1925 Biography - Jesse W. Lea

Jesse Worthy Lea, M. D. The record of Dr. Jesse Worthy Lea, physician and surgeon of Jackson, is filled with self-sacrifice and professional triumphs, and he is rightly numbered among the excellent citizens and skilled medical practitioners of East Feliciana Parish. He was born in East Feliciana Parish, on a farm one mile east of Jackson, October 6, 1868, a son of Zachariah Lea, and grandson of Alfred Mead Lea, the Lea family being one of the old Southern families of the country. Three brothers bearing the name of Lea came from Wales to the American colonies and first located in Virginia, from whence they later migrated to Lea Springs, Tennessee and there they erected an Episcopal Church that is still standing. From this place, named in their honor, they scattered to different parts of the Union, and wherever found are numbered among the best people of their community. Alfred Mead Lea was born in Amite County, Mississippi, and died at Jackson, Louisiana, in the '5Os, having come here in 1848. Acquiring a rural property, he became a planter and merchant. He married Elizabeth Garner, born in Mississippi, who died near Slaughter, Louisiana.

Zachariah Lea was born in Amite County, Mississippi, in 1839, and died on the home farm one mile east of Jackson in 1903. Only nine years of age when brought to East Feliciana, he was reared in this parish, and here his interests centered. After attending Centenary College, of Jackson, he became a planter. When war broke out between the North and the South he espoused the cause of the Confederacy, and was made a lieutenant and manfully fought in its behalf in the Fourth Louisiana Infantry, and was twice wounded in the battle of Shiloh. He was elected on the democratic ticket to represent East Feliciana Parish in the Louisiana House of Representatives. He was a consistent member of the Baptist Church. He married Sallie Worthy, born in 1839, who died on the home farm in 1916. This farm was also her birthplace. The children born to Zachariah Lea and his wife were: Doctor Lea, whose name heads this review; Estelle, who resides on the plantation near Cheneyville, Rapides Parish, Louisiana, married Herbert H. Ferguson; Ida, who is unmarried, resides with her sister, Mrs. Ferguson; Mary, who was killed in a cyclone when she was twenty-four years old; and Evelyn, who died at the age of two years.

Doctor Lea attended Centenary College, Jackson, Louisiana, and the medical department of Tulane University, from which he was graduated in 1891, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He is a member of the Greek letter fraternity Kappa Sigma. A Mason, he belongs to Saint Albans Lodge No. 28, Free and Accepted Masons, of Jackson, of which he is a past master. During the late war he volunteered before the United States entered the war, and was placed in the Medical Reserve Corps. He was stationed on the Mexican border for twenty months. When he entered the service he was commissioned a first lieutenant, but was successively promoted until he was honorably discharged, December 13, 1915, with the rank of major.

On December 12, 1899, Doctor Lea married at New Orleans, Louisiana, Miss Grace Mardenbrough, born at New Orleans. Doctor and Mrs. Lea have one daughter, Helen.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, page 319.