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Submitted: 3/9/23 • Approved: 3/10/23 • Last Updated: 3/13/23 • R1475019-G1475018-S3
February 6, 1918 - February 7, 2003
*Obituary
Francis Marie Longley was born in Ft. Smith, Arkansas to Verda Price Wilson, Sr. She graduated from Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1940. Her double major was Home Economics and English. In her freshman years, 1937 she was awarded a gold medal personally by Mary McLeod Bethune, for earning the highest grade point average at the university that year. After graduation she taught English at Cottonplant, Arkansas and was offered a Job teaching at Xavier, which she turned down becasue of her new family. She was widowed after seventeen years of marriage to Leland A. Longley, Sr. A respected Police Officer in Ft. Smith. They had twelve children. She was a devote Catholic and a member of St Johns Catholic Church until her death. Her Mother was a descendent of the Price's of Mississippi who were the second richest landowners of that state. On the paternal side she was a direct descendant of the Wilsons of Oklahoma, the original Choctaw Indian leaders of Oklahoma Indian Territory. After the Trail of Tears and Before the Dawes Commission.
Photo courtesy of Stone Shooter
Contributed on 3/9/23 by Billsully060
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Record #: 1475019