Serendipity is one of life's greatest joys - introducing the right person, place, or thing when we least expect it. I often experience just that with this gig. Arriving early - the daughter of a military officer, I always do - for a recent event at Tulane, I settled into a comfortable chair in the far back. And as I live and breathe, Elizabeth Goodyear soon took the seat to my left. The scheduled lecture, I had appeared for, suddenly seemed superfluous.
Elizabeth is the wife of Charles "Chip" Waterhouse Goodyear IV (really the V but, as Elizabeth explained, only the living count). He is the direct descendant and namesake of Charles Waterhouse Goodyear, founder of Great Southern Lumber Company in Bogalusa, who first came to town with his brother Frank Henry Goodyear and comrade William Sullivan surveying the timberland of Washington Parish, in 1905.
With immensely successful timber operations in Pennsylvania, the Goodyears who hailed from New York State were lured here by the valuable virgin timber - long leaf yellow pine - indigenous to Washington Parish. No icebreaker was necessary. With my own copy of "Bogalusa Story" written by C. W. Goodyear (a valuable rare book privately printed in 1950 in Buffalo, New York), I am well versed on the subject.
Elizabeth and I also discussed the Bogalusa hospital and early doctors there. As she later texted me, Dr. Stanley Desporte was a physician of Mrs. Goodyear. Elizabeth Sullivan Memorial Hospital, named for the wife of Bill Sullivan, was organized as a company hospital by the Great Southern Lumber Company --- the predecessor to the Bogalusa Community Medical Center (now Our Lady of the Angels Hospital), where my father was the CEO for decades.
Finally, it's worth noting --- something Elizabeth Goodyear humbly failed to mention during the course of our conversation and discussion of our children --- her daughter was Queen of Carnival in 2016. Another serendipitous discovery, it came as no surprise.
And so it was, with another Tulane tie-in to Washington Parish, when my two-part series on my cousin and Tulane Professor Dr. William Craft Brumfield ran in April. The message came posthaste from the newspaper office. Franklinton Alderman Darwin Sharp was looking for me. His inquiry, "Where did you get that picture?" Drilling down, I learned that he was referring to that of the Bolivar home of Lewis Floyd Brumfield, taken of the family in 1906. Grandson Dr. William Craft Brumfield, whose father Lewis Floyd Brumfield, Jr., was on the far right in the photo, had e-mailed it to me.
Grabbing Darwin's attention, he admitted to being "real excited about it." The photo featured his great-grandfather Lewis Floyd Brumfield (1861-1946) and great-grandmother Allie F. Statham Brumfield (1870-1941) together with their children. In possession of the same ancestral photo, Darwin's sister Lynette, having done significant genealogical research, had identification of the subjects. With the kind assistance of Lynette and some detective work, I was able to piece together the history from the historically significant photo.
Lewis Floyd Brumfield and wife Allie Statham Brumfield had the following children: Dottie Brumfield Rollins (1897-1985), Lewis Floyd Brumfield, Jr. (1895-1975), Hardy Sanders Brumfield (1893-1960), Lyda Brumfield (1899-1988), Byron Brumfield (1890-1966), unknown female (1892-1892), Dora Brumfield (1904- __), Pleasant "Pleze" Brumfield (1903-1976), Jeanette Brumfield (1907-1913); Margie Brumfield (1912-__), and Noel V. Brumfield (1913-1971). All except for the infant and the youngest three - Jeanette, Margie, and Noel - were pictured in the 1906 photo. Interestingly, Dr. William Craft Brumfield recollected an Aunt Margie.
But herein, my focus is on Dr. Brumfield's Aunt Lyda who married Marvin Enoch Wallace (1898-1941) in 1925. Together, the couple had four children: Jeanette Wallace (Doughty) (1930-2007), Dora Wallace (1932-2015), Marvin "Behrman" Wallace (1927-2018), and Rexford Enoch Wallace (1937-1991). Lyda lived in Ward Four in Tangipahoa Parish for about twenty years and in Ward One of Washington Parish for approximately a decade.
Lyda Wallace was the grandmother of Darwin Sharp, his sister Lynette Sharp, and their brother Craig Sharp. Lyda and Marvin Wallace's daughter Dora, who married Bert Sharp, was their mother. Though I do not personally know all of the descendants of Lyda and Marvin Wallace, I also knew the children of Rex and wife Cornelia Wallace well. Having gone to school with them, I adored their daughter Dana, who was in the grade ahead of me at Bowling Green. I thought she was so cool. I also knew her siblings Vonda, Sandy, and Rexanne from childhood.
But I didn't know that we are kin. And it all stems from the Brumfields. On the phone, Darwin alluded to the connection. The elder Lewis Floyd Brumfield was the son of William "Bill" Brumfield (ca 1830 - ca 1910) and wife Sarah Lewis (1835-1886). The Sharps's and Wallaces's great-great-grandfather William "Bill" Brumfield was my great-great-grandfather Thomas Colter Brumfield's brother. And the brothers' father was William Brumfield (ca 1788-1868) --- the influential statesman, soldier, and sheriff (serving two terms in 1829 and 1835) in Washington Parish. William Brumfield and wife Harriet Statham Brumfield were the great-great-great-grandparents of Darwin, Lynette, and Craig Sharp and also Dana, Vonda, Sandy, and Rexanne Wallace. And they were also mine.
Serendipity, once again.
Serendipitous connections and kin
