DeWitt T. Methvin, Jr.
| DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr.
(Attorney from Alexandria, Louisiana) | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 7, 1924 Alexandria, Louisiana |
| Died | September 26, 2005 (aged 80) |
| Political Party | Democrat |
| Spouse | (1) Lallah Hill Cunningham Methvin (divorced) (2) Frances Phillips Methvin |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr. (November 7, 1924 – September 26, 2005), was a prominent attorney in his native Alexandria, Louisiana.
Background
A son of DeWitt, Sr., and Myrtis Lucille Gregory Methvin, he was reared in Castor in Bienville Parish. His mother was the second woman mayor in Louisiana, with service from 1933 to 1945. He studied at Castor High School under the then long-term principal Elmer Reid Minchew, also the speech teacher and debate coach who subsequently became a speech professor at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.[1] DeWitt skipped the second grade, and there were only eleven grades for pupils graduating in 1940. He played baseball and basketball at Castor High School, which had no football team. He and his father built the first tennis court in town.[2]
At the age of fifteen and a half, DeWitt, Jr., enrolled at Louisiana State University in the capital city of Baton Rouge to study medicine. With the intervention of World War II, he enlisted in the United States Navy at the age of eighteen and earned pilot's wings. He taught naval aviation at several locations from Rochester, New York, to Oakland, California. He was discharged from the military in 1946 and returned to LSU to study pre-law, not to complete the medical degree in which he had lost interest. Instead he graduated in 1950 from the LSU Law Center, at which he won the moot court competition in each of his three years of law school.[2]
Legal career
Methvin settled in Alexandria, not only because he had been born there, but he determined that there was a greater need for lawyers in Rapides Parish than in other locations which he may have considered settling. Soon, he was active in legal and civic circles: assistant district attorney from 1953 to 1955, president of the Junior Chamber International at the age of thirty-one in 1955, and president of the Alexandria Bar Association from 1963 to 1964. He practiced with, among other lawyers, Howard Battle Gist, Jr., who was prior to 1973 the Alexandria city attorney in three mayoral administrations.[3] Methvin was known for his brief and poignant cross-examinations in the courtroom. He was a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers. From 1972 to 1981, he was the first chairman of the Louisiana Board of Ethics for Elected Officials.[2] One of the firm's legal secretaries, Jackie Pope Adams (1922-2013), a native of Columbia in Marion County, Mississippi, was the secretary to the Alexandria City Council and the city clerk after adoption of the home rule charter.[4]
Personal life
In 1950, DeWitt Methvin married the former Lallah Hill Cunningham (1929-2012), a Roman Catholic. Her father was the Natchitoches attorney and former state Representative William Peyton Cunningham, Sr (1901-1971).[5] Her grandfather, Charles Milton Cunningham, was the editor of The Natchitoches Times newspaper and a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1915 to 1922.[6] Her great-grandfather Milton Joseph Cunningham, was the state attorney general for three terms prior to 1900.[7]
DeWitt and Lallah Methvin had five children, including Lallah Anne (L'Anne) and husband, Joe Sciba of Plano, Texas.[2] Oldest daughter Mildred Ellen "Mimi" Methvin (born October 4, 1952), a retired United States Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, and the 2014 interim judge of the Louisiana 27th Judicial District Court in St. Landry Parish, resides in Lafayette and is divorced from James Thomas "Jim" McManus (born February 1951). On November 6, 2016, she was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate against Republican U.S. Representative Clay Higgins for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district seat. She had mistakenly predicted victory in a "blue wave" of potential Democratic Party successes. When filing her qualification papers, Mimi Methvin ridiculed Higgins as "less Cajun John Wayne and more Cajun Barney Fife" in Congress. She argues that Higgins' votes for the Donald Trump agenda are often cast against the interests of district constituents.[8]
Another daughter, Elizabeth "Lisa" Murrell (born December 1954), is married to Jack Clary "Jay" Murrell, Jr., of Shreveport, Louisiana. Son DeWitt, III, and wife Stacy Methvin live in Houston, and daughter Mary Ceil Methvin in Boone, North Carolina. There are twelve Methvin grandchildren.[2] Son-in-law Jay Murrell (born February 1949) is an oilman and a Republican former member of the Caddo Parish Commission and an unsuccessful candidate in 2007 for the Louisiana State Senate, having been defeated by the retired educator and former state Representative B. L. "Buddy" Shaw.[9]
A sportsman, Methvin leased a small island with a camp house on Cane River Lake halfway between Alexandria and Natchitoches. With his grandchildren, who called him "Pop", the Methvins spent many summer weekends there. He also hunted ducks in the marshes of Cameron Parish in far southwestern coastal Louisiana and quail at Black Lake near Creston in Natchitoches Parish.[2]
DeWitt and Lallah Methvin divorced. She relocated to Shreveport and upon her death was interred in the Cunningham plot at Catholic Cemetery in Natchitoches. Methvin married the former Frances Phillips (born October 1941), who survives him.[2] Prior to his death of a heart attack, Methvin was in the process of closing his practice after fifty-five years.[2]
His services were held at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Catholic Church in Alexandria; he is interred beside a sister, Doris Beverly Methvin Warren, and brother-in-law, William Melvin Warren, at the New Ebenezer Cemetery in Castor.[2] His parents are interred at the Gwin Cemetery in Mangham in Richland Parish in northeastern Louisiana, where the had lived years earlier.
References
- ↑ Dr. Elmer Reid Minchew obituary, The Shreveport Times, July 2, 2001.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr.. genealogy.com. Retrieved on October 7, 2014.
- ↑ Howard Battle Gist, Jr.. Alexandria Town Talk'. Retrieved on October 7, 2014.
- ↑ Jackie Pope Adams. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on October 7, 2014.
- ↑ William Peyton Cunningham, Sr.. genealogy.com. Retrieved on October 7, 2014.
- ↑ Charles Milton Cunningham. familytreemaker.genealogy.com. Retrieved on October 1, 2014.
- ↑ Milton Joseph Cunningham. genealogy.com. Retrieved on October 1, 2014.
- ↑ Mark Ballard (July 18, 2018). Candidates for Louisiana Secretary of State, Congress begin to qualify for fall elections. The Baton Rouge Advocate.
- ↑ Jay Murrell on The Moon Griffon Show (August 30, 2007). Retrieved on October 10, 2014.
