Home Care In Newllano, LA

(WVUE) - When the members of a California commune needed a place to start a new colony, they made the unlikely move to western Louisiana. It happened 100 years ago in Vernon Parish, and it was an experiment in socialism that lasted for more than two decades.

It may be one of the more unusual beginnings of any town in Louisiana. Located near the entrance to the Army base at Fork Polk, New Llano got its start in 1917.

"Politics is a whole lot different from what it used to be," said New Llano Mayor Freddie Boswell. "Here in New Llano we're fortunate. We have all nationalities. We probably have more than any other part of the state."

But Boswell thinks most of his 2,800 residents really don't know much about their town's history.

"Now a lot of people say, 'Oh that was communism, that was bad.' But it wasn't," Boswell said.

"The double L is a Y. 'New Yanno,' is the way, but they just refer to it mostly as Yanno," said Martha Palmer.

Palmer is the local expert on the colony of New Llano, having interviewed some of the original settlers. But after a water shortage in California, the communal group bought 20,000 acres in western Louisiana.

"Self-sufficient is what they wanted to be," Palmer said. "Everyone worked, even children."

Palmer has collected some of the hand-crafted items made by the colonists.

"The doll furniture was mine as a little girl here," Palmer said. "The baskets were made here."

"You bought your membership, and then you became an equal owner, so you owned a share of all of the industries, all of the houses and everybody had a job and they produced what they needed," said Mary Ann Fussell.

Fussell runs the New Llano Museum, which tells the story of a town where everyone worked for the common good.

"It's probably the longest-lasting cooperative colony anywhere that was not actually based on religion," she said.

The colonists were eager to spread the word about their cooperative way of life, and they did that by publishing newspapers.

New Llano founder Job Harriman was the first socialist party candidate for vice president in 1900.

"He was running against McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, which he never expected to be able to beat them," Fussell said. "But he did just want to spread the word about socialism."

The colony folded in 1939 with heavy debt, disputes over leadership and the hardships of the Great Depression. Its attempt at utopia lasted 22 years.

"I think it was really exactly what they were looking for," Fussell said. "They had freedom to express themselves and to do really whatever they wanted."

Today, only a few of the colony's buildings remain, their original purpose nearly lost to time. The story of this unusual place is now told through the old photos and displays in the New Llano Museum, which has a video collection of colony members telling their personal stories.

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NATCHITOCHES — Several Southwest Louisiana students were among the 636 graduates recognized recently by Northwestern State University for fall graduation ceremonies. They are:

Anacoco – Jennifer Pajinag, Associate of Science in Nursing; Sherrie Martin, Associate of General Studies; Cameron Endris, Bachelor of General Studies; Madelyn Phillips, Magen Runnels, Bachelor of Science; Meghan Smith, Master of Arts in Teaching;

DeQuincy – Jacob Robertson, Bachelor of Science;

DeRidder – Ravel Wiswell, Associate of Science in Nursing; Hallie Kay, Bachelor of Arts; Kiamber Davis, Dustin Lauderback, Rebecca Santos, Bachelor of General Studies; Lane Armer, Alyssa Young, Bachelor of Science; Hayley Richard, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Elton – Kayla Bellard, Master of Arts;

Fort Polk – Sheila Tabonares, BriAnn White, Associate of Science in Nursing; LeAnne Kimray, Christina Raiden, Associate of General Studies; Hillary Kitche, Chelisse Rosario, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Jennings – Mallory Martinez, Ethan Smith, Bachelor of Science;

Lake Charles – Celena Avery, Bachelor of Applied Science; Lauren Jackson, Bachelor of General Studies; Faith Durousseau, Derek Field, Brady Pierce, Bachelor of Science;

Leesville – Natalie Armand, James Maricle, Lauren Partridge, Associate of General Studies; Trevor Peters, Bachelor of Arts; Shannon Goody, Cleophus Graves, Lauren Partridge, Bachelor of General Studies; Haley Dowden, Layken Nash, Jessica Tebbetts, Donna Yates, Bachelor of Science; Katlyn Butler, Rachel Smith, Joan Sporer, Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Marlee Davis, Master of Arts;

New Llano – Angel Donegan, Associate of Science in Nursing; Johnette Jansen, Associate of General Studies;

Oakdale – Victoria Ballard, Anna Doyle Associate of Science in Nursing;

Oberlin – Kaitlyn Fontenot, Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Jolie Dubriel, Master of Arts;

Pitkin – Heather Horton, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Rosepine – Joseph Vander, Bachelor of Science;

Starks – Sara Hyatt, Bachelor of Science;

Sulphur – Andrina Ferguson, Bachelor of Fine Arts;

Welsh – Arteria Harmon, Bachelor of Science.

Local summer graduates also recognized include:

Anacoco – Molly Brown, Dani Carver, Mallory Cooley, Isabella McCall, Associate of General Studies; Katie Truax, Bachelor of Science, Evan Hodge, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

DeRidder – Tiana Myers, Jaymee Thrasher, Associate of General Studies; Heather Daniels, Doctor of Nursing Practice;

Fort Polk – James Rodgers, Associate of General Studies, Cassandra Bailey, Bachelor of Arts; LeAnne Kimray, Hannah McGrew, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Hornbeck – Jay LaTour, Associate of Science;

Jennings – Mekayla Jenkins, Associate of General Studies;

Lake Charles – Haleigh Gates, Associate Degree, Bachelor of Science; Max Collette, Abigail Huddleston, Associate of General Studies; Jeremiah Juneau, Michael Milich, Bachelor of Science;

Leesville – Brianna Billiot, Skye Buentello, Matthew Christensen, Jacqueline Cook, Destinee Erwin, Jordan Jenkins, Brittany Lewis, Erik Lopez, Dana Tatum, Whitney Tipton, Audrey Weng, Lindsay Wilkerson, Trinity Yates, Associate of General Studies; David Santos, Bachelor of Science;

New Llano – Nicole Naral, Bachelor of Science;

Oakdale – Alyssa Sumbler, Master of Arts in Teaching;

Oberlin – Reagan Isman, Master of Arts in Teaching;

Rosepine – Pauline Burnsed, Master of Arts in Teaching;

Sulphur – Brandon Turner, Associate of General Studies.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — As more Chinese money flows into Mexico, the United States and Mexico on Thursday agreed to monitor foreign investments and regularly share information about the screening process.

The U.S. is becoming “more deeply integrated with Mexico,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at a news conference in Mexico City. “We want to see further deepening of our economic relationship with respect to our supply chains, supply chain resilience, and we think it’s important to be somewhat more coordinated than we have been when it comes to investment screening.”

The U.S. wants to prevent Chinese purchases of sensitive American technology that could be accessed through other U.S. trading partners. The U.S.-Mexico agreement may help achieve that goal.

“Our focus in talking to Mexico is not just China-focused. It is the general belief that it is important to make sure there are not national security concerns that are implicated in any foreign investments,” Yellen said.

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“This engagement is further evidence of the close partnership between our two countries, not only on matters of trade but also on critical issues of national security,” she said.

The U.S. is Mexico’s top trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching more than $850 billion in 2022. China has increased investments in Mexican companies in the past few years and is the fastest-growing source of foreign investment in Mexico.

The U.S. Treasury Department said the new agreement addresses “national security risks that can arise from certain foreign investment, particularly in certain technologies, critical infrastructure, and sensitive data.”

For Mexico, the agreement opens opportunities to negotiate reduced costs in remittances, one of the country’s primary sources of income, said Mexican Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O. Yellen said it would benefit both countries to reduce the cost of remittances — money sent by foreign workers back to their home country — across the border.

“We’re committed to working to see if we can accomplish that,” she said.

Mexico will receive a record of more than $64 billion in remittances in 2023, an increase of almost 10% compared with the previous year. Of that, 96% would come from the United States and it would represent almost 4% of Mexico’s GDP.

Ramírez de la O said Mexico recognizes that it “needed to update” its methods for investment analysis and would prioritize the lithium sector, since Mexico considers that an area of national security interest.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that “we don’t ask countries to choose between the United States and China when it comes to economic opportunities or investment.”

He said the U.S. is interested in providing economic “alternatives to some of the less transparent, less reliable, high interest loans that other nations around the world seem to be willing to proffer. But again, every nation has to decide for itself.”

The Biden administration acted to ban the exports of advanced computer chips to China last year. In August, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to regulate high-tech U.S.-based investments going toward China. Washington said that move was targeted but also reflected an intensifying competition between the world’s two biggest economic powers.

Biden and China’s president, Xi Jinping, met in November and pledged to stabilize their relationship as they showcased modest agreements to combat illegal fentanyl and reestablish military communications. Deep differences on economic competition and global security threats remain.

Earlier during her trip to Mexico, Yellen promoted her agency’s new strike force to help combat illicit fentanyl trafficking as the U.S. and China step up efforts to stop the movement of the powerful opioid and drug-making materials into the United States.

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Hussein reported from Washington.

Comanche, explorers, military, others followed La Pista de Agua Viva

EDITOR'S NOTE: "Caprock Chronicles" is a series of short articles and essays that examine the life, people and historical places of our region's past. Paul Carlson, professor emeritus of history at Texas Tech, writes or edits each contribution in the weekly sequence. Today's essay is co-written by Sammie Simpson of Bailey County and Paul Carlson. It examines ancient, life-giving water routes across the Llano Estacado.

La Pista de Agua Viva, or the Trail of Living Water, was a Spanish phrase used from the 17th century to near the present-day to describe important water routes across the Llano Estacado of western Texas and eastern New Mexico.

Mainly the term refers to such water courses as:

¦ The Canadian River Valley.

¦ The Tierra Blanca Creek-Red River route through Palo Duro Canyon.

¦ Running Water Draw and White River through Blanco Canyon.

¦ Blackwater and Yellow House draws that merge in modern Lubbock as part of the Upper Brazos River system.

Less often, humans used additional trails to cross the flat, featureless Llano Estacado, especially in the region's deeper past.

Such routes included the upper Colorado River drainage system's Sulphur Draw and Beals Creek with its Sulphur Springs, Mackenzie, Seminole and Monument draws.

Sulphur Springs and Seminole draws are prominent cuts in the Llano. And as late as the second half of the 19th century, American Indians, soldiers and others followed them and could find water by digging into the draws' bottoms.

For early Spanish and American travelers, the northern trails represented significant routes. Water, of course, and its availability were the keys to such use. The draws normally provided living water or cut close to permanent sources.

Plus playa lakes, the large circular depressions that often contained water, could be found in some abundance toward the north.

American Indians used La Pista de Agua Viva - from well before Spanish explorers appeared. Apaches were using such water courses, especially in the southern sections, until the mid- to late-19th century. As they entered the region in the 18th century, Comanches followed well-worn trails through the high tableland.

After a 1786 treaty between Comanches and Spaniards, comancheros (traders from New Mexico villages) and ciboleros (bison hunters) followed the familiar northern routes from New Mexico onto and across the Llano Estacado.

Comanchero trading sites existed in most of the canyons on the eastern side of the Llano. The colorful traders also maintained such sites in Casas Amarillas, along Yellow House Draw, and near Muchaque Peak on the divide between the Colorado and Brazos rivers in modern Garza County.

Comancheros continued to ply their trade along routes of La Pista de Agua Viva until well after Comanches, Cheyennes, and Kiowas moved onto reservations and began receiving goods from the federal government.

But Spanish explorers had followed La Pista de Agua Viva long before comancheros or ciboleros. Francisco Coronado in 1541 was the first when he crossed from New Mexico to Blanco Canyon.

Some scholars suggest that Spanish Christian missionaries in the 1630s and afterward crossed the Llano along one of the water courses to administer spiritual needs to Jumano groups in the modern Ballinger-San Angelo-Menard area.

With greater certainty, Spanish military officers Jose Mares in 1787-88 and an aging Francisco Amangual in 1808 used La Pista de Agua Viva as they searched for shorter routes between San Antonio and Santa Fe.

Americans likewise followed La Pista de Agua Viva when they hazarded a crossing of the High Plains. Such crossings included the 1841 Texan-Santa Fe Expedition, an ill-fated effort to establish the jurisdiction of Texas over eastern New Mexico.

Capt. Randolph B. Marcy of the U.S. Army crossed and re-crossed the Llano Estacado along different routes in 1849, and in 1852 he examined the headstreams of the Red River. In 1856, he explored the upper Brazos River through modern Lubbock.

In 1855, Capt. John Pope, later to win fame in the Civil War, visited the Llano in its southern reaches, and Army Col. Ranald Mackenzie in 1872 crossed the northern portions to Forts Sumner and Bascom in New Mexico.

Such activity suggests that routes of La Pista de Agua Viva were busy.

In 1832, for example, Bill Williams, an ornery and grizzled old mountain man, and Albert Pike, an adventure-loving Yankee who during the Civil War became a Confederate diplomat, led a party of 45 fur trappers eastward from New Mexico down Blackwater Draw and Canyon del Rescate (Ransom Canyon) to the rolling plains below the Llano Estacado.

They had little success in finding beaver dams, but the upper Blackwater route they followed spread some 14 horse trails wide.

Clearly, routes of La Pista de Agua Viva provided water necessary for traversing the grass-dominated, but often what seemed a desert-like, Llano Estacado. Over time, some of the trails became wide and well marked.

La Pista de Agua Viva, as its name implies, was for centuries an indispensable trail of living water.

In 1943, Phyllis Carper was just getting out of high school. Everyone she knew was going off to war, and she wanted to do her part.

"I knew that I could do things with my hands. I was a good tactile person. So they said 'we'll send you to be a riveter' and I said 'a riveter? Oh I'd love to do that!'"

For two years Phyllis welded copper boxes used on Norden bombsights--a device used for daytime attacks.

"And I thought I'm helping the war effort and I thought that was wonderful!"

After helping at home during World War II, this Rosie the Riveter would also serve abroad. Through the Nurse Cadet Corp program, Phyllis commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the Army in 1950. She spent 3 years as a triage nurse stationed in Japan during the Korean War, receiving patients directly from Korea by the plane loads.

"They'd be in their dirty uniforms, all beat up. They were scared to death, you know, they were going home--they wanted to go home but they didn't want to go home broken and you had to tell them, you're going to be okay, your family is going to want to see you no matter what and we'd send them off to San Francisco."

Phyllis recalls one of her first assignments, overseeing a frost bite ward of some 200 G.I.s

"These poor kids would be there with these fingers and appendages that had been frozen and they were thawing and they would be in pain and they would be crying. A lot of them would have nightmares and you'd go up and talk to them soothe them and then you'd tell them to 'buck up!' punch them on the shoulder and show them 'you can get through this, kid!' and they would."

Phyllis says it was an often traumatic experience, but one she'll always cherish.

"I had always told my mother when I was in high school that I wanted to go around the world. I didn't make it around the world but I made it halfway that way and half way that way!"

Earlier this month Phyllis was on an honor flight to D.C. where she spent 3 days with a group of Korean War veterans. She says she was the only woman of 22. Originally from the Midwest, Carper came to Vernon Parish when her husband retired after 33 years in the Army. She also writes for the American Rosie the Riveter Association.