Lydia Fay Walker: From Babies to Seniors, She Served them All

Here’s another extraordinary Bossier Parish woman to celebrate in March, which is Women’s History Month: Mrs. Lydia Fay Walker. Mrs. Walker became Bossier Parish’s last Jeanes Teacher, or Jeanes Supervisor, prior to school desegregation. A Jeanes Supervisor was a multi-faceted position named for the Quaker woman, Anna T. Jeanes, who funded a program to improve the training levels of teachers in Southern U.S. schools for African-American children. The Jeanes Teachers also supervised home demonstration work for African-American women in Bossier Parish, one of the few parishes that added responsibilities such as teaching food preservation, home management skills, public health, and doing home visits and homemakers clubs. They also organized community members to raise money to build more or better schools.  In many ways, Jeanes Supervisors were like a cross between teachers and Peace Corps Volunteers. 

In addition to her Jeanes teacher job, Lydia Fay Walker worked relentlessly throughout her life for the Parish’s citizens. She worked during segregation, especially for African-American students, and after segregation, she worked to improve conditions for every race and age range, from baby to senior citizen. 

Mrs. Walker was a native of Plain Dealing and a resident of Bossier City for 55 years. Her education career spanned that of a classroom teacher, principal and supervisor of elementary and secondary education and also as a parish-wide supervisor of adult education and a supervisor of student teachers from Bishop College in Dallas, her alma mater. She received a master’s from Columbia University and a business education degree from Spaulding Business College in Shreveport. She was married to L.G. Walker Jr., a school bus driver and farming truck driver. It seems they had no children of their own though they did have Lydia Fay’s sister and a young niece living with them on Hamilton Street in Bossier City.  

Through much of the 1960’s, essentially all aspects of life in Bossier Parish were segregated, including philanthropy. Lydia Fay Walker worked with fellow Jeanes supervisor Inez Cenales (at times they split the parish schools among them) and Jack Strong, president of the Bossier Parish Negro Teachers Association, as co-chairs of the 1948 March of Dimes (Polio Fund) for the parish’s “negro schools” in 1948, and was the point person for the Shreveport Times’ “Negro Joy Fund” in Bossier, calling for clothing and furniture and especially monetary donations for food. She was also co-chair of the American Red Cross “negro division” drive.  

However, Mrs. Walker’s fundraising would occasionally cross color lines even before desegregation. In the November 13, 1947, issue of the “Planters Press” of Bossier City, principal Jack L. Strong of Bossier City Colored High School issued an appreciation: “We, the Bossier City Colored Football Team along with our coaching staff, take this method to thank Lydia Fay Walker, supervisor of colored schools in Bossier Parish, for her soliciting from our white friends, funds to help our football team purchase their jerseys and sweaters, which they now have in their possession.” Mrs. Walker also served on the board of the Caddo-Bossier chapter for the Louisiana Association for Mental Health in the 1960’s.  

During her “retirement” in the 1970s and 1980s, Mrs. Walker worked and organized for social causes in a newly-integrating community. She directed the Bossier City Day Care Center, which she had helped found in the 1950’s when she saw a desperate need for it. Without it, she told a Shreveport paper, many children would be left with brothers and sisters who had to drop out of school to care for them, or they might be left alone. The center served as a second home for thousands of local children.  Mrs. Walker stated, “in training and caring for the children, we try to develop the whole child, so when they leave, they will be able to adjust well in public or private schools.” Transportation, breakfast, a hot lunch and snack were served, and playtime and naptime observed.  

Mrs. Walker is also credited with organizing the Bossier Parish Head Start program for preschoolers, was active in the United Way, the Voters League, the Cancer Drive and March of Dimes. She was a member of the Bossier Parish School Board’s advisory committee for school districts 3 and 13. She ran for school board membership in 1978 and lost by only 9 votes in a runoff election against former Bossier city mayor and real estate investor Jake Cameron. She told the Shreveport Times that her priorities were “providing quality education for all people, reducing dropouts and expanding equipment and curricula.” She ran again, unsuccessfully, in 1985.  

For the other end of the lifespan, in 1987 Lydia Fay Walker served as the member-at-large from Bossier City on the Bossier Council on Aging. She succumbed to cancer on October 9, 1989. Her funeral was held in Shreveport at Good Samaritan funeral home, officiated by Bro. Leroy Hudson, pastor of Bennet Street Church of Christ in old downtown Bossier City.  

If you have stories or photographs of some of the area’s civic-minded women, we’d love to see them, and perhaps make copies for our collection, with your permission. If you would like to have our “Women Who Made a Difference in Bossier Parish” program, which includes Lydia Fay Walker (in Part 2) or any of our other programs presented to your group, please contact us, as well. We are located at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA and 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 

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Elect Lydia Fay Walker for Bossier Parish School Board, 1978, Bossier Parish Libraries History Collection

Article by: Pam Carlisle