By JACK M. WILLIS
Journal Correpsondent
Part One

In the Scriptures of St. Matthew, Chapter 13, Verse 57, it states in part . . . "a prophet is not without honor except in his own house and his own country". In reference to James E. Yule, this is not quoted to imply that the man should be relegated to the status of prophet, but rather, alludes to lack of proper and fitting recognition for the artistic and sporting contributions this man has contributed to society over a lifetime.

There are no means to fully describe the artistic talents of this man, and fully do them justice. But the talents had a lot to do with his forebears, his grandfather Thomas William Yule and his father, James Wilson Yule. James Edward Yule is a firm believer of the premise that genetics repeat itself in succeeding generations. This dissertation will seek to actively support this theory.

One has to view James E. Yule's handiworks to believe it. His woodcarving abilities are ably demonstrated in one way or the other in most all his woodworking ventures. On occasion, he has fashioned beautiful pieces of furniture, but when he chooses to do decorative wood enhancement, it is particularly evident in his wildlife calls. Where he really shines is in what can only be described as creations destined to be collector's items. He now has one particular artistic original waterfowl call he lovingly refers to as his piece de resistance. It has all the decorative, intense embellishments of the Fabergé eggs, once meticulously created for Russian czars. And he's no slouch at creating original, ornate designs and tones within turkey calls either. His entries were so well-wrought, they earned him First Place in the Master Carvers Category and Best of Show in the National Turkey Call carving contest in Nashville, Tennessee, for the past two years.

Game call collectors have been known to discard and sell off other well-executed works and concentrate on obtaining every call they can purchase, at almost any price, simply because they have been created by James E. Yule. This man's labors of love embodied years ago, that degree of excellence few very few other artisans achieve in a lifetime.

Upon arrival at James Edward Yule's residence in the Borough of Nebo, (and I say borough because Nebo, Louisiana is like a New York City borough or even New Orleans, Louisiana, in that they are different worlds within themselves) probably one of the first things you'll notice leaning up against a red oak tree, is a steel wagon tire. This is a device that has probably not been seen in public for at least 75 years. It was the outside contact to the road for a wooden wagon wheel.

James Yule's grandfather, Thomas William Yule, around 1890 forged this particular rim or tire. He smelted iron ore in his forge, supplemented the molten ore with carbon with which to create steel, shaped the bar steel on his anvil, and welded it into one piece to give it its circular configuration. This particular tire in James' yard was not as tall as other wagon wheels I had seen pictures of. James recounted that it was created for a short-in-height log wagon. He went on to explain, the less tall wheels made it easier to heft the logs up and load them onto a wagon, utilizing oxen as a power source. The shop, in which this particular tire was manufactured, was located just up the road from where James Edward now resides. Pieces of slag from the moldings can still be unearthed where the shop once stood.

Thomas William Yule, James Edward's grandfather, was born in Scotland, and orphaned as a baby. He was apprenticed out at an early age to train as a blacksmith and a jointer (woods fitter). He could and did fabricate every component which made up a four-wheeled wagon or two-wheeled cart, which were both immensely popular in the Scots and Irish countryside.

He immigrated to the Americas in the 1850s. Thomas William Yule migrated to St. Helena Parish, Louisiana in 1857. He had been reared in the Catholic faith, but converted to Protestantism and took unto himself a wife.

Thomas Yule wound up on the side of the South in the War of Rebellion, and was one of the defenders of Vicksburg during Sherman's siege. Once when he was a youngster in Scotland, he had literally drowned in a canal, but was pulled to bank and revived. During the War, Tom Yule found himself on patrol on the West Bank of the Mississippi opposite Vicksburg's main defenses. Suddenly a superior Union force attacked the Rebel position and totally overwhelmed them. The river was up, over half banks, and almost a mile wide at that point. The survivors of the attack had the choice of swimming to the east bank and surviving, or staying where they were and be killed by the Yankees. Thomas Yule dove into the muddy, turbulent waters and began literally swimming for his life. When his arms would tire, the vivid memory of the childhood drowning incident would flash before his eyes, and he was bound and determined not to allow a repetition of that occurrence again. This renewed his energies and gave him the fixity of purpose to make it to the other bank, which he did. Most of his comrades-in-arms perished, one way or another.

After the stillness at Appomattox, Tom Yule relocated to the Winnsboro area in Franklin Parish, Louisiana. Then he moved south to the Village of Sicily Island. This town was supposed to become a manufacturing and farming Mecca, but this dream never materialized because the railroad system of the time bypassed the town.

Ever the rolling stone, Yule next relocated to Harrisonburg on the bank of the Ouachita River, where his first wife passed away. Seeking a new beginning, he visited briefly with the Stone families in the Hemphill area south of what would become Jena, Louisiana. He then decided to settle down in the Beulah community on DeVille's Creek. There he courted and won the hand in marriage of Bertha Elizabeth Remington. She was close kin to Remington the artist, and Remington the firearms inventor. One of their offspring would be James Wilson Yule, father-to-be of James Edward Yule. The couple, after marriage, had visited the Nebo community and the area around Catahoula Lake. They immediately fell in love with the surroundings, and relocated to the area.

His neighbors did not readily accept Thomas William Yule. He was treated as a foreigner because of his heavy Scots accent, and the fact that he could read and write. But they were glad of his education when it came to the compiling of their church records at Mt. Nebo Baptist church, re-established in 1891.

One of the Yule neighbors was Levi Jack "Blackjack" Netherland. He had been with Lee at Appomattox when the Confederate forces surrendered. Before he could get home from Virginia, his wife was at home in Nebo striving to hold body, soul and family together. One afternoon she was milking the family milk cow she had managed to keep hidden from Union scavengers, when an unusual incident took place. Three Union stragglers happened upon her, and shot and killed her milk cow, while her young son Jim, who was holding the cow's calf, looked on in horror. He escaped and alerted neighbors as to what had happened. The enraged neighbors pursued the Union soldiers and killed them about a mile south of the present Nebo School. They lie to this day in unmarked graves.

Tom Yule became a carpenter, boat builder, blacksmith and a pillar in the community. Around the turn of the century and shortly before, one of the means of obtaining "hard" cash, with which families could purchase staple goods, was timber harvesting. The gentry of the community would form coalitions and begin felling trees around the perimeter of the lake when the spring high water receded. These trees would be dragged to a creek or landing by teams of oxen, and be assembled into cribs of eight to twelve logs each. Then, when the next year's high water came up, they would be floated to New Orleans and sold. They would be propelled by the natural current of the rivers or be pushed by a packet boat. On one such occasion, James W. Yule and his partner Simpson Stapleton, made up such a complement of cribs of logs to form a raft at the mouth of Old Creek. They secured the services of a steamboat captain and his boat to push or tow the contingent of logs to the Crescent City.

The boat latched on to the raft and maneuvered it out into Catahoula Lake and started moving the raft of logs towards the exit into Old River. A sudden squall, with gale force winds came up, and the raft began drifting aimlessly. The steamboat became powerless to control the wayward course of the tow. In fact, the agitated motion of the logs was beginning to pull the prow of the boat down so low that it was taking on water and in danger of sinking. The captain of the vessel, fearing for his boat's safety bolted down out of the wheelhouse, and grabbed a fire axe from off the wall of the lower deck. He ran over to where the hawsers holding the ship to the raft were tied to the front of the vessel, and raised the axe up as if to cut one of the ropes. He immediately was staring into the twin barrels of two .38 Specials. Needless to say, he lowered the axe very slowly to the deck. Yule and Stapleton, with the aid of their weaponry, extracted a promise from the captain, that if they let him cut loose, he would, in turn, help them gather up the cribs of logs. It took them over a week to get them rounded up again.

There was a market duck hunter from the Rapides Parish area who used to kill ducks by the hundreds on Catahoula Lake for sale to restaurants and the like. His name was August DeVille. It is for him that DeVille's Creek, which drains into Catahoula Lake, got its name. James W. Yule was a very good friend of DeVille's and he frequently accompanied him on his market hunts. James Wilson Yule adopted most of the trades and skills of his father, Thomas W. Yule, refining some aspects of some of them as he matured as a craftsman in his own right. He also added the skills of silver smith, leather worker and engraver to his personal repertoire.

From 1920 to 1932 he had two duck hunting camps or lodges, constructed on the Sand Ridges, which were high points of land on the edge of Catahoula Lake, created due to overflows of DeVille's Creek. One of the camps burned, but was built back. It was on trips to this waterfowl paradise, as just a tad of a lad, that James Edward Yule learned to carve and blow a duck call. The zeal and efforts to perfect this art form would serve him well during years to come.