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4JB • SUfNDAY, JUINIli 5, ZUU.5
Logtown
Senator John C. Stennis came to the Logtown School where he was principal to explain to people why it was a good idea for them to say good bye to the lives they had known. On that da,y the people there did not yet know the full extent of NASA’s plans.
The meeting, held on All Saints Day, November 1, 1961, was arranged by Logtown resident Roy Baxter, who, concerned with the emotional reactions among people along the river, drove to Bay St. Louis and asked community leader Leo Seal Sr. to arrange the meeting with Senator Stennis.
Somewhere around 1,500 people came to the school to hear Stennis and representatives from NASA and the Corps speak from the back of a flatbed trailer from a portable podium borrowed from the school. (The source of historical references is Way Station To Space, A History Of The John C. Stennis Space Center by Mack R. Herring.)
“Senator Stennis came up there to make his announcement and tell us about the Space Center,” said Oscar. “He said that the tests would sound like nine freight trains coming through at once ... that was when they were going to test the larger engines, but they never did.”
“They told us we had two years to find a place to live and move and that was it ... some moved their houses and
some built new ones. We built this one (in Pearlington) in 1966 after renting for a couple of years,” said Truman.
“People were pretty well disturbed but got used to the idea,” she said. “It brought a lot of jobs but a lot of heartache too. I didn’t like Senator Stennis very much after that.”
Many people had lived their whole lives there and after the senator’s visit there was much talk about the situation and the sadness that people were feeling at having to leave their homes, Truman said.
When the news came Oscar decided to move on with his life and started looking for another job, though he loved teaching. He ended up with a computer company in Slidell. Rev. Hatch took over at the school, said Truman, for the remaining two years that it was open after the town had moved, from 1964-1966.
The school had served the whole area, she said, Logtown, Pearlington, Napoleon and Gainesville and had an enrollment of 325 students. It was built on land donated by Nettie Koch, who was still active at the school at 95.
“We had a great staff and a great basketball team,” said Truman.
It was a quiet life she said, with school activities and daily life taking up a lot of the time. She remembers Lillian Rodger’s mother
Gussie' often helped her with the kids, especially at basketball games.
“She was a wonderful person,” said Truman.
Daughter Lana was six years old when the family moved to Logtown and one of her favorite memories of the school were the May Pole dances that were a part of the “operettas” that teacher Eunice Cassanova put on every year.
“Back then you didn’t even need a degree to be a teacher,” said Truman. “I don’t even know if any of our teachers had a degree, but they were very good teachers.”
“A lot of students probably remember Oscar for the whippings that he gave,” said Truman, “You couldn’t do that now but you know they all respected him and had no hard feelings. He made many friends.”
Oscar also was famous for recruiting students to help around the school with routine maintenance such as stripping floors and such. Like others, the family remembers the community as a place where everyone helped one another.
“What was amazing is the way that people worked together so good,” Truman said.
“The school was at the corner of what they called the crossroads, the right hand side going into town,” she said. “We lived right on campus; lots of schools provided
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houses back then. It w*as an ordinary country town in a lot of ways, lots of big pine trees, the road to the river lined with houses ... a Baptist Church and in front of the cemetery, a Methodist Church.”
“The men mostly had boats and did a lot of hunting and fishing. Many worked on off shore boats and were gone a lot and we would joke about all the LogtowTi widows,” she said. “The kids played at the river ... moms mostly stayed at home. We would go up to Picayune or the Bay to do shopping... of course you could drive straight through to Picayune from here back then.”
History should be the memories of many people, not just one or. two people. We would like to add your memories to the stories of Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa, Gainesville, Westonia or other areas in Hancock County that were lost when Stennis Space Center was established. We are looking for people to help. Please add your story, old 'photos or mementoes to the living history of an area that was loved and should not be forgotten. No story is too small to be preserved for future generations and only you can share those memories and ensure that they are preserved. Call Bennie Shallbetter at 228-467-5474 or e-mail me at ben-nie@goldinc.com to set up an interview.