A Gold Star Spouse of World War II

This is a story to commemorate Gold Star Spouses Day, April 5th, and the sacrifices made by a young couple in World War II, Haughton’s Cassius Clay “Buddy” Brandenburg Jr. and his young widow Cora Ann Foote Brandenburg. Gold Star Spouses Day is officially recognized by Congress, according to the US Army’s Office of Enterprise Management (OEM), as a time “to remember the profound impact that the loss of a loved one in military service can have on families. It serves as an opportunity for communities to come together in support of these spouses and to hold sacred the memory of their fallen heroes.”

Buddy Brandenburg graduated from Haughton High School in 1932. He entered Louisiana State Normal College in Natchitoches, La (now Northwestern State) and after graduating in 1936, he took a teaching position at Bossier High School. He taught for one year, then took a variety of jobs, including as a field representative with the Universal Credit Company of Shreveport and at General Motors Acceptance Corporation in Alexandria, Louisiana before volunteering for the Army Air Corps December 27, 1941 at Barksdale Field. (A separate branch of service for air power, the US Air Force, was not established until 1947.)

                 

Buddy trained as a bombardier and married a young librarian, Cora Ann Foote, in Walla Walla Washington in August of 1942. Walla Walla was a training airfield for heavy bombers. Cora Ann, originally of Baton Rouge and a graduate of Louisiana State University, had been a librarian trainee at the Benton location of the Bossier Parish libraries. Buddy left for overseas duty on January 1, 1943. Cora Ann worked as a librarian for the US Army’s Camp Claiborne in central Louisiana.

Barely two months after leaving for overseas, Buddy’s plane lost altitude at a point near Utrecht, Holland while returning from a mission over Germany, for which he served as lead bombardier. He wasn’t declared “Presumed Dead” by the War Department for another year, after “all possible efforts” had failed to find the twenty-eight-year-old.

Buddy Brandenburg’s remains have never been recovered, even though some successful attempts to locate remains of WWII soldiers were done through the 1970’s. His name was carved among the 1,722 names on the Wall of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery in Cambridge, England. Like the other American cemeteries in Europe, this one is breathtakingly beautiful, designed by the famed American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and featuring views of the English countryside that, by law, will always remain farmland.

C. C. “Buddy” Brandenburg also has a monument in the Cottage Grove Cemetery in rural north Bossier Parish, and a memorial service was held for him at the Methodist Church in Benton. Buddy’s young widow Cora Ann received a letter from a member of one of Buddy’s combat crews, giving her what details he could about the fate of Buddy’s plane. (the letter is in the History Center’s collection).

Cora Ann returned to south Louisiana briefly and was a children’s librarian in Lafayette before leaving that position in March 1947 to become a librarian at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Alexandra, La. She recruited volunteers to help her do bedside visits, bringing books directly to patients. In June of 1948, she remarried WWII veteran John E. Jungkind from Arkansas. They moved to Columbia, Missouri where she was medical librarian at the University of Missouri Medical School. By 1950 they returned to Lafayette, where John worked as a reporter. They lived and worked various places over the years, but ultimately spent their final years in Baton Rouge.

If you are interested in World War topics, please attend one of our monthly World War Tuesdays coffee and conversation programs at the History Center. They are on the second Tuesday of the month at 10:30 AM. The History Center is located in the Central Complex Library at 7204 Hutchison Street, Bossier City, LA and is open M-F 9-6. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For more local history facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, and check out our blog at http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• 2nd LT Cassius Clay "Buddy" Brandenburg Jr./History Center collection
• Cora Ann Foote Brandenburg/The Shreveport Times, August 30, 1942
• Tablets of the Missing, Cambridge American Cemetery, England. Creative Commons Photo via Wikimedia: Stevekeiretsu, CC BY-SA 3.0

Article by: Pam Carlisle

North Bossier Park – Twenty Years Strong

Late last year, in a pervious article written by Kevin Flowers, a fellow member of the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, he wrote about the Bossier Racquet and Swim club, and how the city planned on potentially buying the ailing complex. Ultimately, however, they would decide against doing so and would instead seek to build their own recreation site. This caught my eye, as around this time last year I wrote an article on Mike Woods Park. Therefore, let’s take a look at another major Bossier Parish park, the North Bossier Park, and the associated Bossier Tennis Center.

The earliest mention to the park project itself was in late 2003, according to the Bossier Parish Police Jury minutes from both September 17 and October 15, when Police Juror Eddy Shell met with members of a committee made up of representatives from the City of Bossier City, Bossier Parish School Board, and of course the Bossier Parish Police Jury. After the events of this meeting, the jury agreed to draw up an action plan for the development of the North Bossier Recreation Park Complex. Late that month, funds for the project would be approved by Bossier City, with $1 million dollars approved by the City Council, drawing an equal mix of funding from gaming revenue and the sales tax capital improvement fund. A series of meetings would follow as 2003 ended, and 2004 began, and in April of 2004 a steering committee would be formally established for the purposes of coordination between the three bodies.

By the end of the year, ground would be broken on the project, with the initial estimates for the cost of the project being around $98,000, with an approved expense of $60,000 from the BPPJ to cover the cost of the labor. Work would continue apace through the fall of 2004, with the clearing of the site and the laying of the base infrastructure for the first phase of construction. In the December 1, 2004, meeting of the BPPJ, concerns were raised about the park being built as purely a tennis complex. Statements were made to reinforce that the park should be for everyone, not just tennis players, and it is here where the first discussion on playground equipment at the new park was had by the Police Jury. The next series of meetings for the Police Jury would include discussion of the potential playground equipment, and on February 2, 2005, the Police Jury would authorize the purchase of handicap accessible playground equipment in conjunction with Bossier City funding.

The construction of the tennis courts themselves, the underlying driving force for Bossier City’s contribution to the project, would begin in the summer of 2005, continuing into 2009. Finally, come early July 2006, the day would come: the North Bossier Park Tennis Center would have its ribbon cutting. Members of each of the three contributing bodies would participate in the grand opening, and the full park would be, officially, open to the public. The initial count for the tennis courts would be a ‘mere’ twelve, which would be later expanded to add another six in the coming years. The courts were built, in part, to encourage children and the greater community to develop an appreciation for tennis in the local area. Indeed, as part of the grand opening, there was an accompanying set of tennis scrambles open to the public.

From the lengthy walking trail to the eighteen tennis courts, there is plenty for everyone to enjoy. For the past twenty years, the North Bossier Park has been a mainstay of the community, servicing the area with free and easy access to the amenities therein.

If you have any photos or other information relating to the history of Bossier City or Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. 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. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/

Images: 

• Students at the Bossier Tennis Center – BPT (Jul 04, 2006) – Rachel Hayes
• Construction of the North Bossier Park Parking Lot – BPT (Sep 23, 2004) – Jennifer Ganey
•  Jim Pevier walking his dog at North Bossier Park – BPT (Dec 02, 2005) – Rachel Hayes

Article by: Johan Daigle

 

Bossier Parish Responds to East Texas School Disaster

Among the many headstones at Forest Park Cemetery in Shreveport, there stands one with the name of a young girl who perished 89 years ago in the worst school disaster in our nation’s history. Mary Priscilla Carney was only 12 that fateful afternoon in 1937 when an explosion reduced her school in New London, Texas to rubble. Bossier Parish responded, as did many communities, and began taking steps to ensure such a tragedy wouldn’t happen here.

Revenue flowing from the East Texas oil fields brought much-needed prosperity to New London in the 1930s. Located approximately 122 miles southeast of Dallas in Rusk County, the town grew as families moved there drawn by its wealth. Little expense was spared in building a school to accommodate the influx of children. An article from March 2007 in Texas Monthly magazine states that oil revenue “contributed to top-notch facilities … that included an elementary building, a gymnasium, and even a lighted football field. But the crown jewel belonged to children in fifth through eleventh grade (“senior year” at that time): the $300,000 two-story junior and senior high school, … fully equipped with a chemistry lab, an auditorium with a balcony, and an industrial-arts workshop.”

For Mary, who was in seventh grade, and approximately 500 of her fellow students, who occupied this nice, new crown jewel the afternoon of Thursday, March 18, 1937, the bell signaling the end of the school day was likely top of mind. It was supposed to sound at 3:30. What the students and their teachers didn’t know was that it would never sound. Its ringing would never be heard again.

Natural gas had been used to heat the campus since its construction. In January 1937, the school board voted to cancel its gas contract and save money by tapping into a nearby line of lower quality gas, sometimes referred to as a residue line, that was available for free. An article of May 1, 1995, on the Texas State Historical Association website states that tapping such a line “was a frequent money-saving practice for homes, schools and churches in the oil field.” In this instance, the practice proved deadly.

Within weeks of the change, ominous warning signs made themselves known. Headaches and burning eyes began afflicting students, according to the online news site Texas Standard in an article from August 13, 2024. But apparently no one suspected the culprit was a gas leak. At the time, natural gas had no odor additive, making leak detection difficult. As Mary and her classmates waited to go home that Thursday afternoon, the unthinkable happened.

At 3:17 p.m., a teacher flipped a switch to turn on an electric sander in the industrial-arts workshop located in the basement, unaware of the volatile gas fumes that had invaded the building. A spark flew from the switch, igniting the gas. The high school building exploded. The article on the TSHA website describes the blast: “Immediately the building seemed to lift in the air and then smashed to the ground. Walls collapsed. The roof fell in and buried its victims in a mass of brick, steel, and concrete debris.” A nightmare had come to New London.

Assistance arrived swiftly, as townspeople, oil field workers and many others who heard and felt the explosion rushed to the scene. Bossier Parish also offered help. An article in the March 25, 1937 edition of The Bossier Banner newspaper details how Bossier City businessman Arthur Ray Teague and E. W. Rice, chairman of the Bossier Red Cross chapter, delivered medical supplies. It also mentions Bossier City doctors John Victor Hendrick and William Mastin Scott arriving to render aid. The Planters Press newspaper of the same date describes Bossier firefighters providing first aid and “anything else which would be of help.” Barksdale Field - as Barksdale Air Force Base was then known - sent planes with medical supplies and doctors and nurses. According to an item in the March 20, 1937 issue of the Miami Tribune of Miami, Florida, these Barksdale planes flew over the disaster site and dipped their wings as a show of condolence.

The death toll estimate was approximately 300 killed, including about 16 teachers. Five of the young victims, including Mary, were brought to funeral homes in Shreveport. An investigation into the cause of the accident “concluded that gas had escaped from a faulty connection and accumulated beneath the building,” states the 1995 article on the TSHA website. This conclusion prompted Bossier officials to begin checking gas lines here.

On April 9, 1937, The Plain Dealing Progress newspaper noted that the Bossier Parish School Board “ordered a thorough inspection of plumbing or gas fixtures in all school buildings of the parish burning natural gas.” The Bossier Banner reported in its April 1 edition that classes at Benton High School were cancelled for a day in late March while workmen tried to find gas leaks. But the newspaper asserts that this was not done because of concern about a possible explosion, but solely because of high gas bills.

Texas quickly passed legislation requiring something be added to natural gas to give it an odor, making leak detection much easier. Other cities and towns followed suit. Because of New London, the rotten egg smell signaling a gas leak became the industry standard. And lives have been saved because of it. Mary and her classmates and their teachers did not die in vain.

If you have any information or items relating to the history of Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open Monday-Friday 9-6, and Saturday by appointment. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/

Images:

• Mary Priscilla Carney/courtesy Christie Marie Shepherd Findagrave.com
• Workers dig through the rubble to find victims/San Antonio Express News, March 20, 1937

Article by: Kevin Flowers

Charlotte A. Mitchell: The Second “Class Act” for Bossier Parish’s Jeanes Teachers

Until as late as 1970, if you wanted to easily find the leaders of African-American communities in the South, you would do best to look in the segregated Black schools. The most educated, highly-regarded, and active members of the community could be found there, working as school teachers or administrators. The supervisors of African American schools in hundreds of school districts throughout the South were called Jeanes Teachers, or Supervisors, and they exemplified leadership. Their titles were named for the Philadelphia Quaker philanthropist behind the Jeanes program, Anna T. Jeanes.

The Bossier Parish School Board tapped Charlotte Mitchell as its second Jeanes Teacher in 1925, following Carrie Martin. Mrs. Mitchell supervised Bossier Parish’s approximately one hundred African-American teachers spread throughout the rural parish. The parish superintendent stated that Mrs. Mitchell was expected to travel throughout Bossier to “Improve classroom instruction, direct industrial activities and promote production and preservation of foods, through school activities.”

Charlotte Watson Mitchell was born in Benton, Bossier Parish in 1880 to Ralph and Jane Watson. Ralph Watson was born enslaved in South Carolina in about 1825. Jane Watson was also born in South Carolina, in 1843. According to the 1880 Census, Ralph Watson could read but not write. He worked as a janitor at the Bossier Parish courthouse in the parish seat of Benton and owned 50 acres that he farmed. In 1912 Charlotte Watson married Oliver L. Mitchell. Oliver Mitchell worked in many occupations during his lifetime, including as a preacher in the Colored Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church, teacher, school administrator, and farmer.

When Charlotte Mitchell became a Jeanes Teacher for Bossier schools, she was 45 years old and the mother of three young children. Husband Oliver was working as principal of what became the Bossier Parish Training School in Benton where the family eventually lived on campus. As the “new” Jeanes Teacher, Charlotte Mitchell already had thirty-one years of teaching under her belt, mostly in rural schools, including eleven years in a one or two-teacher schoolhouse where she was responsible for teaching children in multiple grades at one time. She also taught algebra and Latin at the high school level and spent a year as a Jeanes Teacher in Lafayette County, Arkansas immediately north of Bossier Parish.

Charlotte Mitchell kept up Carrie Martin’s busy pace. In a “Report of Jeanes Agents” for 1928-29, there were sixty-two “Negro” public schools in Bossier Parish. She visited all but two of them over an average school term of 106 days. She also raised $1,615.00 for new, improved school buildings. On her visits, Mrs. Mitchell would check on the progress of the teachers. Retired Bossier Parish teacher Minnie B. Walker Payne remembered Charlotte Mitchell “was the supervisor of the school. And she would come around and sit…and write as you teach. Every class you taught she would write. After she would do that, she would have a conference with you and tell you of your weak points and tell your strong points…She never was harsh and she kept a smile. And she said, ‘Now teacher, it should be this way.’”

Ms. Payne also remembered how Charlotte Mitchell would help the teachers take care of the nutritional needs of the students. She reminisced:

And then too, we didn't have lunchrooms. We had…big old iron heaters like that with the pipe. And we would get commodities…I never will forget [Charlotte Mitchell]. In this commodity it was a lot of cabbage and apples. And she taught us how to cook apple and cabbage together. Oh, honey that's the best stuff in the world. You wouldn't believe it…Layer of apple, layer of cabbage on that wooden heater, get a great big old boil. And it was the best something.

Mrs. Payne said that Mrs. Mitchell was responsible for distributing the food for the schools, commodities that (along with all the cabbage and apples) typically included giant cans of vegetable soup that the teachers would heat up for the students.

A crowning achievement of Charlotte Mitchell’s tenure was the opening of the Bossier Parish Training School in Benton in 1928, producing its first secondary-level graduating class in in 1932. Training schools were post-elementary schools with an emphasis on industrial subjects or teacher training. The training school eventually expanded its offerings to increase the local supply of African American teachers by offering two years of college. As the only school of its kind in the parish, many students boarded in dormitories or with local families.

As a Jeanes Teacher, Charlotte Mitchell not only affected the educational life of the parish’s African-American community, but home life, as well. Over an eight-month period in 1932-1933, Charlotte Mitchell reported sixty visits to homes in addition to her seventy-five visits to schools. She led the Colored Home Demonstration Clubs in the parish and oversaw food canning centers in four of the parish’s African-American schools, allowing community members to put up thousands of tin cans of food each year. Many of the cans were set aside for the Red Cross to distribute to the hungry.

Charlotte Mitchell retired as Bossier Parish’s Jeanes Supervisor in 1937. She continued to teach for at least four more years at the Bossier Parish Training School where she still lived at the campus. Oliver Mitchell passed away in 1939. Charlotte Mitchell died in 1948 at the age of sixty-eight. However, Charlotte Mitchell’s name has endured. In 1954, the Bossier Parish School Board renamed the Bossier City Colored High School to Charlotte Mitchell High School. It is now known as Mitchell Community Center, with an adjoining Mitchell Park. The building, on Cox Street in “Old Bossier”, is used for youth and food bank programs by the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office. In 2017 the Charlotte Mitchell High School class of 1969, the last to graduate in the school, dedicated “Charlotte Ann Mitchell Memorial Drive” with a large and visible sign on Cox Street, honoring Charlotte Mitchell almost 70 years after her passing.

Visit the History Center in the Bossier Parish Central Library Complex for more information on the Jeanes Teachers or other local women for March, Women’s History Month. We are located in the Bossier Central Library Complex at 7204 Hutchison Drive in Bossier City, LA. 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. Or, go online to our collections database and search for “Catalogs” at http://bossier.pastperfectonline.com/ The History Center is open: M-Fri 9-6. Saturdays we are open by appointment. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org For other local history events, facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, or check out our blog at http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• Portrait of Charlotte A. Mitchell 1999.130.001
• Bossier Parish Training School (AKA C.H. Irion HS) in Benton, La. (Cover of Reunion Booklet 1986, Collection of BPL History Center)
• Charlotte Mitchell High School (AKA Bossier Colored HS) in Bossier City, La. 2013.016.001

Article by: Pam Carlisle 

Big Hands and a Big Legacy – The Story of Gary Johnson

It is a busy time to be a fan of sports this time of year, with the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and the NFL Super Bowl LX having just passed. Therefore, what better time to look back on one of Bossier Parish’s football legends, one Gary “Big Hands” Johnson.

Gary Johnson was born August 31, 1952, in Shreveport, Louisiana, though he would grow up in Bossier Parish. His iconic nickname, “Big Hands,” has a number of conflicting origins, with one standing out more than the others. According to the December 22, 1983, edition of the Shreveport Journal, Johnson was given the nickname at Bossier City’s Charlotte Mitchell High School after being told by Coach Riley Stewart during gym class to “Keep your big hands off my basketball!” Following desegregation, Johnson finished is high school career at Airline.

After high school, Gary Johnson went to Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana, having decided on the school long before any others that tried to recruit him. Johnson is said to have stated during his 1991 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame induction: “It would not have mattered if 100 schools contacted me, I was going to Grambling.” It was there at Grambling where he would really begin to shine, where he would letter all four years of his college career.

Now, some readers may be asking, which position did Gary Johnson play? The answer: Defensive Tackle (DT). Even in his early years of college football, Eddie Robinson (coach for Grambling State) was making the bold claim that Johnson was the best defensive lineman in college football at the time. For three years straight, he would be selected for the Associated Press Little All-American team, and in his senior year, he would make it to the All-American squad selected for the Newspaper Enterprise Association. All-American teams are a series of annual honors given to the best player in a position, as determined by various news organizations. The “Little” in Little American stands in for the size of the school, not the size of the player. For Johnson, who was attending Grambling State, this was a big honor. In his senior year alone, Johnson earned an impressive 136 tackles and 49 sacks, according to Jerry Byrd’s book “Louisiana Sports Legends.” Gary Johnson didn’t stop there though, as after graduating he would go on to join the National Football League.

In 1975, when Gary Johnson was drafted, it was to the San Diego Chargers in their first round (eighth overall) pick. While his career was comparatively quiet during his first years on the team, 1980 would see him earning the most sacks in the league for that year, at an impressive seventeen-and-a-half, leading the team’s impressive sixty sack record for the year. His time with the Chargers would be a long and storied nine years, but his career did not end with them. The same year he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers (1974), Gary Johnson would win the biggest game in the NFL, the Super Bowl. San Francisco would win Superbowl XIX with a score of 38-16 against the Miami dolphins, and Gary Johnson would get his ring

In 1975, when Gary Johnson was drafted, it was to the San Diego Chargers in their first round (eighth overall) pick. While his career was comparatively quiet during his first years on the team, 1980 would see him earning the most sacks in the league for that year, at an impressive seventeen-and-a-half, leading the team’s impressive sixty sack record for the year. His time with the Chargers would be a long and storied nine years, but his career did not end with them. The same year he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers (1974), Gary Johnson would win the biggest game in the NFL, the Super Bowl. San Francisco would win Superbowl XIX with a score of 38-16 against the Miami dolphins, and Gary Johnson would get his ring.

In 1991, Gary Johnson would be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, immortalizing his achievements alongside other legends from the state. In a story written for the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA) in 1991, Johnson reportedly stated that “’Just being there alongside Coach Robinson is a dream come true in itself.’”

Tragically, Gary Johnson would pass away in 2010 in his sleep. He left behind his wife Alice, son Gary II, daughter Morgan, two granddaughters, two sisters, and three brothers. Much of the information from this article comes from a combination of the work of Jerry Byrd, NFL stats recorded by the league, and his obituary.

If you have any photos or other information relating to the history of Bossier City or Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. 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. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/

Images: 

• Gary Johnson - The Shreveport Journal - 22 Nov 1972
• Gary Johnson in 1985 - The Daily Advertiser/Associated Press - 20 Jun 1991

Article by: Jonah Daigle