The time has come for William Price Magee's autobiography which he described as "the outline of my life." It also chronicles the history of our area during the better part of the twentieth century. A personal connection, I attended Bowling Green with his daughter Lozane Magee and son-in-law Fred Yates's children - his grandchildren Cammie Yates (Magee) and Price Yates, my classmate for twelve years. Digressing, my class had a ball at the Yates's pool parties on Kat Kaw Road. Cammie married Phillip Magee, grandson of Hamp Magee who was renowned for his camellias, and Price married Lela Jones.
Without further ado, the outline of William Price Magee's life, verbatim:
PROLOGUE
I am reluctant to write this outline of my life because it has been said that only fools and arrogant men do such writing.
The date of this outline is 72 years--1898 to 1970. I came into this world as a little boy with the aeroplane age and all the marvelous inventions and the men of this age. Most of them were dropouts, and what giants they were--Ford, Edison, Wright, and all the others. So maybe you can read this about the dropout I was with some compassion. I am grateful to the people who helped me so much, in so many ways.
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I am William Price Magee. I was born August 27, 1898. I will try to recite some of my life history and tell who my people were. I will start with my namesake, William Magee, who came to Louisiana in 1762 and settled at Hayes Creek. His wife was Mary James. He and she are buried at Hayes Creek Church. The next kin, his son, John Magee, was married to Sarah Magee. He is buried at Clifton Cemetery. John was the father of my grandfather, Fleet Magee, whose wife was Lozane Wood and is also buried at Clifton. My father was Jacob Wood Magee, married to Alice Bateman. I don't know but one grandparent on the Bateman side. That was my mother's father, Grandpa Jason Bateman. His wife was Emily Ellis. They are buried at Ellis Cemetery, Franklinton, where my father and mother are also buried. My namesake, William Magee, came to Louisiana from South Carolina--that is, as far as I know. My name, Price, was for a Mississippi Baptist preacher. My mother was much impressed by his preaching, and I was born in August while Reverend Price was preaching at the Mile Branch Church. In those days the crops were laid by in August and it was time for preaching and eating fried chicken, so I was off to a good start. Spiritually there were no worries. The neat hard gospel of the Baptist was insurance a plenty to those with faith. To believe was to be saved from the woes of the hereafter, the Burning Hell.
The well-being of being a cotton farmer with price at five and seven cents was something else. My father's farm was part of the homestead from William Magee to Fleet Magee to Jacob, but he could not make it as a cotton farmer. He moved to Franklinton to work in the Clerk of Court's office. My mother died there soon after this move. I was two years old. After my mother's death my father was very restless, and he was a sick man, in what way I haven't much information to be sure, but I am told by different aunts that he and my mother were victims of consumption, or as we know it now, T. B.
Oil was found at Beaumont, Texas, and in 1902 my father went there and took me with him. How he figured in this oil boom, I can't understand, except there was wide belief that Texas was good for T. B. But he probably didn't know Beaumont was not the dry, light-air part of the state. He died at a place known as Silver Creek near Kentwood. He was living with people named Lewis in 1903. My oldest sister Ella died about that time. I am not sure. Sister Lela and brother Fleet had gone to live in Amite with our great aunt, Em Bell, who was a sister to our grandmother, Lozane. Dallas had gone to live with Uncle Ellis Bateman, who was our mother's brother. I was living with Aunt Kate Varnado, who was my father's sister and later with my mother's sister, Aunt Ella Self. I was then six years old.
My grandfather, Jason Bateman, was a freight hauler. He hauled cotton to Covington and freight back for Babington Bros Store. He used oxen. Later his son, my uncle, Claude Bateman, did this hauling, only it was to Folsom with mules, which was a speed up, to the then rail head in Folsom. His wagon went through what is now Folsom Nursery. As Uncle Claude lived with Aunt Ella as I did, I had the experience of going with him, and I can say no little boy ever had it better than I did, riding and helping drive. When he carried cotton he got one dollar a bale. The cotton was worth $25.00 a bale. After checking with very old, clear-minded people, I am told at certain times of the year the wagons would be in convoys-often fifteen wagons. On the old factory road just north of the present Folsom Nursery was a big camping site. The wagons were from Mississippi as well as Washington Parish. There was a road tax; each man either paid so much per year or worked so many days. A man with no other job could work in place of some one else. Work was mostly laying poles in mud places and cutting out new roads. The railroad came to Franklinton in 1907, and Uncle Claude was out of a job hauling.
