Floyd D. Culbertson, Jr.

Floyd Douglas Culbertson, Jr. (April 15, 1908 – April 28, 1989), was a lawyer in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, who from 1940 to 1942 was the mayor of his native Minden, the seat of government of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana.^[1][2] He resigned early in his second term to enter the United States Army with stateside service in World War II.

Background

Floyd Culbertson, Jr.'s parents were Floyd Culbertson, Sr. (died 1958)^{[3][lower-alpha 1]} and Mary Leana "Mollie" Alford Culbertson (1887-1977), who was a native of Cherry Ridge in Union Parish in North Louisiana.^[5] Culbertson had a sister and brothers John, Jim and Roy.^{[3][5][lower-alpha 2]} He attended Minden High School and was in the 10th grade in 1925.^[6]

Career

Culbertson graduated from the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University near Dallas in University Park, Texas.^[7] He was admitted in 1937 to the practice of law in Minden in the office of Clifford Hayes.^[8]

In the 1940 Democratic primary election for mayor, Culbertson unseated Mayor David William Thomas, who was seeking a third consecutive two-year term. Both men were divorced. Thomas finished third in the balloting. In 1942, Thomas unsuccessfully challenged Culbertson for re-election. Mayoral terms, then for two years, were expanded to four in 1954 with John T. David.^[9] Soon after his reelection, Culbertson ran unsuccessfully in the 1942 primary for district attorney of the 26th Judicial District held on September 22, 1942. The position was decided in a runoff in which Arthur M. Wallace defeated Minden attorney Graydon K. Kitchens, Sr., a former law partner of future Governor Robert F. Kennon and later a Kennon appointee to the Louisiana Tax Commission. Kennon himself had served as mayor of Minden from 1926 to 1928.^[10]

In November 1942, Culbertson resigned as mayor to enter the United States Army National Guard.^[11][12] Culbertson made lieutenant by October 1943.^[13] John Calhoun Brown,^[14] a member of the Minden City Council, served as mayor pro tem for the remainder of Culbertson’s term until the spring of 1944, when J. Frank Colbert, a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, was elected to the position. Culbertson spent most of his military service in the Brooklyn borough of New York City before he re-opened his law office in Minden in December 1946.^[15]

In 1947, Culbertson joined Minden businessman Larkin L. Greer (1902–1991) and future State Representative E. D. Gleason as co-chairmen of the Webster Parish "Kennon Club" to support Judge Robert Kennon for governor. Kennon, however, was eliminated in the Democratic primary early in 1948. Former Governor Earl Kemp Long defeated in a runoff election former Governor Sam Houston Jones. In 1940, Jones had unseated Long, who held the office for the preceding year.^[16]

Except for the years he was in the military, Culbertson headed the Red Cross office in Webster Parish from 1938 to 1948, when Minden businessman Willard Roberts (1899-1994) assumed those duties.^[17] In 1950, Culbertson and his political opponent, former Mayor David William Thomas, were opposing lawyers in a legal dispute over a $196 debt deemed collectible to the plaintiff by City Judge R. Harmon Drew, Sr. The case was appealed unsuccessfully to the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit in Shreveport.^[18] On March 8, 1952, Culbertson was admitted to the practice of law in Texas, his law office was located in Tulsa, Oklahoma.^[7] In 1977, when his mother died, Culbertson was living in Keller in suburban Tarrant County, Texas.^[3][5]

Marriages and children

In 1933, Culbertson married Gladys Day (1907-1995), daughter of William Hartwell Day, Sr. (1884-1959) and Minnie W. Day (1888-1964) of Gibsland east of Minden in Bienville Parish. They wed in Lafayette County in southwestern Arkansas. They were living separately in 1940.^{[19][20][lower-alpha 3]}

After his divorce from Gladys Day, Culbertson married in 1952 the former Violet McMurty (1921-1970), a native of Tulsa, where he was living at the time. Their son, Douglas Floyd Culbertson, was born in San Gabriel in Los Angeles County, California, on September 5, 1953. Douglas, a University of Texas School of Law student, died of cancer in Austin, Texas, on March 19, 1979, at the age of twenty-five.^{[21][lower-alpha 4]}

Culbertson married Evelyn Davis, PhD,^[23] who was a professor of the School of Arts and Sciences and Director of the Music Education at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa from 1965 to 1980, when she became professor emeriti.^[24][23] In 1992, she published He Heard America Singing: Arthur Farwell, Composer and Crusading Music Educator.^[25] American composer Arthur Farwell was the subject of her 1972 PhD dissertation.^[26] From Evelyn's first marriage to Joseph M. Davis, she had three sons, Bryan, Allan, and Darrell Davis, all of Ocala. Evelyn died in 2006.^[23]

Notes

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