Hooper Cemetery

Rapides Parish Cemeteries of LA

Submitted by Betty White

The Hooper Cemetery is located in the Kolin community south of Pineville,Rapides Parish. This is a complete listing of all known burials as of Dec. 1991. Also included are various notes and additional information as known.

ADD: Nolan Hooper and Mary Ellen Hooper 

EMMA HOOPER BARRON

Birth: March 9, 1904

Death: March 23, 1924

Epitaph: Wife of H. J. Barron

Father: Richard Newton Hooper

Mother: Lenora Bradford

Spouse: H. J. Barron

Brother: Moab, Newton A., Jessie

Sisters: Mary, Mattie

Note: Emma's father did not want her to marry, so they ran away to marry. About two months before she was to have her first baby, she died after eating some mustard greens. The doctor said she had been poisoned by some insects on the greens.

 

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON RICE HOOPER

Birth: March 1827

Death: October 1911

Epitaph: age 84 years

Brother: Henry I. Robertson

Sister: Mary Lou Robertson

Spouse: John S. Rice

Child: Silas Rice

Spouse: William Hooper

Children: Josiah, Mary Elizabeth, Virginia, William A,

James, Robert, Mary Margaret, Emma, Richard Newton.

Notes: Vera Harvey Chelette remembered a story she heard many times about Elizabeth. At about sixteen years of age she was in a coma. The family believed she had died and layed her on a cooling board as preparation for the burial. Someone noticed her eyes flicker so she was returned to bed. Elizabeth said she had seen heaven while in the coma and drank from a stream. There were lots of people walking on a dark path. God told her she was not going to die then and told her how long she would live, but she was never to tell anyone. She said years later that she couldn't understand Why God would let her live to see so many of her children dead. The only hint she ever gave about how long she would live was when she fell and broke her hip. She said she would have to live twenty years with a broken hip and she did. Elizabeth also had said that God told her she would not be sick when she died. She died unexpectedly when the family left to attend a funeral. She had stayed home with a child too young to go.Elizabeth's parents were from South Carolina. Jane White Craig said they were Irish. Her brother and sister were both younger than she and were born in Arkansas. Jane White said she was told the sister became a ship stewardess and was called Lou. Their brother, Henry, was a giant and weighed over five hundred pounds. They were all raised on a plantation near a salt dome in Arkansas.  Jane White wrote, "Grandmother was so sweet. She was crippled twenty years before she died. She fell and broke her hip. She would sing to us and teach us to play games and to be a Christian. She lived with Uncle Newton and Aunt Nola. Grandpa went in and out as he felt he had to work. Grandma made her garden up till a little while before her death"

Elizabeth and William had eleven children. Only the names of nine are known. Only four grew to adults and married.

ELLEN MCCANN HOOPER

Birth: Aug. 21, 1910

Death: Living

Epitaph: McCann

Father: John Levi McCann

Mother: Francis Delilah Hayes

Spouse: Newton Alexander Hooper

Children: Newton C., Archie, Noland, Jean, Cecil, Thomas, Francis Lenora, Sandra Ann

LENARD MOAB HOOPER

Birth: Dec. 27, 1900

Death: Aug. 24, 1911

Epitaph: son of R.N. and L.E. Hooper

Father: Richard Newton Hooper

Mother: Lenora Eleanor Bradford

Brother: Jeff, Peerless, Jessie

Sisters: May, Mattie

Note: Lenard was shot by his brother, Jessie.

 

LENORA ELEANOR BRADFORD HOOPER

Birth: June 22, 1864

Death: July 7, 1935

Spouses: William A. Hooper, Richard Newton Hooper

Married: 13 Oct 1887

Children: William Howard, Jefferson, Richard Peerless, Mattie, Mary, Jesse Joseph, Newton Alexander, Lenard Moab, Emma.

 

NEWTON ALEXANDER HOOPER

Birth: Jan. 12, 1899

Death: Aug. 3, 1960

Father: Richard Newton Hooper

Mother: Lenora Eleanor Bradford

Spouse: Ellen McCann

Married: 7 Oct 1933

Brothers: Jefferson, Peerless

Sisters: Mattie, Mary, Jessie, Newton

 

WILLIAM HOOPER

Birth: April 1825 in Mississippi

Death: 1909

Epitaph: Age 84 years

Spouse: Elizabeth Robertson Rice

Children: Josiah, Mary Elizabeth, William A., Robert, Emma + Notes: William's father was born in Georgia and his mother in Mississippi.

Jane White Craig said she was told that his mother was an English woman. She also told that when he was about sixteen he went to a spring to get water. He met a neighbor who had been scalped by wild Indians. He came to the house,got his gun and went to join in with the white men that were fighting the Indians. 

Aunt Jane's story continued that he was a school teacher and taught until he was too old. They had no retirement then. He could write the beautiful hand, the ole time big slinging letters that he used to write with goose quills. He was smart and very dressy for his time.

After he quit school teaching he would order books and medicine, because the people in the country would use patented medicine as doctors were few and scattered.He would put all this in saddle packets and carry it across his shoulders and walk six to eight miles a day, old like he was, and sell it. He sold enough to keep himself good clothes to wear. He would come to our house down on Red River on the farm and stay a few days with us. He would help us work potatoes or peanuts and tell us stories that we really enjoyed. His by-word if he got worried was"My stars alive". At night he would sit on the porch and sing religious songs to us. "Ah, we loved him".

In the 1850 census he was living in the home of Francis Little, a tanner and shoe merchant. In 1860 he is listed as a farmer and is living next to Joseph and Ann Craig. Joseph was a shoemaker who had just arrived from England.There would be several marriages between these two families in following generations.  About 1854 William married Elizabeth Robertson Rice, a widow.

WILLIAM A. HOOPER

Birth: 1862

Death: 1886

Epitaph: age 24 years

Spouse: Lenora Eleanor Bradford

Brother: James, Robert, Richard

Sisters: Elizabeth, Mary, Emma

Child: William Howard Hooper

 

WILMA HOOPER

Birth: Feb. 3, 1923

Death: Oct. 22, 1925

Father: Jessie Hooper

Mother: Alvenia Kitty Burnaman

Sisters: Doris, Ruby, Cletta

 

FRANKLIN POSTON

Birth: Feb 20, 1878

Death: March 23, 1923

Father: James Henderson Poston

 

JAMES HENDERSON POSTON

Birth: 1822

Death: 1890

Epitaph: age 68

Father: Jeremiah Poston (born in Maryland, worked as a surveyor)

Mother: Selena Henderson

Brothers: William, Thomas Hart Benton Poston, Jeremiah Washington Poston

Sisters: Caroline Selena, born 1825, Selena, born 1834

Spouse: Mary Ann Lane

Married: 21 Feb 1848 in Rusk County, Texas

Children: Marion C., Franklin, Anna, Robert, James

Spouse: Tullos

Notes: James Poston was a medical doctor. It is told that he treated an escaped prisoner. The folks in the community were so opposed to this that a group was coming to tar and feather Dr. Poston. He fled in the night with his family. Pete Knapick reported another version; that the "enemy" that he treated was John Wesley Hardin who got into a shooting altercation with two black Union soldiers, killing one of them. The Union soldiers were coming for him. He came to Philidelphia community near Pineville, Louisiana because he had a cousin, Elizabeth Robertson Hooper living near by. No relationship has been found thus far. It is likely true because Elizabeth and her brother and sister came from a plantation in Arkansas near a salt mound. The Postons were also from a plantation, Long Prairie, in Lafayette County, Arkansas. The Postons also had a history of dealing in salt. There were some Robertsons in the same county. It will take further research to determine the connection.

EZEKEIL H. POWELL

Birth: Jan. 1854 in Mississippi

Death: Nov 7, 1920

Father: Howell Powell born in New Jersey

Mother: Caroline Lockheart

Spouse: Francis Tarver

Brother: James, Willia, Isaac

Sisters: Lydia, Mary

Children: Laura, Sarah, Preston, Martha, Hester, Mendy

 

LUCY SMITH

Birth: May 7, 1887

Death: Aug. 27, 1973

Father: William Henry Smith

Mother: Mary Wells Smith

 

MARY WELLS SMITH

Birth: 1846

Death: 1909

Spouse: William Henry Smith

Children: George, William, Lucy

 

WILLIAM HENRY SMITH

Birth: 1844

Death: 1912

Spouse: Mary Wells

Children: George, William, Lucy

 

CHARLES OTIS WHITE

Birth: March 30. 1900

Death: April 18, 1926

Father: Louis Taylor White

Mother: Mary Elizabeth Hooper

Spouse: none

Brothers: Irving T."Bob", James Henderson Poston, Douglas F. "Dave, George Walter, William Richard, Truly Truman

Sisters: Kate Hester, Ida, Elizabeth Jane, Mary Emma,

Notes: Charles Otis was born with deformed legs. It was told that his brother, William Richard, had a bad temper that went unchecked. When angered he would run and hit his head into a wall. One day his sisters teased him and his mother alsosaid something to him. He ran and butted his head into his mother who was then pregnant with Charles Otis and caused Otis's deformity. Otis, as he was called, learned to walk on his hands. He could whistle beautifully and imitate all the birds in the woods. He sold the Alexandria newspaper,  The Town Talk, from his wheelchair in Alexandria.

MARY ELIZABETH HOOPER WHITE

Birth: Nov. 2, 1858

Death: Oct. 30, 1924

Epitaph: Wife of Louis T. White

Father: William Hooper

Mother: Elizabeth Robertson Rice

Spouse: Louis Taylor White

Brothers: Josiah, William A., James, Robert, Richard Newton

Sisters: Virginia, Mary Margaret, M. Emma

Children: Kate Hester, Irving T., James Henderson "Poston", Douglas F. Dave, Ida, George Walter, Elizabeth Jane, Mary Emma, William

Richard, Truly Truman, Charles Otis

Notes: Jane White Craig said she was a dear old mother who worked so hard. She raised eleven of twelve children. Elizabeth took in boarders to help support the family. Her borders were cutting logs for a logging company. One of them,Charley Harvey, later married Elizabeth's daughter, Emma. Elizabeth was known as a good midwife. She delivered all of George and Truly White's children and one son of Laura Little's. She also took care of sick people. Elizabeth Stopped running the boarding house because of her nerves. She read and knew the Bible well.

GEORGE WALTER WHITE

Birth: Oct. 26, 1887

Death: March 25, 1925

Father: Louis Taylor White

Mother: Elizabeth Hooper White

Brothers: Irving T. "Bob", James Henderson Poston, Douglas F. "Dave", William Richard, Truly Truman, Charles Otis

Sisters: Kate Hester, Ida, Elizabeth Jane, Mary Emma

Spouse: Carrie Richardson

Children: Mildred, Bertie, Noble, Nancy

 

IRVIN T. WHITE

Birth: Dec. 31, 1879

Death: Dec. 1, 1957

Father: Louis Taylor White

Mother: Elizabeth Hooper White

Spouse: Mary Jane Reeves

Brothers: James Henderson Poston, Douglas F. "Dave", George Walter, William Richard, Truly Truman, Charles Otis

Sisters: Kate Hester, Ida, Elizabeth Jane, Mary Emma

Children: none

 

MARTHA WHITE

Birth: about 1906

Death: about 1908

Epitaph: Martha is in an unmarked grave

Father: Poston White

Mother: Sarah Powell White

Brother: Ed, Monroe, Woodrow, +

Sister: Pinkie, Mary, Oveda, +

Notes: Martha was born with her head bent to her shoulder. She developed croup and the doctor was summoned. The doctor forced an instrument down her throat and broke her neck.

MARY JANE REEVES WHITE

Birth: June 7, 1877

Death: July 27, 1953

Father: Asa Reeves

Mother: Rubie

Spouse: Irvin T. "Bob" White

Sister: Alma E. Reeves White

Children: none

 

WOODROW WHITE

Birth: about 1912

Death: about 1912

Epitaph: Woodrow is in an unmarked grave

Father: Poston White

Mother: Sarah Powell White

Brothers: Eddie Lee, Monroe Albert, Elton Essex "Jack", Poston, Jr., Marvin Alvis

Sisters: Martha, Pinkie, Mary, Oveda Iona, Destie Jane