Earth Day is around the corner (April 22nd), and March, Women’s History Month, is now over. But when it comes to stewardship of the environment, local women are still front-of-mind. There are two inspired and inspiring women in recent Bossier history whose names especially seem synonymous with the goals of Earth Day, a celebration of clean air, land, and water: Dianne Chandler and Ruth Tupper.
MARTHA “DIANNE” WALSWORTH CHANDLER
A native of Jonesville, Louisiana, a 1960 Bossier High School graduate and an Air Force wife, Dianne went back to college for her degrees after her two boys were grown and husband retired from the Air Force. Her goal was simply to find a job that was “special” and she felt extremely fortunate to have found that with the Clean City Committee job. It allowed her to work with “every facet of the community, [and] get to work with everybody – the government, the children in the schools and with the men in the sanitation dept, just everybody.’’ She told the Shreveport Times in 1988 when she was interviewed for its “VIP” column, “This position is in a way very idealistic, but at the same time it is a necessity. Solid waste management is going to be a big, big industry; everyone knows the problems we are having with our environment. And the ramifications that cleanliness and aesthetics have on industrial development are part of it.”
When Dianne Chandler passed away of cancer at age 60, Lo Walker, then Bossier City Chief Administrative Officer and later Mayor, gave the eulogy at her funeral while fighting back tears. “She was the perfect example of a dedicated public servant,” Walker told the crowd at the Bossier Civic Center. “She was the heart and soul of efforts to clean up Bossier City.” Fellow committee member Mary Caplis of Elm Grove wrote in an editorial, “I hope a person of Dianne’s vision and vitality is waiting in the wings to carry on the torch she has lit for the benefit of Bossier City, Bossier Parish and the Ark-La-Tex.” Perhaps the simplest and most memorable tribute came from journalist James Wellborn: “If you really want to be remembered, write something or plant a tree. Dianne Chandler planted trees, and she will be remembered for it. “
“Miss Ruth” was an avid recycler and organic gardener who lived a minimalist lifestyle by choice to support her values and philanthropic causes, especially for the environment and animals. With money largely saved from a modest salary as a bookkeeper (she retired from McClamroch Machinery Company), she once was the largest single contributor to the Louisiana chapter of the Nature Conservancy, through which she hoped to do her part to heal Louisiana’s natural environment. Doing more than just write a check, she attended volunteer days and group walks, and visited the sites she helped to preserve. An avid reader, she kept well-informed of issues such as clean water and clean air. She also contributed to a wide array of local and national charities such as the Humane Society, ASPCA, the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, Earth Justice, the Wilderness Society, American Institute of Cancer, the Salvation Army, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, “just to see what they’d do next,” she quipped in 2002.
As a teen and young adult, Miss Ruth could be found frequently mentioned in her hometown papers and local agricultural news in rural Jeff Davis Parish as school valedictorian at Roanoke High School in 1940, as participant or organizer of school or church activities, and especially in mentions of her agricultural skills. Reading these, it becomes apparent where her love and concern for the health of the land came from: her childhood in Welsh, Louisiana on her father’s rice farm. One article, written in 1941 in the Lafayette newspaper the Daily Advertiser, was titled, “Poultry Raising Brings Big Returns on F.L. Tupper Farm – Ruth Tupper, Daughter of Jeff Davis Farmer, Big Boss of Poultry Department.” She also periodically had ads in the local papers where she was selling plants she grew and sold, such as strawberry and tomato plants and was mentioned for her prize-winning flowers.
Extremely frugal and modest, the adult Ruth Tupper is basically invisible in the Shreveport and Bossier newspapers, with the noted exception of the Forum newsmagazine’s cover story about her in September, 2002. The article is titled, “Sweet Charity – the inspirational story of how Miss Ruth gives back to the world,” describing her philanthropy “far from the social scenes” typically associated with philanthropists. Folks would see her out collecting cans and assume she was homeless. When they’d insist on handing her a dollar bill, she would smile and accept it. She was a beloved patron at the Bossier Central Library through the first decade of the 2000’s and was famous for her beautiful homegrown tomatoes she would give away by the bushel. She grew her all her vegetables organically, making her own compost. “I was organic before organic was cool,” she happily paraphrased to the Forum writer. Ms. Ruth passed away in 2012 at the age of 89.
If you have stories or photographs of some of the area’s civic-minded women, or environmentally-minded citizens, we’d love to see or hear them, and perhaps make copies for our collection, with your permission. 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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