1925 Biography - Stephen M. Shows

Stephen M. Shows since 1014 has been principal of schools at Longstreet in De Soto Parish. He has been the directing head of the local school system throughout the period marked by progressive development in the educational facilities of that locality. Since he became principal two sets of buildings have been erected to accommodate the school population of Longstreet. The first soon proved inadequate to the demand, and subsequently a large brick building was erected and there are also quarters for the domestic science department.

Mr. Shows was born at Old Hebron, in Jackson Parish, Louisiana, November 9, 1890. The Shows family originated in Holland and first settled in South Carolina. It was represented as a family by soldiers in the American army during the War of the Revolution. The parents of Mr. Shows are Stephen Jackson and Emma (Sorrels) Shows. The latter was born in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana. Stephen Jackson Shows was born while his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Shows, were moving from Mississippi to Louisiana. He was born in a covered wagon in 1851. John Shows was one of the pioneer teachers in this section of Louisiana, where he settled. Stephen J. Shows owned a farm and store at Old Hebron, and subsequently moved to Jonesboro, where he became a merchant and where he still resides. Throughout his life he has been a strong advocate of schools and was responsible for getting the first school tax in his district voted he served as a member of the local school board; has been a democrat and a deacon in the Baptist Church. Stephen J. Shows and wife after their marriage moved to a tract of railroad land, built a little one-room log house with a dirt floor and took their meals outside. It was here that he began his career as a farmer. In the family were eleven children, ten of whom grew up. The four sons were: J. M., a justice of the peace and notary public at Jonesboro; G. A., a road contractor at Bunkie, Louisiana; Stephen M.; and P. F., who died at the age of twenty-seven, while a farmer and cotton ginner at Jonesboro, La.

Stephen M. Shows acquired his early education in a little one-room school at Hebron; subsequently graduated from the Jonesboro High School, and while teaching he continued his higher education in the Louisiana industrial Institute at Ruston, the Louisiana State University and also in the Louisiana State Normal College at Natchitoches. His first efforts as a teacher were expended in a school at Shady Grove, three miles from Jonesboro. It was a one-room school. Following that he had a two-room school at Midway, twelve miles from Jonesboro. Then after spending two years in Normal College, in 1914 he became principal of the schools at Longstreet, an industrial community that is one of the most prosperous localities in De Soto Parish. During his boyhood he had business experience clerking in his lather's store, and as a youth he entertained for a time the ambition of becoming a lawyer.

Mr. Shows married, July 12, 1916, Miss 0. C. Wardlow, daughter of J. P. Wardlow, of Red Oak, Louisiana. She finished her education in the Louisiana State Normal and was a teacher for a time. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Shows are James Stephen, born in 1920, and Mary Katherine. Mr. Shows is a Master Mason, a member of the Baptist Church, and conducted the Bible Class in the Sunday School.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, page 356.