1925 Biography - John M. Foote

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.