John L. Watlington and Velma Idell Needham began their married life together in Delhi, Richland Parish, La., in February of 1912. They had been courting for more than two years and Velma's parents had had ample opportunity to know the young husband at work and play. The work of lumbering was always moving and changing and by 1913 Marvin Needham and his son-in-law John L. had been transferred to a work along the Red River in Milltown and Pineville, La., about 100 miles southwest of Delhi, Here they worked loading and unloading huge barges of logs for processing into lumber at mills of the Mingle Company.
Pineville was a rail center of the Little Rock and Northern Railroad and John L. was soon attracted to its operations and signed on with them. Their first child, Leonard Needham, was born at Delhi, La., March 6, 1913. The Needhams lived nearby and the two families were close to one another until the death of Marvin and Luna Louise at Alexandria in 1934 and 1935. Before that time Albert Edwin was born in 1919 and Velma Louise in 1922. Marvin Needham had worked many years with the Mingle Lumber Company and ended his career with them as a timber buyer, working out of his home in Alexandria. But as was typical in those days, as the work changed they let him go as he grew older without any pension or special compensation, and there was no Federal Social Security program either.
The three children grew up in Pineville and attended the public schools there. In 1929 John L. began his work with the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, in the machine shop and later operating the large steam machinery of the Sugar Refinery at the prison. Thinking he would get back to his railroad job soon, he did not move his family to Angola until 1935, after Needham had joined the U.S. Army and Edwin was ready for 10th grade. Edwin had in Summer lived with his father at the prison for some weeks at a time. Before 1935, John L. was in charge of the machine shop of the prison as well as the steam for a generating plant and sugar refinery. Edwin remembers that his first summer job was operating the machines of the machine shop at Angola. After graduating from high school at St. Francisville, Edwin worked for two years with his father in the machine shops at the prison.
After some years in the Army Air Corps, Needham went to work at Angola in 1936 and was married in 1937 to Evelyn Taylor and a son, John Needham, was born to them in July 1938. Evelyn had health problems and the resultant treatment caused a separation that led to a divorce. He remarried March 3, 1946 to Iola Mire by whom he has a second son, Karl M. (b. 1962.) Needham found work with the large Ethyl Corporation Plant in Baton Rouge and continued with this throughout his career, except for some years of military service with the Army Air Corps. Baton Rouge has been his home since the early 1940's.
Albert Edwin was married in October 1939 to Victoria Eugenia (Genie) Powers and he followed the skills of welding and machine shop work learned at Angola. Working with a variety of operations he learned management skills as well as many differing production skills. In 1961 he bought the small Istrouma Machine Shop Company and built it into a very profitable company specializing in the production, distribution, servicing, and repair of sand and gravel moving pumps and accessories. They had two children, Eugenia Louise (b. 1943) and Albert Edwin, Jr. (b. 1945.) Edwin Jr. died tragically in an auto accident on a city street near his home in 1965.
Velma Louise (b. 1922), the younger child of John and Velma Idell, grew up in Pineville and Angola, completing her high school studies in St. Francisville Public Schools. By that time college was a possibility, and she attended and graduated from Louisiana State University. After 1940 her family lived nearby on Park Blvd. in Baton Rouge, where her father was now an engineer on the Kansas City Southern Railroad. While at the university she met and married in 1942 Karubah Carnahan, who was studying there also. He was from the Shreveport area, where his father was an active member of the Masonic Order and a Gulf Oil Co. distributor at Minden, La. Velma Louise lived with her parents at Shreveport after Karubah went into World War II as a fighter pilot with the Army Air Corps. After completing his war-time duty he elected to stay with the Air Force and completed twenty-three years of service with the rank of Colonel. After retirement they lived in southern California many years where he worked some years in the training program with the Northrup Aviation Co. Later he dealt in real estate.
They have two daughters, Misty Louise (b. January 26, 1945, in Shreveport, La.) and Velma DeMarest (b. October 14, 1947, in the Panama Canal Zone, Panama.) They each have four children and both now live on Lookout Mountain, Tenn.
John Needham (b. 1938), the oldest of the grandchildren, has recently retired from many years of work with the Gulf States Utility Co. and moved to Orange City, Alabama. He and his wife, Dana DeWeese, have three children: a son, John N. Jr. (b. 1960) and twin daughters, Dana De and De Ann (b. 1965). Dana De m. 1992, Randall Wayne Womack and lives in Baton Rouge. Karl M. (b. 1962), son of Needham and Iola Watlington, has one son, Jacob Needham.
Hence John L. and Velma now have descendents in Louisiana, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama. Of the three children, Needham now has four grandchildren, Edwin has four grandchildren and eleven great grand children and Velma Louise has eight grandchildren. A list of descendants is provided elsewhere.