Larry Guy

Ancestors

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Biography

The Story of the Guys in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and beyond, is the story of America from the civl war to present day; from the adventurous rip and roaring life of rural America to the big cities which now dominate our country, but not our thought.

When I was a small kid, my grandfather taught me, with great enthusiasm, tracking, trapping, hunting, and fishing. This all but lost art, I have learned, was foundational to the Guys who settled and grew in Rapides parish.

My father, Ernest Rand Guy Sr. was born on Leeland Plantation near Lecompte Louisiana in 1928. His father, Newton Ernest Guy was also born there in 1904, had three brothers and three sisters: Only Arthur Lee Guy Sr., (Uncle Son) and Myrtle Lyles had legitimate children that I am aware of, but John Richard Guy who died of a gunshot to his chest in his twenties, may have some illegitimate heirs based on marriage certificates I have located.

Martin Luther Guy was one of 21 children of William Martin Guy. William-T, as he was called, according to family history, abducted Martin Luther and a girl from the Ellisville Mississippi area and re-settled and re-married in Rapides parish, Louisiana. He left a sick child, Charles Guy, with his mother in Ellisville.

Martin Luther Guy's death certificate, signed by his wife, Sara Welch Guy, lists his father simply as William Guy and his mother as Betty Watson, and his place of birth as Ellisville Mississippi. This same certificate lists William Guy's place of birth as Mississippi, and Betty Watson's as Ellisville.

A birth certificate for one William J Guy, born in Lecompte in 1882, shows his father as "William M. Guy" born in Foxworth Mississippi which is only 50 miles south east of Ellisville in Marion county, and his mother as Maggie McDonald of Mississippi. I have connected this William J Guy as a probable son of William (and Martin Luther's brother) by virtue of a marriage certificate of his daughter showing my grandfather's actual signature as a witness at her marriage.

Along with the many photos my dad left, there was a divorce decree filed in 1869 by one W J Guy of Covington county Mississippi against one Margret L. Guy of Ellisville. I thought for a while the my great great grandfather used the name "William-T" as a way of avoiding detection from Mississippi authorities, and that he was in fact this same W J Guy.

The longer I compared the dates with the family tradition/oral history, I realized they could not be the same person, but perhaps, W J was William-T's father.

Recently, I found evidence that William, along with some of his 21 kids, most likely relocated to Shelby county Texas where he was buried in Johnson cemetery in 1937. A death certificate sent to me recently shows a William Martin Guy died there, and lists his wife as Margret McDonald, consistent with the death certificate of William J. Guy of Rapides parish, Martin Luther Guy's HALF brother. This still doesn't explain the "T". My hunch is that someone seized on the distinctive "T" sound from the middle of his middle name, and connected it to his first, so he forever became "William-T".

My dad's cousin, the famous historian Sue Eakin, had pictures of William Guy at her home in Bunkie Louisiana, but I do not remember what he looked like, nor can I find anyone with a copy. I do, however, have an excellent photo of Martin Luther Guy leaning up against his white appaloosa horse, and recently, have found another photo of him with two of his brothers, no one in my family has ever seen; that photo was found in a black paper book bound by strings in my father's safe; originals, probably not seen for 30 years;

The book also has many other photos; possibly many of William's 21 children, some of their children, and other relatives which their direct descendants have never seen. While I was able to find many photos of my grandfather and the new one of Martin Luther, I am not so sure others will ever be identified. Maybe I can find someone who can; Along the way, we might even figure out who W J Guy was.

This journey into my past provided insight for me, into life from the farm to the city which became vividly evident in researching both lines of my family tree. Farming, including organized animal cropping, worked in close connection with the trapping and hunting I have previously described. More prominently on the Guy side than my moms, as we still own land that was founded before the civil war on her side, and her descriptions of life on the "farm" is different in that regard.

While my grandpop helped build LSU, my dad got a degree there during years when Billy Cannon ran the football fields. While his great enthusiasm for rural life remained, he passed on a love for LSU which Newt Guy never had, including a love for the hunt which happens in the fall on Saturday nights there.

While I am not the first doctorate student, I might be the first trial lawyer in the Guy family since, well, possibly since they came over from Europe somewhere. Probably wouldn't have happened without the migration of my family from the country to the city; so I always thought that was a good thing; not so sure anymore.

With flood waters rising higher into our cities, and cultural divisions growing sharper, the cities might end up being the worse places to be; maybe I will go back where James Hope of Ireland became the first settler of the area we now call Osyka Mississippi, Greenlaw Louisiana, and the area where our land still winds around the first East Fork across the state line; or maybe where William Martin was born, which oddly turns out to be a mere 30 miles northeast in Foxworth Mississippi--- maybe right in between.

Maybe all of us will end up back where our ancestors started, in the strong soils and streams of America's heartland-- those places we remember from childhood,, where our parents or grandparents once lived.. maybe.. maybe.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Larry Guy at registration.