TRIBUTE TO JOHN LINDSEY
CHARTER MEMBER OF ROTARY CLUB, IS READ AT LUNCHEON

Back to the Genealogy Index

Family Folklore -- John Lindsey 1852

Samuel Lindsey Jr.: Rememberances

Family History

8 Wheel Log Wagon

Good Links:

Lindsay International
Jones Cty GenWeb Project

Wayne Cty GenWeb Project

Dick Booth had charge of the program and presented Miss Annie Lee Crawford in vocal selections, with Mrs. Curtis Cameron at the piano. She sang “There’s An Old Spinning Wheel” and “Did You Ever See a Dream.” Mrs. R. H. Watkins representative of the Laurel Business a Professional Women’s Club, gave a interesting report on the activities of that organization.

Tribute Is Read.

Mr. Watkins’ tribute to Mr. Lindsey follows:

“Since we last met we have lost our oldest and best loved member of Rotary. Everybody loved ‘Uncle John,’ or John, as we called him in the intimate circle of Rotary that knows no age distinction.

“I knew him better and loved him better than any of you. Our trip to Europe brought us together in closest possible association. We were together twenty-four hours a day for over two months, sharing with each other our thoughts and opinions and feelings.

On that trip to Europe John Lindsey was at his best. Before we were three days out from New York he had been granted special privileges by the captain and was conducting excursions over the boat from bridge to engine room. He could tell you how to send an S. 0. S. or what to do in case of a broken propeller shaft. Among his intimates were little children, the captain, the engineer, the deck steward, a high-stepping flapper from Oklahoma, an old maid school teacher from Boston, a Spanish Jew merchant from Cuba, an old, broken-down Chicago millionaire, a shoe manufacturer from Australia—and everybody between these extremes knew him and loved him, so fresh were his interests, so kindly his manner.

Considerate of Others.

“John Lindsey was a lumberman a mechanic, an engineer. His chief interests were in roads and bridges and docks, but these interests were never allowed to interfere with my plans. He spent hours with me in schools and castles and cathedrals and art galleries. He knew more about the suspended dome in the Florence Cathedral than the guide could tell us, and the old Galileo lamp at Pisa thrilled him beyond expression.

“Often we wandered about strange cities late at night, he and I, studying the life of the people. Sometimes we would get lost in those strange cities where there was no one to speak our language, but his experience as a wood never failed him and his sense of direction was unerring. We always reached our hotel and never too late for him to write that long letter home to share his experiences with those loved.

“At Genoa a big banquet prepared for us was turned into a joyous birthday party for him when we found out that it was his seventy- fifth birthday—just spontaneous expression of love for him.

Pioneer In Vocation.

“John Lindsey was pioneer in his vocation. He loved to travel the unbeaten paths and blaze the way for others. As a pioneer in his vocation, he gave us the eight-wheel wagon and the self-loading skidder that revolutionized logging in a large section of country and added greatly to the wealth of this section and of this city in particular.

“John Lindsey told me about the possibilities of tung oil trees ten years ago and about the use that might be made of soy bean oil before Henry Ford ever thought of it. He was the first man to believe that there was oil and gas in South Mississippi, and he sunk a well near here twenty-five years ago.

“In his character were to be found the qualities that characterize the pioneer: initiative, courage to a marked degree—or rather complete absence of moral and physical fear —mental alertness, a willingness to work that amounted to genius, faith in himself and in others a willingness to take a long chance and should the breaks go against him to accept the consequences without turning a hair, persistence, endurance. And with these rugged qualities there was a gentleness and a shyness and a kindliness about him that gave his personality unusual charm.

“He was a man, take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again.”

[From the “Laurel Leader-Call” 1934]

Copyright © 2011 SamLindsey.com.  All rights reserved.

Privacy Statement

Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited