Redon, Emile Joseph

Submitted by Mike Miller

Emile Joseph Redon is the efficient and popular trainmaster in the City of Baton Rouge for the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, is of Sterling French lineage and is a scion of the third generation of the Redon Family in Louisiana. He is a grandson of Leon Redon, Sr., who was born in Bordeaux, France, and who was reared and educated in his native land, where he served in the national army for a time in the period of his youth. He was a young man when he came to the United States and established his residence in Louisiana, in the City of New Orleans he built up a prosperous bakery and confectionary business, and there he continued to maintain his home until his death. In that city his son, Leon, Jr., was born December l8, 1848, and there passed his entire life, he having succeeded to the ownership of the business of his father and having long conducted one of the leading bakeries in the fair old Crescent City, where his death occurred in December, 1906. Leon Redon, Jr., was a staunch democrat, and, holding to the ancestral religious faith of the family, was a communicant of the Catholic Church. His widow, whose maiden name was Ollie Powell and who now resides at Baton Rouge, was born in New Orleans, November 17, 1869. Of the two surviving children Emile J., of this review, is the younger, and his sister, Leona T., is the wife of Laurance Patton, who holds a position in the employ of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, with residence in the City of New Orleans.

Emile J. Redon continued his studies in the public schools of New Orleans until he had completed a partial course in the high school, and he then, at the age of sixteen years, initiated his service with the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company in the capacity of call boy at Wilson, this state. There he won advancement to the position of desk clerk for the general foreman, and in 1907 he was appointed a flagman on the New Orleans division of this railroad. In 1909 he was made a freight-train conductor on the same division, and he thus continued in service until the nation became involved in the World war, when his inherent patriotism and his loyalty also to the land of his ancestors led him promptly to tender his service as a member of the United States Army. He volunteered in December 1917, passed sixty days at Camp Meade, Maryland, and was then transferred to Camp Grant, Rockford, Illinois, where he was stationed six months 3114 where he won the rank of sergeant. As a member of Company E. Thirty-second Engineers he went to France, and he continued in overseas service one year. After the close of the war he returned to his native land, and at Camp Shelby, Mississippi received his honorable discharge in June, 1919.

After the completion of this patriotic service Redon resumed his position as freight conductor the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, and, the following September he was promoted to his position of traveling conductor on the same Orleans division. This post he retained the appointment to his present office, that of at Baton Rouge, the duties of which he July 15, 1920. His office headquarters are Roumain Building. He is a democrat in allegiance, and is affiliated with the Order of Railway Conductors.

January 29, 1920, recorded the marriage of Mr. Redon and Miss Mary Lee Stringer, who was born in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, and whose education included a college course. Mr. and Mrs. Redon have no children.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 96-97, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.