Time Marches On

Two bits of sad news came out of Mansfield in the last few days. First, my Dad called to tell me that Levetta died. I knew it was coming. She had been in poor health for sometime, a broken hip, a stroke, high blood pressure, all of these things speed a person's demise. The last time I went to see her she was rehabbing in the nursing home in Mansfield, she was asleep so I left without speaking. When I was six months old my Mom went to work and in those days daycares were not in vogue, old fashioned domestics were. God knows the pittance that my parents paid Levetta, but I suppose it was one of the few jobs she could have found and I was pretty cute.

Levetta kept me until I was about three or four and went off to pre-school. After that she would come when I was sick, when my parents had parties to go to and so forth. It was only in retrospect that I realized what an exceptional kind and loving person she was. For over 20 years no matter where I was in life I would get a birthday card with $2, $5, $3 in it, first from 913 Johnson Street and then 925 Jacobs Street, both addresses located in Mansfield's housing project. I remember before she lived in the "Projects" in a green house on Gibbs Street with a Cedar Tree in the front yard. i can remember a couple of occasions when I stayed there with Levetta and her family during the day and the later at the 913 Johnson Apartment, which at that time was quite modern and new. Why I stayed at her house, I don't know. She had no car and as far as I know couldn't drive. Neila and I went to see her shortly after we married and she knew everything about my life having kept up through her daughter who knows my Dad. She wanted to know if I still liked my egg yolks runny so as to sop it up with toast. I assured her I did. She laughed her laugh, which was so soulful. I wish I had it recorded somewhere. So, it is sad that this gentle creature has passed away, but it gives me comfort to know that she had five kids of her own that were very good to her and took good care of her, she was never alone, which is more than lots of old folks can say.

The second bit of sad news is probably sad only to a nostalgic, history and architecture buff like myself. I read in the Mansfield Enterprise that the old Mansfield Elementary will be demolished. The re-routing of Hwy. 171 as been scheduled for some time to run through the middle of the two structures comprising the school, the plan having been for it sometime to thread the two buildings which would remain standing and vacant. The DeSoto School Parish Board in its infinite wisdom unable to be concerned with any historic issues has arranged for the highway department to demolish the buildings. The original school was built around 1911, I believe. The only picture I have of it is this one, which is of one of the architectural features on the side. I believe this shield is made of alabaster or perhaps limestone or even marble. My second grade class was in this building. Hopefully I can take a couple of pictures of this building before it gets demolished. The best features of this building are the two enormous porches on the back that feature enormous brick arches. This is where we would line up before and after recess.

In 1930 something the High School building was added. I have lots of pictures of it below. Three of my four grandparents graduated from High School here. In 1960 it became an elementary school like the adjacent building. I went to third grade here. My class was the "top group" meaning that we were "tracked" according to our IQ's and/or test scores. With this was the responsibility that we got to sit on the front row of the balcony of the auditorium during assemblies. The balcony didn't make it into this picture, but notice the paladin windows and the enormously high ceilings. When I was a senior in High School my speech teacher felt that the acoustics of this auditorium were vastly superior to those of our 1960 High School, so we had our play here---my one and only acting performance, "The Love Life of Herbert Packenstack".

Well, I suppose time marches on and the school board won't have to worry about any liability anymore. I suppose I will be the only one to mourn the loss of a wonderful example of neoclassic architecture that once was the norm for public institutions. Three generations of my family were educated in these two buildings and I guess by American standards, that's about right. There's now talk about replacing the 1960 High School where my Dad was the first class to start and finish in the new school. Of all the historic structures in Mansfield, the house that served as a hospital during the 1864 Battle of Mansfield that is now Ivey Lumber Co., the three story mansion that became the Piggy-Wiggly, the house that was home to the famous playwright, Josh Logan, that became a vacant lot and now the new Post Office, of all those idiotic decisions, this one makes me the saddest. Perhaps it's because it's one of the last institutions of old Mansfield that can connect so many people, perhaps it's because I went to school there, perhaps it's because the architectural styling are so to my liking, perhaps it's that enormous portion of my personality that drives my love of history and architecture----that obsession I have with recycling and reusing stuff. These building could have had so much more life in them, had someone or some group ever thought to care to save them. You might wonder how does a town die? How does it ignore the things that made it great that gave it its identity, allow them to go by the wayside allow the rise of vacant lots and metal building, junk trailers and discount tobacco stores? A lot of it has to do with the war. The Confederacy won the Battle of Mansfield, but of course lost the war. So while the rest of the Faulknerian South mourned the loss of their towns and the defeat of their government, Mansfield for a hundred years or so reveled in its victory, never burned or burdened by Reconstruction, the citizens lived like a lottery winner that didn't invest his fortune only to wind up penniless. Soon, Mansfield will be that much closer to being a mere piney pasture at a highway crossroad--- what it was long ago.