Herman "Wimpy" Jones

Herman "Wimpy" Jones (December 19, 1905 – April 30, 1967)^[1] was a businessman who served as a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate from Bossier and Webster parishes for a single term from 1956 to 1960. He was also the state fire marshal for Minden and for a time the assistant sergeant at arms of the Louisiana House of Representatives.^[2]

Background

Jones was one of eight children born in Webster Parish to John Jackson Jones (1867–1957) and the former Stella I. Boucher (1872–1946). His siblings were Casey, Clyde, Lena, Louie, Delta Jones Botzong (1891–1979), A. Melvin Jones (1893-1985), and Loy Jones (1903–1907), who died at the age of three when Herman was barely a year old.^[3] Melvin Jones and his wife, the former Lillian David (1895–1972), had three children, who were a niece and nephews of Herman Jones: Melba Jones Lowery (1921–2009), James Thomas Jones (1916–1986), and Augustus L. "Loye" Jones (1931–2011), who opened Loye's Pharmacy in Minden in 1963.^[4][5] Melba Lowery was the wife of Dennis Lowery (1922-2012), a native of Yellow Pine in Sabine County in east Texas.^[6]

Herman Jones graduated in 1924 from Minden High School, having played on champion football teams in 1921, 1923, and 1924.^[2] He operated restaurants in Minden and later Bossier City known as Jones' Kitchen and the Southern Kitchen, respectively. Jones' Kitchen was sold in 1951. It was renamed in 1958 as the "Southern Kitchen" under new owners Harold Martin "Happy" Turner (1911–1988) and John T. David, the Minden fire chief and municipal mayor from 1946 to 1955. While residing in Bossier City, Jones was a member of the First Baptist Church there. He also served on the Bossier City Planning Commission and filled an unexpired term on the City Council of Bossier City.^[7]

Herman "Wimpy" Jones at his Southern Kitchen Restaurant in Minden, Louisiana

Jones at his camp house on Lake Bistineau near Doyline

Legislative races

In 1947, Jones ran for the Louisiana House seat from Bossier Parish. He lost by seventy-seven votes to incumbent Jimmy Boyd.^[8] In 1952, Jones narrowly lost a primary election to the state Senate to John Jones Doles, Sr., a Plain Dealing banker whom Jones described as "a friend."^[9]

On February 21, 1956, Jones defeated businessman and former educator A Harold Montgomery (1911–1995) of Doyline in south Webster Parish in the Democratic primary runoff for the Bossier/Webster Senate seat vacated by Doles after a single term. A third candidate, Minden businessman and educator Lloyd C. Starr (1899–1982), was eliminated in the first primary. Jones claimed to have known personally nearly all the legislators and would hence be ready from the first day to represent the northwest Louisiana district. Jones polled 6,734 votes (50.7 percent) to Montgomery's 6,542 (49.3 percent), a margin of 192 votes.^[10] No Republicans sought the position. District 36 obtained its first Republican senator in 2007, when Robert Adley of Benton, the seat of Bossier Parish, switched parties shortly after being elected as a Democrat.

As senator, Jones served on the Joint Legislative Committee on Segregation, under chairman William M. Rainach of neighboring Claiborne Parish. Like Rainach, Jones opposed desegregation at the height of the civil rights movement. He was a favorite of organized labor and supported voting by eighteen-year-olds, an issue not much discussed at the time, some fifteen years before the ratification of the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[11] Unlike Rainach, Jones was noncommittal on the recurring issue of right-to-work legislation, having urged in 1958 a state constitutional amendment on the matter to gauge voter support. "It is a very controversial issue and ought to be decided by the people. We should get the [right-to-work] thing settled once and for all."^[12] Jones campaigned for reelection in 1959 by noting that he had obtained twenty-three road contracts for Bossier and Webster parishes in the administration of Governor Earl Kemp Long during a period of three and one-half years.^[13]

The more conservative Montgomery returned to challenge Jones in the primary held on December 7, 1959. Montgomery led, 7,929 (46.6 percent) to 6,542 (38.5 percent), but two other candidates polled a critical 2,536 votes (14.9 percent). In the runoff election on January 9, 1960, Montgomery easily defeated Jones, 11,116 (66.5 percent) to 5,611 (33.5 percent) and won sixty-eight of the seventy precincts in what is now a revised District 36. In this same election, Jimmie Davis defeated fellow Democrat deLesseps Story Morrison to win the gubernatorial nomination. The Senate results finished Jones’s political career.^[14]

Jones announced that he would oppose Montgomery again in the primary held on December 7, 1963, but he withdrew from the contest before the balloting began.^[15] Jones called himself an Independent" and endorsed unpledged electors for the 1964 presidential campaign, a position originally held by Montgomery too.^[16] However, the nomination in 1964 of Barry Goldwater by the Republican Party ended the free-elector movement.

In the Democratic primary held on August 13, 1966, Jones ran fourth among five candidates for the position of Ward 4 marshal.^[17]

Grave of Herman "Wimpy" Jones at Minden Cemetery in Minden, Louisiana

Death

Jones died of a brief illness in a Shreveport hospital at the age of sixty-one. Services were held in the funeral home chapel in Minden, with interment at Minden Cemetery. In addition to his wife, whose first and maiden names are not specified in the obituary, Jones was survived by a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Jones Brocato of Shreveport, and a brother, Melvin Jones of Minden.^[2]

Through his maternal uncle, Robert Riley Boucher of Springhill, Jones was a first cousin of former state Representative and Senator Drayton Rogers Boucher (pronounced BUTCHER), who held the same senate seat as Jones from 1940 to 1952.^[3]

References