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DeWitt T. Methvin, Jr. (view source)
Revision as of 16:40, February 28, 2018
, 16:40, February 28, 2018Created page with " {{Infobox person |name=DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr. (Attorney from Alexandria, Louisiana) |birth_date=November 7, 1924 |birth_place=Alexandria, ..."
{{Infobox person
|name=DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr.
(Attorney from Alexandria, Louisiana)
|birth_date=November 7, 1924
|birth_place=[[Alexandria, Louisiana|Alexandria]], [[Louisiana]]
|death_date=September 26, 2005 (aged 80)
|death_place=
|resting_place=New Ebenezer Cemetery in Castor, Louisiana
|spouse=(1) Lallah Hill Cunningham Methvin (divorced)<br>
(2) Frances Phillips Methvin
Children:<br>
Lallah Ann Sciba<br>
Mildred Ellen "Mimi" Methvin<br>
Elizabeth "Lisa" Murrell<br>
DeWitt Methvin, III< br>
Mary Ceil Methvin<br>
Parents:<br>
DeWitt, Sr., and MyrtisLucille Gregory Methvin
|party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
|religionn=[[Roman Catholic]]
}}
'''DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr. (November 7, 1924 – September 26, 2005), was a prominent [[attorney]] in his native [[Alexandria, Louisiana|Alexandria]], [[Louisiana]].
==Background==
A son of DeWitt, Sr., and Myrtis Lucille Gregory Methvin, he was reared in Castor in Bienville Parish, of which his mother was the first 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 (1908-2001), also the speech teacher and debate coach. Minchew was subsequently a speech [[professor]] at [[Louisiana Tech University]] in [[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]].<ref>Dr. Elmer Reid Minchew obituary, ''The Shreveport Times'', July 2, 2001.</ref> 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.<ref name=dtmjrbio/>
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 cour] competition in each of his three years of law school.<ref name=dtmjrbio>{{cite web|url=http://www.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0001.html|title=DeWitt Talmage Methvin, Jr.|publisher=genealogy.com|accessdate=October 7, 2014}}</ref>
===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. (1919-2011), who was prior to 1973 the Alexandria city attorney in three mayoral administrations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thetowntalk/obituary.aspx?pid=153189963|title=Howard Battle Gist, Jr.|publisher=''The Alexandria Town Talk''|accessdate=October 7, 2014}}</ref>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.<ref name=dtmjrbio/> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Adams&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=20&GScnty=1119&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=117861387&df=all&|title=Jackie Pope Adams|publisher=Findagrave.com|accessdate=October 7, 2014}}</ref>
===Personal life===
In 1950, DeWitt Methvin married the former Lallah Hill Cunningham (1929-2012), a [[Roman Catholic]] . Her father was the [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitoches]] attorney and former state Representative William Peyton Cunningham, Sr.;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0094.html|title=William Peyton Cunningham, Sr.|publisher=genealogy.com|accessdate=October 7, 2014}}</ref> her grandfather, Charles Milton Cunningham , was the editor of ''The Natchitoches Times'' and a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1915 to 1922.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/index.html|title=Charles Milton Cunningham|publisher=familytreemaker.genealogy.com|accessdate=October 1, 2014}}</ref> Her great grandfather Milton Joseph Cunningham, had been the state attorney general for three terms prior to 1900.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.genealogy.com/users/m/e/t/Mildred-Methvin/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0108.html|title=Milton Joseph Cunningham|publisher=genealogy.com|accessdate=October 1, 2014}}</ref>
DeWitt and Lallah Methvin had five children, including Lallah Anne (L'Anne) and husband, Joe Sciba of [[Plano, Texas|Plano]], [[Texas]], Mildred Ellen "Mimi" Methvin, an attorney, 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, who resides in [[Lafayette]] and is divorced from James Thomas "Jim" McManus (born February 1951); Elizabeth "Lisa" Murrell (born December 1954) and husband, Jack Clary "Jay" Murrell, Jr., of [[Shreveport], Louisiana]; DeWitt, III, and wife Stacy Methvin of [[Houston, Texas|Houston]], and Mary Ceil Methvin of Boone, [[North Carolina]]. There are twelve Methvin grandchildren.<ref name=dtmjrbio/>Son-in-law Jay Murrell (born February 1949) is an [[oil]]man and a [[Republican Party|Republican]] former member of the Caddo Parish Commission and an unsuccessful candidate in 2007 for the Louisiana State Senate, having been defeated bythe retired educator and former state Representative [[B. L. "Buddy" Shaw]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s8acNnP28g|title=Jay Murrell on '[[Moon Griffon|The Moon Griffon Show]]''|date=August 30, 2007|accessdate=October 10, 2014}}</ref>
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.<ref name=dtmjrbio/>
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.<ref name=dtmjrbio/>Prior to his death of a heart attack, Methvin was in the process of closing his practice after fifty-five years.<ref name=dtmjrbio/>
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.<ref name=dtmjrbio/> His parents are interred at the Gwin Cemetery in Mangham in Richland Parish in northeastern Louisiana, where the Methvins lived years earlier.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Methvin, Jr., DeWitt T.}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Attorneys]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:United States Navy]]
[[Category:World War II]]