Wilmer Henry “Jack” Jackson
A Life of Family, Education, and Service, 1909–1990
Wilmer Henry “Jack” Jackson spent his life teaching, coaching, leading, and helping others. From his childhood in Red River Parish to his years as an educator and community leader in Logansport, Louisiana, he built a career marked by varied responsibilities and lasting ties to the people around him. He was a college athlete, a state-championship basketball coach, a longtime high-school principal, a vocational-rehabilitation counselor, a Sabine River Authority commissioner, and a Baptist lay leader. At home, he was Myrtis’s husband, the father of Frances Ruth and Jacky, and the grandfather of four. Together, these roles tell a story of service rooted in family and community.
Roots in Red River Parish
Jack was born on February 5, 1909, at Union Hall in Red River Parish, Louisiana, to John Seaborn “Sebe” Jackson and Ida Belle Adams Jackson. His family belonged to the northwestern Louisiana communities that would remain central to his life and work. (Photo shows Wilmer about age 5 years with his sister Lorena -- Estimated date of photo 1914).
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His brothers and sisters included Lorena Jackson Treadway, Clinton “Clint” Jackson, Cecile Jackson Murphy, Iola Jackson Lemoine, Johnny Jackson, and Sarah Jackson LeCroix. The family names connect his story with several generations of Jackson descendants and with the neighboring families into which his siblings married. (Photo below shows Wilmer with his brother Clint, and their sisters Lorena and Cecile).
During his youth, Jack also made a change that would follow him through the rest of his life. Originally named Wilmer Herbert (or Hubert) Jackson. In Louisiana, the name was pronounced "A Bear." Wilmer did not like his middle name legally changed it to Henry sometime after 1925 and before 1928. Henry was the middle name of the younger of his two greatly loved Adams Uncles. He choose his middle name after his Uncle Edward Henry Adams. In later years, school records, newspapers, and public notices would identify him as Wilmer Henry Jackson or W. H. Jackson.
His family and all those who knew him in his childhood and years at Fairview Alpha School, always called him Wilmer; but after he became a student at Louisiana Normal (1928), he was known as Jack. His wife and all of his in-laws and all of those who knew him after college called him Jack. (Photo below shows Wilmer about the time of his transition from Wilmer to Jack).
Jack attended Louisiana State Normal College in Natchitoches, where academics and athletics both became important parts of his preparation for adult life. The earlier biographical research records his graduation in 1932 with a bachelor’s degree in science-agriculture—a course of study that would find practical expression in his later school work. (Photos below are from Jack's Senior Year at Normal. The first is his graduation photo; the second is from the "favorites" page where he was voted "Most Handsome.)
He participated in football, basketball, and baseball. College athletic coverage remembered him as “Little Jack” in football and “Chesty” in basketball, names that bring a glimpse of the young athletirked as a teacher and coach before assuming the broader responsibilities of a principal. Over time, his career would encompass classroom instruction, agricultural activities, athletic competition, school administration, and counseling.
At Martin and Fairview Alpha, teaching and coaching were closely connected parts of his work. His own experience as a college athlete now became part of his preparation for leading younger players. At the same time, his science-agriculture background gave him a practical field of instruction that extended beyond the athletic program.
These early school appointments established the pattern of a working life spent in close contact with students and their families. They also placed him in the northwestern Louisiana communities where his professional and personal connections would deepen over the following decades.
Marriage to Myrtis Lee Heard
On November 14, 1938, Jack married Myrtis Lee Heard in Pitkin, Louisiana. Their marriage began during his early years in education and continued for more than half a century, spanning the many changes in his career and the growth of their family. (Image of their Wedding Announcement can be enlarged and read)
Jack and Myrtis had two children: Frances Ruth Jackson, who became Frances Ruth Jackson Freeman, and Wilmer Henry “Jacky” Jackson Jr. Their son carried his father’s name, with “Jacky” distinguishing the younger Jackson within the family.
In time, they became grandparents to Jacqueline Lee Freeman Perez, Denise Ruth Freeman McGrade, Kyle Stuart Jackson, and Leslie Faye Jackson. Jacqueline and Denise were the daughters of Charles and Frances Freeman. The names of all four grandchildren appeared in Jack’s obituary, preserving the family connections that were such an important part of his life.
The family story unfolded alongside his public career. The years that brought new school responsibilities and community appointments also brought the experiences of raising children, welcoming grandchildren, and maintaining a marriage that reached its golden anniversary in 1988.
Fairview Alpha: School, Agriculture, and Community
At Fairview Alpha, Jackson’s work reached beyond classroom lessons and basketball practices. The family history records his involvement in agriculture-related activities and a wartime canning center, adding a practical community dimension to his educational work.
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These activities brought together his college training and the needs of the community around the school. Agriculture was not merely a subject he had studied; it became part of the work through which the school served local families. His participation in the wartime canning center likewise belongs to the broader story of his service during the World War II years.
This chapter of his life helps explain the range of responsibilities he accepted. Jackson’s work as an educator included academic instruction and athletics, but it also reached into activities with immediate usefulness to households and the surrounding community.
A State Championship in 1947
One of the outstanding achievements of Jackson’s coaching career came in 1947, when Fairview Alpha won the Louisiana Class C boys’ basketball championship. His team defeated Arnaudville 38–27 in the championship game.
The title gave Fairview Alpha a place in Louisiana’s high-school basketball history and became a lasting landmark in Jackson’s career. For a man whose own college years had included several sports, it marked the successful continuation of athletics into his professional life—not as a player this time, but as the coach of a championship team.
The 1947 championship remains one of the clearest and most memorable events in the record of his school years. It belongs both to the players who earned it and to the coach whose name became associated with their achievement.
Leadership at Logansport High School
Jackson went on to serve seventeen years as principal of Logansport High School. That long tenure became a major chapter of his professional life and established a sustained connection between him, the school, and the Logansport community.
The principalship broadened the scope of his work. As a teacher and coach, he had concentrated on his own classes and teams. As principal, his responsibilities encompassed the school as a whole. His career had moved from guiding particular groups of students to holding a continuing leadership role within an institution.
Logansport also became the setting for much of his church and community service. His connection to the town extended beyond the school day and continued through later professional changes. His work at First Baptist Church and his eventual appointment to the Sabine River Authority became additional parts of that association.
Continuing His Education
While building his career, Jackson also continued his own studies. Family recollections place him at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge during the summers of 1937 and 1938, pursuing graduate work toward a master’s degree in education. The family account connects the interruption of that course of study with World War II.
Later, according to the family history, he completed a master’s degree in education at Stephen F. Austin College in Nacogdoches during the mid-to-late 1950s. University records identified in the earlier research offer avenues for documenting the precise date, but the family account already preserves an important part of his story: he continued seeking further education while working in the profession himself.
These studies form a quieter thread running through his career. Alongside his responsibilities to students, athletes, and schools, he remained engaged in the work of improving his own preparation as an educator.
A New Direction in Vocational Rehabilitation
A heart attack became a turning point in Jackson’s working life. The family account associates his health difficulties with his eventual transition from school leadership into vocational rehabilitation. A newspaper clipping titled “Visit At Hospital,” preserved in the biographical collection, belongs to the record of this period.
In 1965, he began work as a vocational-rehabilitation counselor with the Louisiana State Department of Education. The new position changed the setting and focus of his work, but it continued his long involvement in helping others develop their abilities and pursue opportunities.
The transition added another dimension to a career that had already included teaching, coaching, and administration. Rather than ending his public service, this stage carried it into a different field, where counseling replaced the principal’s office as the center of his professional responsibilities.
Service on the Sabine River Authority
In 1972, Governor Edwin Edwards appointed Jackson to the Louisiana Sabine River Authority. As a commissioner, he entered another sphere of public responsibility, extending his service beyond education and rehabilitation into regional affairs.
The appointment was a significant addition to his record. By this point, his career had brought him into contact with several kinds of public institutions: local schools, a state education department, and a regional authority. Each role called on him to work within a larger organization while maintaining his ties to the area where he had spent his life.
Faith and First Baptist Church
Church life was a continuing part of Jackson’s years in Logansport. At First Baptist Church, he served as a deacon, Sunday School teacher, and longtime Sunday School superintendent. These responsibilities placed him in an active role in the congregation’s teaching and leadership.
His church service echoed familiar elements of his professional life. Teaching remained central, while the superintendent’s role added organizational responsibilities. The man who had spent his career in education continued that work in another setting, serving his congregation as well as the wider community.
His identity as a Baptist lay leader therefore belongs alongside his school and civic accomplishments. It was another enduring expression of his participation in Logansport life.
Later Years: Family Milestones and Loss
Jack and Myrtis’s later years included both celebration and sorrow. Their son, Jacky, died in Baton Rouge in April 1983. His death preceded his father’s by several years and became a profound loss within the family’s history.
In November 1988, Jack and Myrtis celebrated fifty years of marriage. Newspaper coverage marked the occasion and recorded the family they had built together since their wedding in Pitkin in 1938. Their golden anniversary provided a moment to look back across decades that had included children, grandchildren, school appointments, public service, and church responsibilities.
That anniversary also offers a fitting late-life portrait of Jackson: not only the former coach or longtime principal, but a husband whose marriage had endured through the many stages of his adult life.
Death and Remembrance
Wilmr Henry “Jack” Jackson died on December 8, 1990, at the age of eighty-one. Family accounts place his final illness at Schumpert Hospital in Shreveport, and genealogical sources also identify Shreveport as his place of death. He was buried at Price Cemetery in Logansport.
His death was recorded in Louisiana newspaper notices, including obituary references in The Times of Shreveport and the Mansfield Enterprise. A Shreveport Journal index also lists an obituary under his name on December 10, 1990. These notices form part of the public record of a life remembered by family and by the communities in which he worked.
His Legacy
Jack Jackson’s life cannot be captured by one title. He was an athlete who became a coach, a teacher who became a principal, and an educator whose work continued through rehabilitation counseling. He accepted civic responsibilities and gave years of leadership to his church. His 1947 state basketball championship stands as a memorable achievement, while his seventeen years at Logansport High School reflect the steadier, longer work of institutional leadership.
Alongside those accomplishments was the family life he shared with Myrtis: their children, Frances Ruth and Jacky, and their four grandchildren. The fullest account of his life holds these public and private strands together. It remembers the man named in school records and newspaper articles, but also the husband, father, and grandfather whose story continues through the family that has preserved it.
Sources
- Jackson family records, recollections, and timeline supplied by Frances Ruth Jackson Freeman
- Louisiana State Normal College records and athletic coverage, including “Prospects Bright for Grid Team at Normal; Demons Will Have Many Veterans”
- Published Jackson family genealogy and online genealogical compilations
- “Visit At Hospital,” newspaper clipping in the family collection
- Golden wedding anniversary profile, Louisiana newspaper, November 1988
- Obituary, The Times (Shreveport), December 10, 1990
- Obituary index, Shreveport Journal, December 10, 1990
- Obituary, Mansfield Enterprise, December 13, 1990
- Burial record, Price Cemetery (O. E. Price Memorial Park), Logansport, Louisiana
