In May of 1984 I had the privilege of spending a day and night with Edwin and Genie Watlington in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They helped me fill in gaps in our knowledge of Uncle John and Aunt Velma's travel and family in Louisiana. Aunt Velma still lives in the family home in Shreveport, La., where I visited her in 1961. Their sons Leonard Needham and Albert Edwin both live in Baton Rouge where their families have grown up. Velma Louise, who married Karubah Carnahan, now a retired Air Force pilot, lives in California and their children and grandchildren are near Houston, Texas and Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.
Needham's son, John Needham, now has twin daughters, Dana De and De Ann Watlington, who are tennis stars at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Edwin and Genie's daughter, Eugenia Louise, is married to Robert J. Hutchinson and they have three daughters and a son, ages twenty-one to sixteen.
John Leonard Watlington (b. Jan. 5, 1889, d. Dec. 5, 1955), younger brother of Ulrich A. and Mable, started working with the Mingle Lumber Co. in West Tennessee after he had gained some experience with the street cars of Jackson Tennessee. He learned to operate the steam engines for operating the mill as well as the trains to haul logs. Marvin M. Needham, from Humboldt, Tenn. was his foreman. He got acquainted with the foreman's daughter, Velma Idell, and when the Lumber Company moved to Northeast Louisiana, John moved with them. He and Velma Needham were married in Feb., 1912 at Delhi, Richman Parish, Louisiana.
He continued to work with steam engines in the lumber industry, the sugar industry and with railroads. He worked with the machine shop and later the sugar plantation boilers at the State Penitentiary at Angola from 1929 to 1940. From 1940 until his death in 1955 he worked again with the railroad, becoming an engineer on what was then the L.R. & N., and later the Louisiana and Arkansas, and then the Kansas City Southern Railroad. For some years before his death he was on the fast passenger train run from Shreveport to Baton Route, and return. He is buried at Shreveport, Louisiana in Forest Park Cemetery.
-- 1984,
Corrected May 15, 1996
My brother John got a job with a timber cutting company that Needham ran. Needham was from around Humboldt, but the timber was mostly in Dyer Co. at that time. Velma met and liked John and John liked the company, especially Velma who was rather young.About the time the lumber company moved to Louisiana John and Velma got married and moved to Louisiana with the company. Perhaps it was the Binglewood Lumber Co. (Mingle Lumber Co.)
John learned to operate the steam engine that ran the saw mill and also the little engines that hauled logs. In this way he prepared himself for his life as a trainman and engineer on the railroads of Louisiana, running from Baton Rouge to Shreveport.
-- From notes of the 1950's