JOHNSON HOME AT VERDA


On a slight hill just across from the Verda School properties is the home of
Mrs. Ruth Wallace Johnson. She can explain the house because that was where
she grew up and saw the community prosper, then dwindle as the railroad and
sawmill industries declined. A visitor learns much because "Miss Ruth" has
recorded in scrapbooks she has put together, along with one from her mother's
clippings, pictures of old things. The record of Verda, both "Old" and "New"
(there were two post offices" and the memories haven't dwindled, even if the
industry has.

Mrs. Mabel Fletcher Harrison, a Verda resident, described it all well in her
part of the Grant Parish History. She tells of the naming of Verda, after Mr..
Uriah E DeWitt's deceased daughter, when he became the first postmaster; of
other solid citizens like W.O. Harrison, Lucius Woods, Buddy McDwain whose big
store was close to the home of J.R. Miller, the "marring parson" (he has four
wives buried in a row in old Mars Hill Cemetery", D.B. Coates, publisher of
the Verda Tribune, Joel Fletcher who was president of Southwestern La.
University, Ike LaCroix, Uncle Ed Gilcrease, Uncle Bill Bowen, barber, Jim
Straughn, Hardy Wallace, Uncle Monroe Lang, Will Purvis, Uncle Jeff
Hutchinson, "a solid, wholesome man whose word was his bond". And then there
was Uncle Griffin Smith and Willis Wallace. There were others of like statue,
making Verda what it became.

Mr. D.H. Wallace as Mrs. Balley Johnson's father and operated general store
from 1900 to 1940 or '49. He was interested in education and gave the land for
the first and later schools. So interested was he, says his daughter, he upon
request, stood on his head on the ridge of the old school. It was first a one
- roomer, then there came a "Public"one set up by the Farmers Union, and
finally the Verda High School was approved in 1908, the first in Grant Parish
and one of the first in the state. There was also a college called "College
Hill" which ran from 1902 until 1908 when it gave way to the high school. J.C.
Gilbert founded the School of Music at the college, and built the house (in
1903) that was sold to someone, then rented to the DeWitts before being bought
by D.H. Wallace in 1912. The family has kept it continuously.

Miss Ruth tells of William Edenborn who brought from his native land the seed
that grew into the two "German Oaks" in her front lawn. The railroad builder
loved the area and set up an experimental farm at his "Emden". His line was
the old L. R. & N.

One by one the scrapbooks come out and Miss Ruth Johnson is proud of her
contact with those who have come to continuous reunions of the high school and
are shown in these histories. The first class was 1910 and had five graduates.
A model of the one - room one and the second sit in her house, the brick one
being at Northwestern State University. The ladies, with Noel McManus,
constructed them. They're for the reunions. There's pride, too, in the fact
that in 1915 and 1927 there were state championships.

Since the 1934 marriage (they both finished school in 1927), the Johnsons were
away only twice, once in Minden and a stay in New Orleans with railroad work
during World War II. The seven children have had this place as home, gone to
school in Verda, and loved it all. They all married Verda graduates, a thing
Miss Ruth is also proud of.

On the right side of the house one goes from the living room through a 12 -
foot ceiling bed room to the kitchen and dining area to the back porch which
serves as a "greenhouse". There had been one put back, but when there was
danger of an electrical fire, it was abandoned and the plans moved to the
porch. On the left are bedrooms holding, along with family furniture, Mr.
Bailey Johnson's homemade bookcase and gun rack; all in a house with its steep
roof which says its hostess, "has never leaked".

Mrs. Johnson hopes those who come along will appreciate this heritage in "Old"
and "New" Verda. She does, this is for certain.