could do more than sit in the tree stand. It was the winter of 2010 when, once again, Hill experienced the thrill of hunting when he shot his first deer since becoming blind 35-years earlier.

The most important message that Hill would want readers to take from this is “not to be afraid of doing things with people who are handicapped.” He did not take lightly the challenge and effort it took for his friends and family to help him fish and hunt. Hill stated, “You don’t realize how much it meant. When I caught that first bass, I almost cried. Margaret and Junior helped give me my life back.” 

Learn more about the local history by visiting the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, your leading source for local history. We are located adjacent to the Central Library branch at 2206 Beckett Street, Bossier City.

Whether you want to learn about local history or research your family history, we are here to help in person or online, www.bossierlibrary.org/research/history-genealogy. Be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB and check out our blog, http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/. 318-746-7717, history-center@bossierlibrary.org

By: Amy Robertson