The Life of Mrs. Jimmie Bradford
Mrs. Jimmie was born in the year 1921 into a close-knit family that already had one boy and two girls, and she would be the last child, making her the baby of the circle. Her parents were Martin and Ella Francis and the family lived in the town of Jena on Jackson Street. She went to the “old Jena School in town.” Her favorite after school memories involved a vacant dirt lot where she and the neighborhood kids would gather up and play with a round rubber ball. She was one of the few girls playing with a host of boys because there weren’t many girls around the neighborhood.
“My daddy was a millwright,” she shared. “He was killed when I was only seven years old working for the Tom Randall Sawmill in Newton, LA. We were getting ready to move there when he died.” As a result, they remained in LaSalle Parish and her mama raised all five children.
Mrs. Jimmie met her husband, Clarence Bradford, at school at a young age. She smiled when her daughter, Barbara Jones, encouraged her to share her late husband’s story of when he first noticed her there, only saying, “He said I had on a pair of overalls, and I was playing marbles. He was three years older than I was.”
The story continued that he graduated and waited on her to do the same. She finished high school in 1939. Her mama made her graduation dress and the graduation ceremony was held at the First Baptist Church in Jena. Soon after, the couple married. Mrs. Jimmie was just eighteen years old, not unusual for girls to marry that young in those days. As the story goes, she packed her belongings and moved with her new husband into his family home on the long road between Whitehall and Nebo. It was there they started their lives together having two daughters, Barbara and Judy.
When asked how life has changed through the decades, Mrs. Jimmie had this to say, “People were closer back then. Families and neighbors liked to visit. Everybody knew who lived here and who lived there. Today, they don’t even know who they’re related to.”
Then she went on to tell about how her mama washed their clothes in the creek behind Jim and Mattie Hudspeth’s house saying, “Mattie cooked the best biscuits you ever saw!”
Entertainment was also simple in her younger days. Her friends came over to her house around 2 p.m. every day to drink coffee and to listen to records on the Victrola her mama had bought. They only had three or four records at the most.
She recounted the days her husband served in the US Navy and how they spent time together riding horses and ‘hunting cows’ on Catahoula Lake. Her favorite U.S. President from her 102 years of living is John F. Kennedy, “‘cause everyone was a Democrat back then.”
Serving as the Jena Town Clerk for twenty- seven years under Mayors Nick Edwards and Cuz Sandifer, she recounted her days as a bookkeeper, her time at the Good Pine Middle Trade School and the secretaries’ school she attended as a young woman. She also worked as commissioner of her voting ward, noting that people “used to vote in houses in the neighborhood.”
Mrs. Jimmie isn’t particularly fond of TVs or cellphones, which she calls ‘computers’, and often chastises her granddaughter, Stacy Johnson, and great granddaughter, Aaralyn, for using theirs when she’s around. She simply feels these are a waste of time.
“I don’t like to see people on their telephones, but they won’t listen to my advice,” she said with a smile.
She laments that she can no longer drive her car, stating, “I think I can still drive. They (looking at her daughters and granddaughters) won’t let me do what I want to!” (Incidentally, she drove until she was almost 100 years old!)
Today, Mrs. Jimmie lives on the same hill, in the 79-year-old house she and her husband built after the birth of their first daughter. Her granddaughter, Stacey, and her great granddaughter, Aaralyn, reside with her. She has a bit of advice for today’s youngsters which includes surrendering their lives to the Lord and listening and following His guid- ance.
When asked the secret to her long life, she replied, “It’s God’s idea, not mine. I’ve lived a normal life like everyone. God let’s all of us live the lives we choose. I’ve had a good family, a sweet family and a family that cares for me.”
You can say that after 102 years of living, Mrs. Jimmie Bradford has much wisdom to share and many stories to tell. She has experienced the everchanging society and culture of the last 102 years but her core beliefs in God and family have remained the same.
