Have you ever had questions about gardening, landscaping, pressure cooking, furniture refinishing, public health, floral design, nutrition, infant care, historic preservation, city cleanup, sewing, personal hygiene, or food preservation? Would you believe that for 30 years Bossier Parish had one woman who could provide you with answers to questions on this wide variety of subjects? That woman was Lettie van Landingham. She described her work as “doing everything you can’t get the other fellow to do.”
Lettie was born in Claiborne Parish on August 21, 1893. She graduated from Louisiana Industrial Institute in Ruston, which is now called Louisiana Tech. Miss van Landingham began her teaching profession in 1914, teaching home economics in De Ridder, Lake Charles, Minden, and Belcher. She accepted the position as the first Bossier Parish Home Demonstration Agent on August 1, 1929. She held this post with the LSU Cooperative Extension Service until her retirement in 1960; completing 31 years of service.
Home demonstration agents taught local women vital homemaking techniques through organized clubs. These clubs were in even the smallest of Bossier Parish communities. Representatives of the clubs formed a larger Parish Home Demonstration council. These Home Demonstration clubs were popular in from the 1930s through the 1950s, a time when our parish was segregated. Bossier did have an active home demonstration program for African American women. Lettie worked with community leaders, including supervisory teacher Charlotte Mitchell, to assist all clubs in the parish. In 1931, Bossier’s African American clubs filled 6,000 tin cans at canning centers located within 4 of the local Black schools, with many of the cans going to the American Red Cross to distribute to the hungry.
Lettie pioneered the food preservation program in Bossier. She taught rural girls in 4-H classes and women in home economic skills, particularly food production and preservation. These skills were especially important during the Great Depression of the 1930s and during World War II, when food preservation was a necessity. The price of canned goods was prohibitive for many rural Bossier Parish residents, so Lettie took orders throughout the parish. She then placed one large bulk order and had an entire truckload of canned goods delivered. This bulk price allowed families to purchase the cans they needed at a reasonable price.
She also wanted to help make cooking both easier and safer. Pressure cookers were considered dangerous by some housewives. The Bossier Banner ran an article in 1932 titled, “Caution needed; Cooker Explodes During Past Week” when Mr. A.E. Robinson, the agricultural instructor at Haughton High School, was burned by steam in an accident with a pressure cooker. Miss Van submitted a list of 5 rules for safe pressure cooker use and also demonstrated how to can corn in a pressure cooker over an improvised brick furnace.
The beloved “Miss Van”, as she was affectionately called, set up 23 canning centers, a community frozen food plant, and helped bring electricity to rural Bossier Parish residents. She was also one of the founders of the Bossier Restoration Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving Bossier Parish’s historic sites. She received a certificate for outstanding work from the National Home Demonstration Association. She conducted health clinics with the assistance of local doctors and the Webster Parish Public Health Unit, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Bossier Public Health Department in 1937. During this time, she worked with a relief agency and, with the help of W.P.A. labor, built approximately 85 sanitary toilets. Several rural communities in Bossier Parish did not have running water or indoor toilets at this time.
She firmly believed in beautifying her community. She initiated the Plain Dealing Clean-Up Campaign in 1930, which was awarded a national certificate. One of her pet projects was the Keep Bossier Beautiful Club. She fought to rid the highways of litter and spearheaded a campaign to obtain the Cleanest City Award for Bossier City in 1966.
In a 1921 letter from the state superintendent, the value of a Home Demonstration Agent is discussed. “When the right agent is selected, she is always worth many times her salary to the parish. She goes into homemaking clubs of various kinds, which results in the girls having a deeper appreciation of a good home and in their knowledge and skill in making it such. If the agent is a woman of tact and wisdom (and she usually is) she gets into the homes of the people throughout the parish, especially the country homes, makes the acquaintance of the housewives and the girls who are beyond school age, and establishes among them better ideals of homemaking. She shows them what a good home is and how to provide the elements that result in good homes.”
In 1968, on her 75th birthday, Mayor George Nattin proclaimed Wednesday, August 21 as Lettie Van Landingham Day in Bossier City. This honor was in tribune to the people of Bossier City and for the example she set in friendship and devotion to her work. Sadly, Lettie was killed in a traffic accident 8 years after her retirement, on October 24, 1968. “Miss Van gained the respect with all whom she has served and with whom she has worked.”
* To see an illustrated video (5.36 minutes) of this biography, with additional images of Lettie van Landingham and of home demonstration work, check out the Bossier Parish Libraries YouTube channel. Go to www.youtube.com then search “Bossier Parish Libraries” and choose the History Center’s “Playlist.” or use the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba8ERyDuKFI&list=PLHkR-8TzYOEZcND1t3EpBk6FZBFStx3tX&index=2
To visit us in person, the History Center is now within the new Bossier Parish Libraries Central Complex at 850 City Hall Drive, Bossier City, LA (across Beckett Street from the original History Center and “old” Central Library). 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 follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.
Images:
Lettie van Landingham, portrait.
Bossier City wins Fourth District Cleanest City competition. (L-R) Mayor Geoge Nattin, Lettie van Landingham, Mrs. L.H. Taylor, Mrs. W.E. Piper, and George Adams. May, 1966. Photo from the Marie Wissman Collection, BPL History Center.
Cover of the Bossier Parish Home Demonstration Council Yearbook for 1953 – 1954, showing locations of Home Demonstration Clubs throughout the parish.
Article by: Marisa Richardson
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