By Michael D. Wynne
Dr. Patsy Barber of Lecompte started conducting ground-breaking World War II veteran interviews long before newsman Tom Brocaw and the movie, “Saving Private Ryan” reminded us of our WWII veterans’ importance. A book could be written on Patsy’s fascinating life and many noteworthy accomplishments, but we will concentrate here on what brought her to conduct these first WWII veterans’ interviews.
Let’s start at the beginning: Patsy was a native of Jaquin, Texas, located near Logansport, Louisiana. Her father abandoned the family when she was two, and she was raised by her grandparents as her mother was away at nursing school. Later, her step
father lead the family on a migrant’s life of frequent moves.
The only book in the household, “Black Beauty, belonged to Patsy’s sister and Patsy became enamored with the book and in reading. Patsy wanted a set of encyclopedias when she was young, but the family could not afford them. Remembering this unsatisfied want many decades later, Patsy learned of a nine year old boy who wanted a set of encyclopedias so she gave the young man a set. Patsy said to me, “I always had an insatiable love to learn that was instilled in me by her mother.”
Eventually, she ended up at LSU in graduate school learning the field of business management. One of her professors was so impressed with her writings that he said to her someday she would become a great writer. LSU-A was being formed in 1960 and Dr. Martin Woodin of LSU choose Patsy right out of graduate school to be a member of the first faculty at LSU-A. Patsy might be the last surviving member of this first faculty.
Patsy remembers that there were only two buildings on campus when she arrived, both old agricultural buildings that had been used to teach foreign students. The first student body meeting at LSU-A occurred in a barn with everyone sitting on hay bales. Patsy
would eventually teach business there to over a thousand students before she finally retired in 1988. With her cattleman husband in 1972, she bought a rare 1916 Sears and Roebuck catalog kit house that had been built in Meeker where she still lives today with her two beloved dogs.
“I just loved history, especially the history of business,” Patsy says. But after retirement in the 1990’s, Patsy says that God inspired her to now conduct and preserve interviews with our heroic WWII veterans, something that was pretty much unheard of at that time. Her first of four books, “;WWII Veterans Speaking From The Heart,” took one year to conduct the interviews, write and publish. She started the interviews with those veterans that she knew of and progressed to the veterans that she would read about in the Town Talk and also those she heard about by word of mouth. She has now recorded interviews with almost 500 veterans who she believes may all be deceased now. She interviewed not only every branch of the military from all three theaters of battle (Europe, North Africa and the Pacific), but she also traveled to England to interview male and female veterans, as well as POWs, both from German and Japanese internment camps, and even Korean war vets.
Every veteran had some unique facet of their military story to tell about. Many of these veterans spoke about their war career for the very first time to Patsy and very often were very emotional about it. Probably Patsy’s favorite interview was of a pilot who was shot down and wounded in Japan. Chinese “gorilla” soldiers carried the wounded pilot for 28 days on a stretcher back to an American base
where they were paid $10,000 for rescuing the pilot.
The various veteran families were delighted to learn about what their fathers and grandfathers had done in the war. Patsy said these interviews eventually took over her life and every cassette recorded interview is still carefully preserved. Patsy has been recognized with many awards for her work, most notably the 2010 Governor’s Award for a “Legacy of Achievement.”
Patsy’s life is quieter now as, sadly, most of the veterans have passed away. But she is still conducting interviews whenever she can find a WWII veteran. Her books cost her $65 each to produce, but she is selling her remaining books at $25 each in order to get these works of importance out in our community. Buying her books is like “getting a
treasure for pennies.”
Patsy can be contacted by e-mail at pkbarber@bellsouth.net, by telephone at 318-776-5557, or by mail at 21 Meeker Road, Lecompte, 71346.
Everyone should thank Patsy for saving our military heritage. (There is so much more that can be said about Patsy; she is one of my very favorite ladies!)
