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| Lettie Anderson, Gumbo Magazine |
Lettie Andeson, nearly 90 years old, knows about Blood Tangipahoa,. She saw it every Saturday night. When the men got off of work at the lumber companies in Natalbany, they come down to Hammond for drinking, carousing and brawling in the streets. The blood flowed; Dr. Walter A. Reed and nurse Lettie sewed.
'We had plenty of patients, " she recalled. On Saturday nights, they'd start coming in. They'd come down from the mill in Natalabany, drunk and go to cutting on each other. We'd be up all night, sewing them up. We worked till time to go to Sunday School I'd want to fall across the bed, by I say, "No, I'm going to go on to Sunday School." That's what I did. I bathed and went right on to Sunday School."
Dr. Reed, a native of Crystal Springs, Miss., who come to in the early 1900s and remained until his death in 1945, is believe to have been the first black doctor to settle here. Written histories of Tangipahoa Parish physicians list only white doctors, but those who remember him say he was well respected by his peers, Drs. Edwards, A.F. Gaters, and S.S. Anderson, which whom he had studied at Tulane. Reed, usually dressed in hat and three-piece suit when he went on calls in his horse-pulled buggy or Model T, also had the respect of his patients, black and white. "My daddy's brother was S.S. Anderson, and I remember him talking about how Dr. Reed had helped him and what a wonderful doctor he was. Dr. Reed has taken advanced courses in the North, said Antoinette Yokum. " We had so many pneumonia cases, and my uncle talked about how Dr. Reed has helped save the lives of a lot of white people. He doctored on Dr. Gates when he had pneumonia."
But perhaps his most devoted supporter was Lettie, the gaunt hard-working and eager-to-learn young woman who began as his housemaid in 1918, became the nurse in his clinic and eventually nurse the doctor and his wife in their old age.
She still lives at Reed's clinic, which he left to her, the small green Acadian-style house across the from First Guaranty Bank's main office. A large Bible rests on the table of her tidy, warm kitchen. Weeds and brush behind the house hide the old St. James Cemetery. Where many of Hammond's first black settlers are buried. Anderson says she worked downtown on Thomas Street for more than 50 years, including about 25 years for the doctor and then 27 years for the South Central Bell Telephone Co. Nowadays, she can be seen walking along the street to pay a bill at Central Drugs or shop at the other downtown businesses. Her niece Fairy Dean Hannible teaches at Hammond Junior High, frequently visit and take her grocery shopping.
Dr. Reed's oldest and only living child, W.A. Reed Jr., 87 lives in Meridian, Miss. and is a distinguished professor. He headed the black schools before integration and then Meridian Junior College. He lived with his father in Hammon for only two years.
"My dad was the son of a prominent Baptist minister in the area of Crystal Spring, Miss.," he said. He finished college at Jackson State and took medicine in New Orleans. It was different then; you worked with doctors. And he then he became efficient, he came to Hammond to practice medicine. I imagine somebody from the area influenced him to come to Hammond."
Reed might also have been influenced by the fact that Hammond is about half between New Orleans and Bogue Chitto, Miss., the home of his first wife., the former Lillie Loving whom he had met at Jackson State. While he studied in New Orleans, his wife lived in Bogue Chitto and gave birth to their four children. W.A. Jr., Shellie, Edward, and Lillie.
"I think I was in the fifth grade when I came to Hammond," the son said. "He was established and has a house on Coleman Avenue. My mother was ill, and she passed away that year. My father married another lady, Ella Church from Crystal Springs,. She was an unusual woman; you don't see many stepmothers taking such an interest in another woman's children. I often wonder why she did. When she came to Hammond, she was not impressed with the schools. During that time, people seemingly had pretty good money, but their homes were poor; they spent their money having a good time. She didn't like that. She wanted me to leave Hammond and go to Mississippi. I had finished the seventh grade. She got onto my father about me, and finally, she got on the train and carried me up to Jackson Preparatory School (now Jackson State University). It was part of the college and I lived there on campus.
"So I was not with my dad too long. When I was there, he was just getting started in his work. He had a pretty good load, and he didn't have too much time to spend at home. The doctor's two daughters died shortly afer they finished school.
Major Biographical References
A Reprint from
Gumbo Magazine, Sunday Star November 19, 1989
Magazine Courtesty of Melody Ricketts
