Emma Lee Bagwell Thompson
April 10, 1898 - September 30, 1996

Compiled by Glenn Oliver Thompson from interviews with
Emma Lee Bagwell Thompson, his mother, and from other family records
May 2021

Emma Lee Bagwell Thompson was born April 10, 1898 in Choudrant, Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, a small country town in the North-central part of Louisiana. She was the eighth of eleven children born to Andrew Jackson Bagwell, Jr. and Emma Harriet Gentry Bagwell. She grew up in Choudrant with her parents and siblings.
Her mother died July 23, 1907, when she was nine. Her father remarried Sarah Delilah Taylor.
Emma Lee (she insisted on being called Emma Lee not just Emma) graduated from Choudrant High School in 1917. While a student, she became a proficient piano player and played on the high school women's basketball team. During her senior year, the team was undefeated, won the Lincoln Parish Women's High School Basketball Championship and went on to play in the state tournament.
Following graduation, Emma Lee remained in Choudrant for the next five years, where she worked as a clerk at the local drug store. The Choudrant physician, Dr. Cook, owned the drug store. He charged $13.00 for delivering a baby, including the trip to the mother's house where the babies were delivered. When Dr. Cook returned from delivering a baby at a home, Emma Lee recorded the delivery in Dr. Cook's records and mailed the application for a Birth Certificate to the state capitol in Baton Rouge.
On December 24, 1918 a young man named J. S. Rinehart applied for a marriage license in Lincoln Parish to marry Emma Lee. The marriage did not occur and the license application was returned to the clerk of the district court. When asked about the application, Emma Lee said "Marriage was his idea. I was never serious."
About 1919, Emma Lee moved to Jackson Parish, where she worked as a teacher in public schools, probably as a music teacher. When the 1920 census was taken on January 22, she was a boarder, along with other school teachers, in a boarding house.
In the fall of 1922, at the age of 24, Emma Lee moved to Shreveport, where she began working as a cashier at the Big Chain grocery store. She lived with Viola and her husband, James Henry Kelly. Shortly after Emma Lee arrived, James Henry Kelly Jr. was born on Nov. 11, 1922. Melrose Kelly, the second child of James and Viola, was born Feb. 15, 1926.
In 1927, Emma Lee (29) met Oliver Oscar Thompson (39) through a mutual friend, Rose Cook. Oliver worked at Red River Lumber Co., was born in Warren, AR and was a son of William Henry Thompson and Josephine Rebecca Bailey Thompson.
Tragedy struck the Kelly home in 1929. Viola became ill and died on Aug. 11, 1929, leaving her husband, James Kelly, Sr., with two children, James Jr. (6) and Melrose (3).
Oliver and Emma Lee dated for several years and then were married March 22, 1930 by the pastor of the First Methodist Church of Cedar Grove, a suburb of Shreveport. They were married in the church parsonage.
For a short time, Emma Lee and Oliver lived with James Kelly and his children, before moving, about 1932, to an apartment off of Line Avenue.
Oliver and Emma Lee's first and only child, Glenn Oliver Thompson, was born Nov. 2, 1934 at Shumpert Hospital in Shreveport.
After several other moves, on June 2, 1936, Oliver and Emma Lee purchased a house at 217 West 69th Street, Shreveport, for $2,240 cash. They purchased the house near Red River Lumber Co. so Oliver could walk back and forth to work. Oliver lived there until he died Dec. 21, 1965.
Emma Lee lived at the house in Shreveport until she moved to Wichita in 1979 to be near her son, Glenn, and his family.
About 1991, Emma Lee moved to Prairie Homestead Retirement Home in Wichita. She lived there until her death.
Emma Lee became a Christian at an early age and was an active member of Southside Baptist Church in Shreveport and Sharon Baptist Church in Wichita. Many members of the Sunday School classes she taught remained close friends over the years.
Emma Lee was noted for her beautiful hand crafts, including hooked rugs, crocheted afghans, baby blankets and tatting. She designed and sold hundreds of hooked rugs, while operating a hooked rug business out of her home in Shreveport for many years.
Emma Lee remained active and alert, spending most of her time crocheting afghans, baby blankets and other handcrafts. In fact, she crocheted so much and so fast that her family and friends had difficulty keeping her supplied with crochet thread.
She loved to teach others the art of crocheting, particularly young girls. In fact, one of the girls she taught visited her at the retirement home a few weeks before her death.
Emma Lee was 98 when she died Sept. 30, 1996 of thromboembolic disease at Wesley Hospital, Wichita, after several months of illness. She was buried at Forest Park Cemetery East, in Shreveport, next to her husband, Oliver.
Oliver and Emma Lee's son, Glenn, married Bettie Maurine Moore on Aug. 21, 1955 in Jonesboro, Jackson Parish, LA. They have three children, Kathryn Maurine, Diane Linne' and Daniel Glenn.