Katherine Jackson French. Elizabeth DiSavino

Centenary career can be traced through three photographs. The first photograph of “Mrs. Katherine French” appears in the 1930 yearbook. There were thirty-nine faculty members that year. French is one of eleven female teachers and the only one with a doctorate. In fact, of the men, only five have doctorates. Yet French is not referred to as Doctor. Her photograph appears on a page with those of two other female teachers. They wear earrings and pearls. French wears her academic regalia, robes and hood. The other two women bear soft, gentle gazes. One’s head is tilted down; the other gazes shyly at the camera through her makeup. French’s chin is lifted, her head uptilted, she wears no makeup, and her eyes are steely with a glint of humor. It is the kind of gaze that might be taken as condescending. Perhaps it was. We are looking at a woman who is proud of her accomplishments, unapologetic for her presence, and likely quite demanding of her charges. In short, we are looking at one tough woman who at the age of fifty-five is quite cognizant of the achievements of her life and the obstacles she has had to overcome.⁷⁷

      The 1934 yearbook contains an even haughtier picture of French. It is in full profile, the only faculty photograph in which the subject does not deign to look into the camera, rather staring off into the distance as though with a far-seeing eye. It also bears an interesting comparison to her daughter’s picture in the same volume. This younger Katherine French was voted “Most Popular.” She has her mother’s long, somewhat horsey face and large lips, but her expression is softer. Indeed, she is a member of “the Maroon Jackets,” a club of college hostesses described as “overflowing with Southern hospitality.” She was a member of Chi Omega, like her mother, and served as treasurer. She looks like a well-adjusted, happy coed, with no trace of her mother’s hard expression.⁷⁸

      The final picture, from the school paper This Is Centenary in August 1948, accompanies an article about French’s upcoming retirement. The older woman faces the camera. Her chin is still lifted, and she looks past the camera to the side. Her expression is softer, the eyes gently amused. The mouth holds a faint smile. Gone are the robes: she is wearing a jacket, blouse, and brooch. She is a woman whose battles are behind her, and she wears an expression of bemused contentment.⁷⁹

      Dr. and Mr. French remained in Shreveport after her retirement. French settled into retirement, moping with loneliness, missing her grandchildren:

      Lodestars of my life!

      Two angels great and small

      Why are you so lingering

      And come not to me at all?

      For light is drawing on

      And after that the night!

      Hark, now, I hear you softly

      All is joy and bright.⁸⁰

      The family continued to reunite in Kentucky in the summer and for some holidays as well. In July 1953, French was asked to be guest of honor at the 1954 Laurel County Homecoming.⁸¹

      Other than one important incident that will be detailed in part 2, French did not seem to have had much in the way of excitement in her last years. In fact, to relieve her boredom, she spent time cataloging her huge personal collection of National Geographic magazines by volume, date, and subject matter on index cards. She lacked goals and adventure for the first time in her life. “My work is all over,” she wrote, “and I am lost.”⁸²

      Katherine Jackson French, 1930. Courtesy of Centenary College of Louisiana Archives and Special Collections.

      Katherine Jackson French, 1934. Courtesy of Centenary College of Louisiana Archives and Special Collections.

      Katherine Jackson French, 1948. Courtesy of Kay Tolbert Buckland.

      On Christmas Eve, 1955, a fine winter night, twelve-year-old Kay Tolbert went to bed looking forward to Christmas festivities the next morning. Instead, she was wakened by a neighbor and told that her grandfather Frank was dead. His passing was a shock; he had been in seemingly fine health the day before, helping the family with holiday preparations. The body was returned to London and laid out in Annie Pollard’s home. The funeral service was held there two days later. The family attended, as did sixteen honorary bearers. French kept the ceremony book, making detailed notes of the hymns sung, scripture read, who the pallbearers were, who called (over 140 people), and what family and friends attended. She noted that “Crossing the Bar” was read at the grave and also took notes on the sermon, writing “Integrity, honor, justice, mercy, love for God and Man, happiness and usefulness to end” under the heading “Lessons from a good life.”⁸³

      By the time Frank died, French’s son-in-law, Carl Tolbert, had already changed occupations and begun working for an insurance company, deciding that it would pay the bills better than teaching music and playing the clarinet and better enable him to provide for his family. In 1954, he accepted a job as an assistant manager for the firm and moved his family to Atlanta. French, her husband gone and her career over, went with them. Prior to her departure, the Woman’s Department Club of Shreveport awarded her a life membership: “No one in Shreveport has contributed so generously of both time and talent as have you, and now that you will be away from us part of the year we feel that we cannot pass up this opportunity to say a hearty ‘thank you’ from us all.”⁸⁴

      After a short time in Atlanta, Carl accepted a promotion to the position of manager and moved the family to Columbia, South Carolina, during the summer of 1957. Columbia was a good-sized city by then, and Kay Tolbert Buckland remembers the family living across the street from a lake in a neighborhood with many pine trees. The house had a large porch, and neighborhood children would sleep out on it on cots during the summer while the adults played cards.⁸⁵

       “The Rose Still Grows beyond the Wall”

      By this time, however, French had started to ail. Past useful work, separated from her sister Annie, who was “so alone and not well,” and away from the two cities she loved (Shreveport and London), she began to succumb to the heart ailment that had plagued her for decades. She was bedridden almost from the day she moved with Carl and Katherine to Columbia. Her daughter tried to care for her, and a Dr. Miller made house calls, but she worsened. She was able to come downstairs for Christmas dinner, which Jackson’s niece Eloise Jackson Pennington says “made [them] all feel better.” But French was not to heal.⁸⁶

      French’s daughter, Katherine, called R.Z., the African American woman who had worked as a servant for French during her many years in Shreveport. R.Z. came to Columbia, staying between six and nine months and tending French. The time came when even R.Z.’s ministrations were not enough, and French was placed in a nursing home in Columbia. According to Kay Toland Buckland, Carl and Katherine had “a huge battle”: “My father insisted…. And I remember how upset my mother was because she did not want to put Grandmother in the nursing home…. It was a very difficult time for her.”⁸⁷

      French suffered several heart attacks during her stay at the rest home. Her daughter visited her there “all the time,” Kay Buckland remembered. “I went some with her…. She [French] was just laying there, almost not even aware.”⁸⁸

      On Monday, November 10, 1958, Katherine Jackson French passed from this world. And thus the family gathered one last time in French’s beloved London.

      “Grandmother wouldn’t have wanted us to cry and be sad,” said Kay Buckland. “She would have wanted us to sing and be happy.” And sing they did: “There was some member of the family, and I couldn’t tell you who it was, probably someone Mother’s age or maybe one of their children, could play the piano and could play by ear. And so we sang all night long…. I don’t remember the songs. Everybody