By JACK M. WILLIS
Journal Correspondent

At a time usually reserved for celebrations associated with the birth of the Christ child, occasionally some people are victimized by unfortunate circumstances. Such was what happened to James Edward Yule, renowned woodworking artisan from the Catahoula Lake community of Nebo in LaSalle Parish. A fire that totally engulfed his residence devastated Ed, as his friends and relatives know him.

On December 20 James had just sat down at the one of his sisters' dinner table, and had just taken a bite of a mallard duck breast retrieved from a huge pan of homemade cornbread dressing, when his niece who lives just up the lane from his home called to inform him his house was on fire. He called the local Rogers-Nebo volunteer Fire Department. Try as they might, the house and contents were a total loss.

The list of treasured forever-lost items begins with over two dozen duck calls, turkey calls, bas relief wooden sculptures, pictures of celebrities, and several paintings by Ludwig Madison, Academy Award winning set designer for Warner Brothers and Universal Studios. Madison had sailed with renowned author Jack London, and was the model for one of the characters in a London novel. Olive Long Cooper, a sister of Huey and Earl Long and head of the Fine Arts Department at NSU in Natchitoches for a number of years, and who was his mentor, had gifted him with several of her works. Yule also lost an irreplaceable gun collection, a bevy of handmade knives, several woodworking tools, gouges, and chisels he had personally invented and fashioned to facilitate his wood working skills. Another lost item was a commemorative sword of the Mullins family, who were among the passengers on the Mayflower. Ed said one thing that was very valuable to him personally were the reams of genealogical records he had amassed over the years from archives in the United States, Scotland and the United Kingdom, while tracing the lineage of his forebears. Ed Yule is about a fifth cousin to Joe Yule, Jr. whose stage name is Mickey Rooney.

These days James Ed Yule is smiling to keep from crying, and his credo is, "Life goes on!" He's finally finishing up an adjoining replacement residence he had started several years ago, with the help of friends and neighbors. One of the neighboring volunteer fire department's personnel is going to help him get the new habitation livable.

James Edward Yule is created from stern stuff much like his great-grandfather Thomas William Yule, a Scots emigré who started from scratch over a century and a half ago when he homesteaded the site of the present Yule residence. And he is testimony that genetic history oft repeats its self.

He's starting from scratch, too!

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