•Part 1
"A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out." ---George Bernard Shaw, renowned Irish playwright.
Getting while the getting's good is a valuable lesson I learned during an earlier era.
Glimpsing a neighbor's SUV being loaded with large oblong packages, wrapped in brown paper, I called out, "Jim, what do you have there?" "Paintings. Want to take a couple home and see how they do?"
He didn't have to ask twice. The next thing I knew, I had made payment on one, returned the other, and taking a page from my mother's book (gifting a grandfather clock from Juanita's to my father for his birthday) gifted my selection to my husband Rodney for Christmas. It was, after all, the work of a neighbor - Jim Seitz, husband of my dear late friend Connie. Passing away this past November, she had relocated several years ago to her native state of Texas with her beloved husband. Yet, I miss her already.
Back to her husband Jim's art, my better half naturally grumbled after Christmas when the bills arrive. Flashforward a few decades, Rodney has made a 180 degree turn. "Why didn't you buy both of them?" he groused, seeing Jim's work in an art gallery. Two mantras are at play here. Hindsight is twenty/twenty, both in art and in life. And secondly, we should get while the getting's good. While I didn't intend to bury the lead, the latter is how I landed at Smoky Creek Plantation, the beautiful, stately colonial in Bogalusa belonging to the Gallaspy family, on Young's Road.
The letter had arrived in the mail weeks prior, a most kind missive from local lawyer John Gallaspy who appreciated my mention of American Legion Post 24 in my March 20, 2024, column, "The Changing of the Wreaths." And amidst a discussion of our world wars, he wanted to promote one of our own - Brigadier General Edward Stanley Ott, originally of Mt. Hermon - about whom I wrote a column at Fair time, back in October of 2015. Mr. John recalled my father having played a role in a fine program honoring the military leader at Franklinton High School. And I do have the original materials from that great day, October 17, 1964. It turned out that Mr. John was present. As he pointed out, "While it's a grim thing to say, I'm probably the only person who's alive who was there." I'll take his word. At ninety-two years of age, he's likely right.
With a mind like a steel trap, Mr. John eloquently wrote, "Your dad took a very active part in a 1964 (I'm almost sure of this date) program honoring General Stanley Ott….I was a young front line veteran and attended - it was expertly organized and presented by the 'Franklinton Barracks of World War One,' assisted by representatives of the Legion and V.F.W. both of which were largely governed at that time by the survivors of Gen. Pershings 'Great War,' which ended with his signing the Armistice at 11:00 AM of the 11th day of the 11th month in a French Box Car."
But I promptly realized that John Gallaspy, prominent local lawyer - he practiced from 1958 to 2015 in Washington Parish - and watermelon farmer still today, deserves his own honor. He was Bogalusa Citizen of the Year in 1965. And long before he arrived in Washington Parish, Mr. John was a Korean war hero. A native of North Louisiana, he has devoted his life to our parish, and specifically Bogalusa. I can say with certitude that the old citizen and soldier, as he deems himself, has invested far more than he has derived. Mr. John is a true Southern gentleman.
While I can't do Mr. John justice, I have written with might and main. There, of course, will be another segment someday on General Ott as Mr. John desperately desired. Adamant about wanting to honor the Ott family, he had urged the late local lawyer Richard Watts to put pen to paper, documenting the history of the venerable Ott family, his own family. But Richard ran out of time.
I also plan to publish several other columns that Mr. John, husband of Martha Moak Gallaspy, segued me into - he knows everyone. For example, following my columns on "The Portrait Dress" and "The Wedding Dress" which featured Rusty Richardson Durand of Bogalusa, Mr. John insisted that I meet the late Rusty's husband Tony Durand with whom I had visited by mail and telephone. At the end of our visit, he instructed, "Follow me." Who am I to argue? And off he went in his farm truck to Tony's residence, with me trailing not far behind.
Things have a way of working out. Isn't that always the case in Washington Parish? So it was, for me last summer. I don't go anywhere that I don't know someone. But better yet, I don't go anywhere that I don't know someone who knows someone or, better yet, something I don't. That's the beauty. A resident of Washington Parish since 1958, John Gallaspy knows plenty, regaling me with sensational stories one delightful summer afternoon. That's what I mean when I say getting while the getting's good. And it didn't hurt that I had, in hand, his spectacular book, "'The City That Refused To Die' Bogalusa's first hundred years" - a chronicle of Bogalusa's history and people, published, autographed, and purchased in 2014. Generous as always, John and his late wife Dixie donated the proceeds from his fabulous book to the Friends of the Cassidy Park Museums.
So, please join me next week as we travel to North Louisiana, where John Gallaspy's life began back in 1932.
