My Father . . .

To know so much and yet know so little about him.

John Landry Morrison was born on a plantation, his father was a sugar planter and his mother a homemaker. He was not the oldest but he was the oldest to reach maturity, his older brother died of diptheria. He had a sister and two younger brothers.

as the olderst, he was the first to leave home. He went to Morganza High School but when he finished it only went to the 11th grade. But he was done. So he looked about for a college to go to. He applied at Northwestern in Natchodoches but was rejected. He also applied at the flag ship university of Louisiana, LSU and was simarly rejected. He even applied at Tulane in New Orleans and they too said no. The reason was that he did not finish the 12th grade!

He along with is cousin, Harris, applied at Mississippi State College and were accepted on probation. To get to College Station, Mississippi was an ordeal. He had to catch the train on the back of the plantation to take him to Addis, a small town on the west bank of the Mississippi River across from Baton Rouge. He spent the night in Addis waiting for the train ferry to cross the river. There he caught the Mississippi and Yazoo Valley Rail Road train to Vicksburg, MS. That was an all day ride and again he spent the night in Vicksburg.

Next he took the train out of Vicksburg for Jackson, MS - not to far this time. There in Jackson he switched to a local going to College Station. So it took him three complete days to get to school. Naturally, he did not come home until the beginning of the next summer.

Harris did not make it. He could not keep up or really did not care to. Does not matter, Harris did not graduate from Mississippi State. Daddy did finish. He graduated in May, 1925 in Civil Engineering. The oddity is that his birthday was June 1905 thus he finished college before his 20th birthday. That is an unheard of feat today. Harris who did not finish ended up being the richest of Morrison's for awhile, so don't feel sorry for him.

After graduation hDaddy went to work for the State of Louisiana, I believe in the Highway Department as a draftsman in Baton Rouge. I am sure that is where he met my mother who was from Monroe, LA and was attending Louisiana State University at that time.

A story was told that one day, a Friday just before the weekend, he was cleaning up his draftsman's desk, sharpening his pencils, sweep off the erasure dust, etc. He boss came up to him and asked him what he was doing.

"Cleaning up," he said, "He was finished with his project."

His boss said, "You are not finished with the project until a Civil Engineer has signed off the drawing."

My father replied, "He was finished and he had signed off the drawing." He continued, "I am a Civil Engineer!"

I understand later on he was a project engineer on the building of the road from Monroe, LA to Vicksburg. Today there is an Interstate Highway that parallels that route. He was laid off by the state, they had run out of money to construct the highway. So he packed up and went home to New Roads.

He later worked for the state in the Department of Public Works. That is when he ran afoul of Huey Long, etal. Huey wanted all state employees to pay 10% of their salary into his war chest. Daddy refused to do so and was fired.

I suppose he returned to New Roads again. Must have been a hard thing to do. Any rate not long after that he got a job laying banana plantations in Latin America. He went to work for the United Fruit Company out of New Orleans. I have an old passport of his that he obtained in Nicaragua. His photo shows a grand handle bar moustache. He worked in Columbia too. That is where he developed his taste for Scotch Whiskey.

It was prohibition in the states and the ships came in from Europe with plenty of booze on board. He told me that they would buy four cases of Johnny Walker Red Scotch and one case of Johnny Walker Black Scotch. If you don't know, Johnny Walker Red is not aged as long as Johnny Walker Black and thus cost less. He said it was like three dollars a case for the Red and six dollars a case for the Black. You must remember $3.00 was a lot of money in those days. And there was not tax on the stuff either.

He later returned to the states, Huey Long was dead by then. He went to work for Atlas Construction Company, the fore runner of T. L. James of Ruston, LA. They built levees all over the state. I recall stories of Franklin, LA (where my sister Herrise was born) and Cotton Port, LA where he and Mama lived their early married days. When those days were done, he got a job with the US Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans.

Another story told about him was during the early days of the WW-II, the Mississippi River was on the rise, bad times for Louisiana. At that time he was assigned to Galveston District in Texas but was stationed in New Orleans. In those days, he was working the A. Hayes Towns laying out airports among them are the Harding Field (Baton Rouge Airport) and Moinsant (today known as Louis Armstrong International Airport) Kenner, LA.

At any rate, the river was on the rise, the Corps was very concerned. The US Army Colonel in charge of the New Orleans District was in dire need of an levee expert. His assistant said, "The foremost authority on the levee system is right down the hall but he works in the Galveston District. You have to get them to approve your use of him." So my father was summarily transferred back to the New Orleans District and put in charge of making sure there was no flood. Apparently by the grace of God and lady luck, he was successful.

At the end of WW-II he took a leave of absence from the US Corps of Engineers and went into his own business. That is another story unto itself. But the Corps was not finished with him. I think about 1954 or so, he was doing drainage work for Horace Wilkerson not very far from the foot of the Mississippi River bridge at Baton Rouge. They were on the west side of the river. If you cross that bridge going west, and look off to the north, you will see the river is flowing east and makes a turn south, a fairly sharp bend in the river.

Well his drag line operator woke up one morning, staying in a small motel cabin, fixed his coffee and got ready to go to work. It was still dark. Without much consideration, he opened the door to his cabin and stepped off into two feet of water. The levee had broken at that sharp bend in the river. The Corps commandeered the Morrison Engineering and Contracting Company's equipment and directed by father to begin reconstruction of the levee. The drag line was the only thing sticking out of the rush of water.

The rebuilding process is to make a small ring levee some distance away from the river to contain the flood waters. Then one starts "walking the levee" back to its original position, each time raising the height to contain the waters. The Corp empowered him to use any tractor, grader, drag line that was available in Baton Rouge and surrounding area. The Corps later paid for rental of that equipment but the owner's could not refuse the Corps use of the equipment.

Daddy stopped that flood and built that levee back. There is no evidence the levee break today. The little cabins used by the employee are long gone. The whole area is built up with businesses. It is an industrial complex now days. And old man river keeps on flowing.

He was called back to the Corps one more time, he was charged with "raising the levees" along the fore bay in the Morganza Spillway. They raised the levees some three or so feet, that is several miles - maybe 8 or 9 miles of work. Again, the local equipment owners provided the equipment and were later paid for its usage. Daddy was once again the engineer in charge of the operation.

When Daddy reached 65 or so years, he wrote a letter to the Corps saying he thought it was time to retire. They wrote back that they had retroactively retired him some years before that and sent him a check. He started drawing about $75 or so dollars per month. By the time he died, his retirement was up to some $300.00 per month. He lived on that and his social security until he died. He also had other income from the family plantation, some of it substantial. So he died a man of money, not a pauper.

Next, how he became known as "Honest John" by his construction industry peers. How he also was named Pap Paw by his great grandchildren.

Until then. . . .