•Part 1
"The most important thing in the world is family and love." ---Renowned basketball coach John Wooden.
Autumn is a time of harvest, with beautiful fall foliage and crisp, cool Fair weather. And last year, it brought an extraordinary blessing - a delightful visit with Frances Varnado, former Washington Parish School Superintendent, in the Big Easy.
I knew her as the devoted wife of our good friend Van Varnado. With no icebreaker needed, Frances and I promptly hatched some plans to gather again in the new year. And color me lucky, this is how I found myself sharing a table with her earlier this year. What a grand time we had, together - a tide of memories.
The daughter of Florence Elizabeth Sanders Holden Loftice and Ted Holden, Frances Annette was born in November of 1971 in Dr. McGehee's Clinic on Main Street, where Citizens Savings Bank is situated today in Franklinton. The Holdens had long known one another before they married. As Frances explained, her mother and father had grown up a mile apart, "through the woods" as it is called, in the vicinity of Highway 450. Two brothers came along after Frances. Richard Holden was born in December of 1972, and Russell Holden was born in May of 1975.
Frances's maternal grandparents lived on family land that had been homesteaded for a dairy. Her beloved mother Florence Elizabeth Sanders was the daughter of Albert Leo Sanders and Ayleen Yates Sanders who operated a big dairy.
Albert Sanders (1914-1978) was industrious even as a boy. After his father was tragically killed while working on the railroad in St. Tammany Parish when Albert was just six, he began working odd jobs to help his family make ends meet. Helping take care of his four half-siblings, young Albert went to work at age thirteen on a ship headed to South America.
After the loss of her husband, his mother Cynthia, known within the family as "Big Mama," had remarried, first to a fellow by the name of Davis and later to Ezra Jenkins. Albert's only biological sister sadly succumbed to scarlet fever at the age of two.
Albert Sanders and Ayleen, the daughter of Daniel Yates and wife Pauline Frances Gardner Yates, were to have been married in March of 1943, but a Merchant Seaman, he was called for military duty, taking supplies to the ship. So the couple was wed on April 1, ironically April Fool's Day. While a nontraditional choice - during wartime, they probably didn't have a choice - for a wedding date, it ensured their anniversary would always be remembered.
While Albert, Frances's Paw-Paw, died relatively young at the age of sixty-four - it's looking younger and younger with each passing year - his wife Ayleen, Frances's grandmother, lived until 1996, another nearly twenty years. She had those extraordinary Yates genes, you know. Frances declared, "Granny was my rock."
An only child, Ayleen had been born in 1917 in Tangipahoa Parish. As I have previously written, John Mousley Yates (1844-1922), who hailed from London and settled in St. Tammany Parish married Sarah Jane Blocker with whom he had eleven children. Among them, three Yates brothers married three Gardner girls who were sisters. Frederick Whithurst Yates married Camille Gardner, known as "Aunt Cutie" within the family; Charles Murray Yates married Willetta Gardner, known as "Aunt Eater" to family; and Daniel Edward Yates (1892-1919) married Pauline Frances Gardner (1893-1979), known as "Aunt Pean" among family.
Daniel and Pauline Frances Yates were Ayleen's parents, Florence's grandparents, and Frances's great-grandparents. And Frances Varnado is her great-grandmother Pauline Frances Gardner's namesake. While the Yates lineage - a large, prominent family - is a story unto itself, today the focus is on "Aunt Pean," as Frances fondly refers to her, and her descendants.
Lamentably, Daniel Yates died in 1919 at the early age of twenty-seven years. He was active duty in World War I but in training in Minnesota. His wife and daughter were just twenty-six years and eighteen months old, respectively. Aunt Pean never remarried. But with the help of her sister Emma, who had never married and who moved in to help take care of little Ayleen, Aunt Pean got busy living and working to take care of not only her own family but also others in the McDougal community. Industrious and smart, she not only raised livestock and grew cotton but also made a name for herself in the plant business. Again, those Yates genes came into play.
As Frances described it, the two sisters had a clear division of labor; Aunt Emma managed the care of Ayleen and the indoors while Aunt Pean worked the outdoors, including the land and structures. The only exception was cooking at which both ladies were exceptional. Frances reminisced, "They made some of the best biscuits you ever ate."
Aunt Pean was the first woman in the town of Franklinton to get a bank loan for seeds and crops. Whatever she planted grew, and she utilized the proceeds to support her own family and assist neighbors. She put into practice the old principle of keeping one apple and generously giving one away. And agriculture wasn't easy back in that day. Aunt Pean plowed the fields, using an old wooden plow and a mule named Blue who lived until 1972. And not afraid of construction, she even repaired her roof herself.
Ayleen, who grew up during the Great Depression, was fortunate to have a mother and aunt who set an excellent example for her - close family. Following suit, she and her husband Albert Sanders had a wonderful life and a beautiful family, with four children: Danny Sanders, Lynn Sanders, Florence Sanders (Frances's mother), and David Sanders. Ayleen became an educator, with her first teaching job in Lacassine in Southwest Louisiana. But Ayleen, Frances's grandmother, naturally wound up teaching at Franklinton. And the apple never falls far from the tree.
It resonated with me that Frances, a well-known Washington Parish educator, inherited a classic chair from her grandmother's first classroom. Frances recognized that it was a "simple little chair but it was important." Of course. And so was her grandmother's very first desk from her teaching career - another treasure which passed to Frances who gifted it to her own daughter Ashley Elizabeth Varnado King , also a Washington Parish teacher. A line of educators, and love.
•Stay tuned for next week's column on Frances Annette Varnado, and family.
