When my great-grandfather Hadley Alonzo Dyer was just 10 years old, he and his brother Machen, aged 12, would “hitch up their teams and haul loads to and from Lecompte, often camping in the woods by them-selves.” So wrote a reporter for the Alexandria Town Talk in May 1885. He made that twelve mile trip from the piney woods along Spring Creek to the plantations on Bayou Boeuf many times over the years: driving cattle from the hill country, delivering meat to the lumber companies and more.
In five decades, he moved his family from Loyd to Forest Hill, up to Boyce on the Red River, then back to Forest Hill again, finally settling on a dairy farm near Oakdale. All dutifully reported by the Alexandria Town Talk. My grandmother was always vague about where exactly she was from. Now I know why.
About Photo+Story: Inspired by a competition at the RootsTech 2018 genealogy conference, the series distills family stories to a single photo plus 150 words or less.
Grits & Gumbo 