I guess a man’s job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able – always remembering the results will be infinitesimal – and to attend to his own soul.
U. S. Senator LeRoy Percy,
quoted in Lanterns on the Levee by William Alexander Percy
December 3, 1905 – March 1, 1987
Her charming Southern drawl rings in my mind — my grandmother, Sallie Ellis Buckner, telling me with enough passion to sear it into my memory, “Your grand-fah-thah was a smaht, smaht man.”
Though we never knew him, my siblings and I and our cousins respectfully refer to him as “Granddaddy.” Our grandmother, “Grandmommy,” called him Edward, and their close friends knew him as Buck.
He died before most of his grandchildren were born. But there was never a doubt about his love, devotion, and influence in our family.
Granddaddy was not famous, though his name, along with others, is permanently displayed on a tarnished brass plaque affixed to the Johnson Street bridge in my hometown of Tallulah, Louisiana.
He was an alderman on the town council in 1937 when they replaced the old bridge crossing Brushy Bayou, a wide, brown, almost stagnant stream meandering from one end of town to the other.
His ten grandchildren glimpsed his personality through his three sons – quiet, but not shy; bookish, but not nerdy; serious, but not humorless. We were told many stories of his hard work, integrity, and beautiful lyric tenor voice.
I remember a framed photograph of the slender man in his early 30s which hung in the TV room above a rolltop desk in my grandparents’ home. His neatly trimmed dark-brown hair, clean shave, and brown eyes behind thick glasses portrayed a remarkable resemblance to my father, his middle son.
We never met him, yet his DNA lives in us, his descendants, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and on and on. And, as I delve into his personal scrapbook and letters, Granddaddy becomes less of a stranger to me, revealing a good man who loved his family and worked to make his community better.
He faced trials we read about in history books: atrocities during the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, and The Great Depression of the 1930s.
My grandfather persevered through personal challenges: supporting his mother and sister after his father’s death, being robbed at gunpoint, running a bank and raising three sons during the Great Depression. His resilience during those days, and his efforts to improve life in his world give me hope and encouragement and make me proud to know a small piece of him lives on through me.
My grandfather, Edward Aylette Buckner, was born in Newellton, Louisiana on June 19, 1901, in his parents’ home. The old home still stands, not in its original location on Verona Street, but a few miles to the south, on Hwy 605, facing Lake St. Joseph.
His parents, Louis and Jeannie “Janie” Percy Buckner, named him Edward Aylette which were such common names in the family that it is difficult to keep them all straight. My grandfather’s uncle, Edward Buckner, fought bravely for the Confederacy and died a young man at the Battle of Shiloh (April 6 – 7, 1862) in Tennessee. The name Aylette was passed down from his grandfather, William Aylett Buckner (1798 – 1886), who established the family in Natchez, Mississippi and Tensas Parish, Louisiana in the early 1800s.
Present-day Newellton, a small farming town of less than 900 residents, is in northeastern Louisiana on Lake St. Joseph, one of many oxbow lakes along the Mississippi River. As part of Tensas Parish, its history is steeped in plantation life of the 19th century and native American civilizations before that. The Buckners, Percys, and Rouths, my paternal family ancestors, were early landowners in Tensas Parish. Before Newellton was incorporated, it was known as Routhwood, being a part of the plantation by that name and owned by Routh family members. Years before the Civil War, plantation homes lined the banks of Lake St. Joseph. But during the war, Union troops burned them to the ground. (The Burning of Lake St. Joseph by Jeffrey Alan Owens)
The only surviving home along the lake belonged to the Routh family. As the story is told, it survived because, when her husband was away, the mistress of the estate traveled upriver to General Grant’s headquarters, begged him not to destroy her home, and offered it as a hospital for Union soldiers. Winter Quarters still stands on the banks of Lake St. Joseph.
In 1904, when the settlement had only a few hundred residents, Newellton was incorporated, and Edward’s father, Louis Buckner, was appointed the Village of Newellton’s first mayor, serving in that office until 1909.
Louis Buckner, another common family name, was born in Natchez, Mississippi in the family home called “Airlie,” (also used as a Union hospital during the Civil War).
As a young man, Louis moved to Tensas Parish and farmed his family’s land. The planter’s life must not have interested him much, as later he literally gambled away two family plantations. It seemed he planned it that way so his sons would not feel obligated to choose farming as a profession. Instead, Louis encouraged his two sons to pursue banking careers. With no land inheritance, Edward would never walk in a farmer’s shoes. He would, however, loan him money.
Louis continued serving the parish for many years as Justice of the Peace, Notary Public, Postmaster, and Newellton’s Mayor.
Newellton was named after E. D. Newell, a prominent planter, landowner, and inventor, who was grandfather to Louis’s three children from his first marriage.
Louis’s first wife, Tensora Ella (Ellen) Newell Buckner, died at 31 in 1885, leaving Louis to raise their three young children.
Jeannie Percy married Louis, who was 23 years her senior, in 1890, and stepped dutifully into motherhood for Tensora’s and Louis’s children. Though Jeannie was closer in age to her stepchildren than to her husband, she fostered a lasting bond with them, and the family grew when Jeannie and Louis had four children of their own.
After high school in Newellton, Edward followed in the footsteps of his much older half-brother, Louis Jr., and began in the banking business at age 16. He moved fourteen miles south to the town of St. Joseph, the parish seat, and worked at the Bank of St. Joseph and Trust Company (where Louis, Jr. had been director) while residing in Kate Johnson’s boarding house. (1920 U. S. Census.)
When Edward was 20 years old, his elderly father died, and Edward became sole support for his mother, Jeannie, and his younger sister, Lucille. His mentors and bosses were kind to him, promoting him the next year to cashier at Mer Rouge State Bank. Edward, young and burdened with family responsibilities, moved his mother and sister to the even smaller village of Mer Rouge in Morehouse Parish.
It must have been bittersweet for Jeannie to move away from Newellton and Tensas Parish. Her family, the Percys and Rouths, and her husband’s Buckner family boasted long established histories as landowners there. Though Jeannie had been born in Texas three days after the Civil War ended, her father, Dr. Robert Percy moved his family back to Routhwood in Tensas Parish where he practiced medicine from 1886 until his death in 1900.
Opposing the Invisible Empire (Ku Klux Klan)
Before my grandfather moved his family to Mer Rouge, an insidious, hate-filled political influence wormed its way into Morehouse Parish. The crimes and intimidation of the Ku Klux Klan were well known.
On August 24, 1922, two white men from Mer Rouge were kidnapped by a hooded gang and were never seen alive again.
The Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist hate group under the guise of Protestant Christianity, had gained a second foothold in America in the early 1920s, long after their first reign of terror during Reconstruction. Klan members and sympathizers had taken control of the Morehouse Parish Law and Order League, a group established to “protect the town’s morality” by ridding the surrounding community of “thieves, bootleggers, prostitutes, womanizers, habitual lawbreakers, and other grossly immoral people.”
The mayor, sheriff, law officers, and business leaders may have been members or sympathizers. Operating in pseudo-secrecy, even though most residents knew who they were, Klan members did their dirty work – intimidation, destruction, punishment, murder – wearing hooded costumes meant to disguise their identities.
No one was charged with the disappearance of the two anti-Klan men, but the case garnered national media attention.
While the F.B.I. and other agencies haggled over jurisdiction, Louisiana Governor John Parker hired divers and outside investigators to drag area lakes in search of corpses. In December 1922, two decomposed male bodies surfaced in Lake Lafourche, a short distance from Mer Rouge.
After multiple grand jury deliberations, no murder indictments were ever brought. It was well known the Klan was so powerful, it could have key witnesses prevented from testifying in trials. It would even run people out of the state if it served their interests.
In the Spring of 1923, my grandfather moved his family to Mer Rouge, fully aware of the Klan’s anarchy. He corresponded with friends and colleagues in Tensas Parish concerning local and state political candidates’ associations with the KKK, and he opposed men he had known all his life because of their KKK affiliation.
Not everyone feared the Klan. Edward knew his cousin, U. S. Senator LeRoy Percy of Greenville, Mississippi, strongly opposed the KKK. There were many outspoken opponents of the Klan, and Senator Percy was one of the most fearless leaders to speak out.
Edward mailed copies of Senator Percy’s anti-Klan speech to his friends in St. Joseph and Newellton. W.M. Davidson of Panola Company in Tensas Parish wrote to Edward in June 1923 thanking him for sending a copy of the speech:
“…I have been trying to get this speech for some time… It was read with a great deal of interest and pleasure, for the Senator certainly removed the cuticle from the members of the hooded band.
Personally, as you so well know, I have opposed the organization [Klan] very bitterly and have been so recognized in the beginning that no good could come to our people from the organization, and that it would create dissention and discord and hate and bitterness when unity, cooperation, and concord are so greatly needed.”
Excerpt of letter from W. M. Davidson, June 1923
The speech referenced was most likely the one Senator Percy made in March 1923, which held the same anti-Klan message he had presented publicly for over a year, discrediting and ridiculing the white supremacist hate group. He wrote his sentiments in an article, “The Modern Ku Klux Klan”, in July 1922 published in The Atlantic Monthly:
This organization poses as the representative and sole defender of Protestant Americanism. Its methods bear no semblance to those of any government except Bolshevist Russia. A decree of the Ku Klux Klan, handed down by Simmons of Atlanta, is as abhorrent to democracy and Americanism as a decree of the Soviet government handed out by Lenin. One is as much a menace to orderly government as the other. One is as undemocratic and un-American as the other. Either is a menace to law, order, and freedom.
Percy continued…
The most malign effect of the organization is the destruction of the spirit of helpfulness, cooperation, and love in the community where it intrudes itself. In a community composed of Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants, white and black, where the life and progress of the community has been marked by helpfulness and cooperation, friendship and harmony, this organization comes to plant discord, racial hatred, religious dissension, and intolerance. Whatever may be its aspirations, it can breed only suspicion and distrust among the members of a community. It paralyzes all spirit of cooperation. It is violative of every principle of Christianity, repugnant to sense of right, justice, and fair dealing between man and man. Good citizenship should actively and openly oppose its entry into any community.
The evils of the organization should be pointed out, so that good men will not join it, and active war should be made upon those who do join it.
I wonder if my grandfather, though in his early 20s, thought he could stop the Klan whose members were long-time pillars of the community? Maybe these events motivated him into public service. In June 1924, Edward was duly elected Alderman on the Village of Mer Rouge Council.
Marriage
The political climate and societal tensions did not prevent Edward from noticing a pretty girl, Sallie Pauline Ellis, who had returned to her hometown of Mer Rouge from Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, where she had lived with her aunt. Sallie’s grandfather, who she had lived with in Mer Rouge, was dying and she needed to be with him.
After her grandfather’s death in March 1924, Sallie remained in town with her grandmother to help with her two younger brothers. Edward was smitten with Sallie, and their romance blossomed.
Six months after her grandfather died, Edward and Sallie married in September 1924 in a small ceremony at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Mer Rouge with Edward’s sister, Lucille, serving as Maid of Honor and Randolph Percy (his first cousin) standing as Best Man.
The following year, their first son, Edward Aylette Buckner, Jr., was born. He was called Aylette, like his great-grandfather.
Moving to Tallulah
Early in 1926, Edward sought to move up in the banking business. He had higher aspirations for his family and his future than the small village of Mer Rouge. Through banking contacts in St. Joseph and Natchez, and aided by half-brother, Louis Jr., who was well known in the banking industry in New Orleans, Edward worked and trained in Natchez and New Orleans, leaving Sallie and baby Aylette in a rental house in Mer Rouge.
He landed a job as head cashier at the newly established Madison National Bank in Tallulah. Only 18 miles west of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and less than 10 miles from the Mississippi River, Tallulah was a larger town with more opportunities.
They did not know it then, but proximity to the river would impact their lives only a few months later.
The 1920s showed a growing and progressive population and economy. Between 1920 and 1930, the population more than doubled in size, from approximately 1300 to 3300 residents. Business boomed with the establishment of the Tallulah Air Port, Bloom’s Arcade (the first enclosed shopping mall), and the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company.
My grandparents bought property on South Walnut Street across from the 3-story school building which faced Brushy Bayou.
In December 1926, my father, Louis Buckner, was born in the new, two-bedroom home.
The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927
“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver—not aloud, but to himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at.”
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883
In the fall before my father was born, rain inundated the Mississippi River Valley, filling its rivers and tributaries earlier than usual. The winter brought significant snowfall in the upper states. In March and April 1927, torrents of rain pummeled the already soaked delta farmland. High winds and tornadoes rampaged through states along the river from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. The deluge was greater, and more worrisome, than the country could remember.
Officials and experts assured the public everything was under control. No catastrophic plan was necessary, no emergency federal aid was needed. Privately, they told a different story. Some said it did not take a crystal ball to see that a devastating catastrophe was inevitable.
On April 21, 1927, at 8 a.m. about 100 miles upriver from Tallulah at Mound Landing, Mississippi, the levee crevassed. Under the immense force of the swollen river, muddy water crashed through the embankment killing countless laborers who were forced to work in vain sandbagging the levee.
Within days, Louisiana levees crumbled. Walls of water destroyed crops, homes, livestock, livelihoods, and lives in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and other states.
People living in the Louisiana Delta had little time to evacuate west to higher ground. Edward sent Sallie with their two little boys, Aylette and Louis, to stay with his sister and brother-in-law in Bastrop, Louisiana.
Edward’s letters told of his relatives in Tensas Parish evacuating to higher grounds in Mississippi. Men lifted automobiles onto land-locked rail cars and elevated front porches. My grandfather and others raised furniture and appliances onto scaffolding or sawhorses. Livestock and other animals were loaded onto barges. The message “Send Boats” was telegraphed everywhere.
On May 5th, Edward wrote to reassure Sallie, telling her not to believe the stories of suffering:
“…all of the women and children are away, and the men are having crap games right on the sidewalk.”
With each letter to Sallie, Edward wrote of the hope that the water would begin to recede, but that was many weeks away. His letters began with “My Dearest Sallie” or “My Darling” and ended with “Kiss the babies” and “Love me.” He wanted desperately to be with his family.
The flood water did not reach inside their new home. However, the Madison National Bank, where my grandfather was cashier, flooded and was relocated to the Snyder building.
Edward wrote Sallie telling her it was not safe to travel, especially with the babies. Dead animals and fish floated haphazardly in the stagnate waters causing putrid odors and disease. Muddy sediment settled everywhere.
It took the rest of the year for Tallulah to recover from the flood, although many buildings survived the flood and are still standing today. Construction on the new high school building across the road from the Buckner home resumed after the water receded, and planters pushed their seed into the alluvial sediment without machinery.
The following year, in October 1928, Sallie gave birth to their third son, William Ellis Buckner.
The Great Depression
Edward worked as cashier at Madison National Bank in Tallulah from 1926 until March 1934. He might have stayed longer – it could have been a good, long-term job – but after the flood, the Depression hit, then he was robbed at gunpoint at the bank. He lost the stomach for the banking business when Madison National Bank went into receivership.
During the Great Depression, Edward witnessed desperate times for desperate men doing their best to take care of their families, some honestly and some not.
He and the assistant cashier, Mr. Kell, helped bring down a counterfeit operation out of Shreveport. A man tried to pass a bogus $100 bill at the bank. It was discovered after the man drove away, but they chased him by car down the highway, and he was apprehended.
In November 1932, robbers held a gun to my grandfather’s head, locked him in the bank vault, and made off with $6000 in cash. Edward used a spare key in his waistcoat pocket to escape. After the crime was reported to the sheriff’s office, the entire community rallied for a manhunt, and the trio of bandits was caught. All but $250 was returned to the bank, and Edward was given the handgun used by the thieves. (Newspaper article: Trio in Tallulah Bank Robbery)
My grandfather was a Mason, as were his father and grandfather. But he became angry and disillusioned with the men in the organization when they borrowed money from Madison National Bank to build a lodge on Mulberry Street, then defaulted on the loan. Even though he was recognized as a prominent Masonic leader in his obituary, he had rejected the organization long before. The family Masonic legacy ended, and Edward’s sons never took part in the group.
By March 1934, Edward was selling insurance. He drove throughout four parishes in Northeast Louisiana during a financially tough period for most people, including the Buckners. My father, his middle son, recalled being awakened in the early morning hours to help push-start the car so Edward could get to appointments. Though Sallie, Edward, and the three boys probably had more than most, times were hard for everyone.
“We didn’t have any money. No one had money,” my father told me.
Their homemade baseball gloves looked like oven mitts. A family friend gave the Buckner boys a saxophone, so they took turns playing it in the school band. The boys spent summer months working on their grandparents’ farm in Mer Rouge. Their letters to Sallie and Edward revealed everything was in short supply.
Edward eventually left the insurance sales job and went to work for Delta Cash Wholesale Grocery, where he worked until his death in 1955.
Community service was in my grandfather’s genes.
He was elected to serve on the Tallulah town council several years, and helped organize the First Regional Clearing House Association in Louisiana. He belonged to the Rotary Club, Bear Lake Club, Masons, Tallulah Golf Club, Louisiana Delta Discount Corporation, Teflis Grotto (a fine arts club in Monroe, Louisiana), and The Tallulah Club. He was a Boy Scouts of America Committeeman, Madison Parish Notary Public, and a member of the Trinity Episcopal Church.
Edward played golf and served on the committee to build the Tallulah Country Club in 1929. His sons shared his love of the game, and several grandchildren became avid golfers.
He served as Tallulah Commissioner of Sanitation, American Red Cross Treasurer, and State Police Special Agent. He was a member of the Village Democratic Executive Committee, Civilian Volunteer Defense Service, Madison Parish Defense Savings Committee, and the Madison Parish Chamber of Commerce.
His community service had been important to my grandfather, whose scrapbook is filled with memorabilia from these organizations.
Musician
“Your grandfather had a beautiful voice. He was the only person I would sing with,” Mrs. Rosalie Rountree told me, her Southern drawl filled with a diva’s pride.
She was an accomplished vocalist and pianist, born and educated in Natchez, but who moved to Tallulah when she married. Her family, like my grandparents, were members of Trinity Episcopal Church. I imagine their church services had some of the most beautiful music in town.
My grandfather’s scrapbook holds event programs and newspaper articles chronicling his public vocal performances for community events, church services, and local radio broadcasts. He was often music program director for the various civic organizations to which he belonged.
One of my favorite treasures handed down to me from my father is a 78-rpm Silvertone Disc home recording of Edward singing “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life.”
The Tallulah Men’s Club, where Edward and his friends enjoyed social drinking (after Prohibition, I assume) and gambling, was built across from the courthouse. Although he enjoyed playing cards, he did not gamble away family property like his father.
There is no mention of Prohibition or drinking in Granddaddy’s letters until the late 1930s, when he swore to Sallie that he would never take another drink. Apparently, my grandmother had scolded him and threatened to leave him, saying, “I’m young enough to start over.”
I doubt he kept his promise to abstain from the bottle, but their marriage endured.
Back to Tensas Parish
My father, Louis Buckner, referred to Tensas Parish as “my family’s stomping ground.” Though Edward had moved away as a young man and made his life in a neighboring parish, he stayed connected to his homeland and made certain his boys knew their roots.
In 1945, after World War II ended, Edward purchased undeveloped real estate on Lake Bruin, an oxbow lake near St. Joseph in Tensas Parish. He and my grandmother were one of the first families to build a camp on the lake where they enjoyed fishing, swimming, boating, and entertaining friends.
When I was a child, my father and his older brother built camps on the property, and their younger brother maintained Edward’s original camp. We have many fond memories of our time spent on Lake Bruin, and Buckner grandchildren and great-grandchildren enjoy the lakeside property to this day.
Tuesday, April 19, 1955
Edward came home from a business trip complaining about a terrible pain in his throat. He told Sallie, “I think the water I drank was too cold.” After dinner, it was certain that cold water was not the problem. He went to bed, then asked Sallie to call the doctor, who came to his house and treated him.
Later that night, he died from heart issues. Edward was 53 years old.
Granddaddy left behind a wife, three grown sons, two daughters-in-law, and three young grandchildren.
Edward Aylette Buckner came from a family of landowners, planters, and lawyers who were fiercely loyal to their heritage.
No doubt, he grew up hearing stories of the Civil War: his father, Louis Buckner, served in Major Isaac Harrison’s Tensas Calvary; his Uncle Edward died in battle; other uncles, Captain David Buckner and Captain William Buckner, fought for the Confederacy. Edward’s maternal grandfather, Dr. Robert Percy, was a surgeon for the Confederacy during the Civil War and a doctor in Tensas Parish.
Many generations of Buckners, Percys, and Rouths are buried in Natchez, Mississippi near my grandfather’s grave, near my great-great-grandfather’s plantation home.
Edward Aylette Buckner’s descendants are accountants, engineers, artists, musicians, teachers, entrepreneurs, and business owners. Some served in the United States military.
Though none held public office as he did, our grandfather left us with an innate sense of duty to leave the world a better place to live in.
