Person:John Magee (11)

My grandfather, John H. Magee, was born 4 April 1905 on the farm of his father Albert Magee, which lay three miles north of Franklinton and on the north side of Hays Creek, where the creek drains into Bogue Chitto River. He was one of the five children of Albert and Mary Bateman Magee who grew to adulthood, being four boys and one girl. Grandpa John often remarked to me that if the boys got sick, they didn't get any special treatment, but if his sister Odile fell ill, she was taken to see specialists in New Orleans. His father Albert inherited his land, in turn, from his father Jacob, and the family was engaged in significant farming operations, growing staple crops such as cotton, and also raising substantial numbers of sheep. During his boyhood days, Grandpa walked to school in Franklinton and back each day, a distance of about 6 miles round trip. He rounded off his education at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he obtained a B.S. degree in Business Administration. He met my grandmother Mildred Brock at an evening soiree in Walthall County, Mississippi, and they were married in 1932. Upon their marriage, they removed to Kentwood, Louisiana, where Grandpa worked in a bank. However, the stock market crash, along with the advancement in age of his parents, forced his removal back to the old homeplace. His parents lived with him until their deaths in 1950 and 1955, respectively. Grandpa was a shrewd businessman, and with the rise of the dairy industry in Washington Parish in the middle part of the twentieth century, he foresaw the need for farm supply operations to provide feed and fertilizer to local dairymen. As such, he founded both Magee Feed and S&M Fertilizer in Franklinton, in addition to continuing the operation of his three dairies. Grandpa loved to go to the sale barns in the area, where he would socialize with local dairymen. I accompanied him on many of these trips when I was a boy, and I remember that, more often than not, he purchased cows on each of these trips...whether he really needed them, or not. Grandpa John was a Baptist. His mother was a charter member of Clifton Baptist Church in 1910, and he was a member and/or deacon of that church from that time until his death. A very religious man, some of my most distinctive memories of him were sitting in a chair, Bible open in his lap, listening to television preachers. He was an old-time man in the best sense of that term, never showing much emotion or vacillation, but living a clean, consistent and honorable life. Bevin Creel April 2011

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 120504, in Louisiana, United States. Certificate of Death. (Louisiana Department of Health, Vital Records Office).