East Baton Rouge Parish
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John McFarland Foote is proving in his loyal and efficient administration as
supervisor of elementary and rural schools, one of the most important divisions
of the Louisiana State Department of Education, the eminent consistency of his
having been chosen for this executive position. His pedagogic and administrative
stewardship is of constructive and progressive type. He has shown that he knows
what to do and how to do it, and is giving splendid service in advancing the
interests of the public schools of Louisiana over which he has the general
supervision.
Mr. Foote was born at Centerville, St. Mary Parish,
Louisiana, May 14, 1883, and is a representative of one of the old and
influential families of that parish. His grandfather, John McFarland Foote, in
whose honor he was named, was born and reared in St. Mary Parish, and there
became an extensive planter and slave-owner, with two large and well improved
plantations in the vicinity of Franklin. When the Civil war came on he took his
slaves to Texas, in the hope of being able to retain possession thereof, but
while the war was still in progress his death there occurred. His wife, whose
maiden name was Caroline Duminie, was born in St. Mary Parish, and was a
resident of that parish at the time of her death. It is a matter of record that
the original American representative or representatives of the Foote family came
from England and settled in North Carolina in the early Colonial period of our
national history.
Newton S. Foote, father of him whose name initiates
this review, was born and reared on the old homestead sugar plantation near
Franklin, St. Mary Parish, the year of his nativity having been 1856, and his
early education having been acquired under the direction of private tutors and
by attending the plantation school. Thereafter he advanced his scholarship by
attending an academy in the City of Nashville, Tennessee. Within a short time
after attaining to his legal majority he married Miss Cora Parish, who was born
at Centerville, St. Mary Parish, in l856, and at that place the young couple
established their home. Mr. Foote owned and maintained general management of a
plantation in his native parish, and he also followed clerical work for many
years. In 1910 he established his residence at Morgan City, St Mary Parish,
where he resided until his death in September, 1924. The death of his wife
occurred in October, 1919. He was a stanch democrat, and while never ambitious
for public office he gave loyal service as a member of the school hoard in his
native parish in the earlier period of his independent career. Under the rank of
major he served in the paymaster department of the United States Army in the
Spanish-American war, and affiliated with the Spanish-American War Veterans. Of
the children he is the eldest, Newton Kennedy, who died at Morgan City, in 1919,
was a veteran of the Spanish- American war and was for several years actively
engaged in the practice of law in his native parish; Jennie Gertrude, who died
in New Orleans in 1916, was the wife of Thurston Knight. now a prosperous farmer
in East Baton Rouge Parish; John M., of this sketch, was the next in order of
birth, and maintains his residence and official headquarters at Baton Rouge;
Irving Parish is now prosecuting a special course of study in Peabody College,
Nashville, Tennessee, and is professor of education in the Louisiana State
University at Baton Rouge; Miss Lucy Brown, the youngest of the children, is a
librarian by training and is on the staff of the state university library at
Baton Rouge.
In the public schools of Centerville John S. Foote continued
his studies until his graduation from the high school, as a member of the class
of 1900, and in the following year he taught in a rural school at Lafayette. He
then entered the Louisiana State Normal School at Natchitoches, and after his
graduation in this institution, in 1904, he served one year as principal of the
public schools at Vinton. From 1905 to 1909 he was principal of the high school
at Houma, and further recognition then came to him in his election to the office
of parish superintendent of schools in Terrebonne Parish, a position of which he
continued the incumbent until the autumn of 1914, when he became associate
supervisor of elementary and rural schools of the State Department of Education.
He has since continued his residence in the capital city, and since 1918 has
held the office of supervisor of elementary and rural schools, his offices being
on the sixth floor of the New Reymond Building. He is a member of the Phi Delta
Kappa scientific college fraternity, eligibility to membership in which is based
on the achieving of a certain amount of constructive work in the field of
education. Mr. Foote is an influential member of the Louisiana State Teachers
Association, is a member also of the National Education Association, serving
this organization in the capacity of vice-president in 192423, the National
Society for the Study of Education, and the National Department of Rural
Education, of which he was president in 1923-24. He has appeared as a speaker on
the programs of the National Education Association, has served on various
committees of this organization, and has made an excellent record as a speaker
on educational subjects and topics. With this national organization he served as
chairman of the committee on a comparative study of instruction in country
schools, and the report of the committee has been published and properly
distributed. At the present time he is a member of the Curriculum Commission
which has in course of preparation the annual Year Book of the Department of
Superintendence of the National Education Association, as well as a member of
the committee assigned to an exhaustive study of rural education in the United
States. In 1923 he completed an effective post-graduate course by attending the
Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee, from which institution he
received in August of that year the degree of Master of Arts. He is the author
of several bulletins on educational subjects issued by the State Department of
Education, a manual for the teaching of elementary geography, and editor of a
volume of patriotic readings for elementary school work. In connection with
pedagogy he has taken special courses also in the University of Louisiana, the
University of Virginia, the University of Chicago and Harvard University, in
each of which he has attended the summer sessions. His wife likewise was
graduated from the State Normal School at Natchitoches, and prior to their
marriage she had given three years of service as a teacher in the Louisiana
schools, her interest in educational work being still of vital order.
Mr.
Foote's political convictions place him loyally in the ranks of the democratic
party, he and his wife are active members of the First Presbyterian Church of
Baton Rouge. He holds membership in the local Kiwanis Club, and his Masonic
affiliations are here briefly noted: St. James Lodge No. 47, A. F. and A. M., to
which he was admitted from Unity Lodge No. 167, in Terrebonne Parish, of which
he is a past master; Washington Chapter No. 57, R. A. M.; Lambert Council No.
22, R. and S. M.; Plains Commandery No. 11, Knights Templars; and (at New
Orleans) Jerusalem Temple, A. A. 0. N. M. S. He is the owner of valuable real
estate in Terrebonne Parish and of his attractive home place in Baton Rouge, at
320 East Boulevard.
December 9, 1909, recorded the marriage of Mr. Foote
and Miss Viva Cockerham, daughter of M. Allen Cockerham and Maggie (Shean)
Cockerham, who reside at Angola, where Mr. Cockerham is a department head in the
management of the Louisiana Penitentiary.
Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 127-128.
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