East Baton Rouge County Louisiana Archives Biographies.....Watson, Warren September 28,
1893 -
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Author: Henry E Chambers
Warren Otto Watson, who is a veteran of seas service in the World war, is one
of the and popular younger members of the bar of Rouge, where he has been
established in the general practice of his profession since January and where
distinctive success is attending his and efficient service in his chosen
vocation he has the fundamental characteristic that make for successful
advancement needs no further voucher than the statement that he depended
entirely upon his own resources in gaining his higher academic and also his
professional education.
Mr. Watson claims the old Lone Star State as the place of his nativity, his
birth having occurred at Kilgore, Gregg County, Texas, September 28, 1893. His
father, John Robert Watson, now a resident of Marshall, that state, was born in
Georgia, June 29, 1861, and was a boy at the time of the family removal to
Alabama, whence removal was later made to Texas, he having been still a
comparatively young man when he established his residence in Gregg County
Texas, where he was for a time engaged in farm enterprise and where he was
called upon to serve in various local offices of public trust. He was long and
actively associated with public service, has been influential in the councils
of the democratic party in Texas, and now holds a position with the Texas &
Pacific Railroad. His wife, whose maiden name was Georgia Letitia Morris, was
born in Alabama, November 16, 1865, and they have six children: Henry
Prescott, who was born September 12, 1886, resides at Breckenridge, Texas,
where he is city secretary and treasurer, as well as city tax assessor and
collector; Robert Pitt, who was born July 24, 1888, is engaged in the
wholesale and retail grocery business at Marshall, Texas; Callie Belle, who
was born October 10, 1891, is the wife of Homer M. Spencer, manager of a retail
grocery at Marshall, Texas; Warren Otto, of this review, was the next in order
of birth ; Mittie Lucile, born November 26. 1893, is the wife of Albert J.
Tatum, of Houston, Texas; and Annie Lorna, born September 5, 1902, is the wife
of John Eli Mason, of Houston, Texas.
The earlier educational discipline of Warren Otto Watson was acquired in the
public schools of Gregg and Harrison counties, Texas, and in his native state
he was graduated from the Hallsville High School as a member of the class of
1908. For a few months thereafter he applied himself to strenuous sawmill work
at Milvid, Texas, and in the Lone Star State he remained, variously employed,
until the year 1911, when he there took a position in the shoe department in
the department store of the Russell-Graham Company at Marshall. He continued
as a salesman for this concern two years, and from September, 1913, until July,
1913, he was similarly employed in the Imperial Shoe Store at Shreveport,
Louisiana. His next experience, of brief duration was that gained as agent for
the New York Life insurance Company at Shreveport, and in the meantime he had
permitted nothing to dampen his ambition to prepare himself for the legal
profession. In September, 1913, he was matriculated in the academic department
of the Louisiana State university and his work there was interrupted by his
gallant service in the World war, after the close of which be resumed his
studies at the university, in which he was graduated as valedictorian of the
law class of 1921 and from which he received his degree of Bachelor of Laws.
In his senior year he was business manager of "The Gumbo," the University
annual. In the autumn of 1920, while still a student, be was defeated in his
candidacy for the position of delegate to the State Constitutional Convention
of Louisiana which assembled in 1921, his defeat being by a very few votes.
Mr. Watson was admitted to the bar in June, 1921, and thereafter was associated
with an insurance agency in Baton until January of the following year, when he
an office and engaged in the practice of his profession. He has made his
impress as a resourceful trial lawyer and well fortified counselor, and his
practice is constantly expanding in scope and importance.
When Mr. Watson entered the university his financial resources were at the
lowest ebb, and to finance himself in the continuing of his law studies he
worked during afternoons of his freshman year in a shoe store in Baton Rouge.
For this service he received five dollars a week, and on this he contrived to
live and pay incidental expenses. In his sophomore year he took charge of the
shoe department of the Welsh & Levy Clothing Company, at a salary of forty-five
dollars a month, with work in the afternoons only. He was in his freshman year
in the law department of the university when the nation became involved in the
World war, and less than a month later he volunteered for military service and
was sent to the First Officers Training Camp at Fort Logan H. Roots, near
Little Rock, Arkansas. On the 13th of the following August he was there
commissioned a second lieutenant in the quartermaster corps, and was soon
assigned to a labor battalion of negro troops at Camp Pike, that state. On the
4th of December, 1917, at Hoboken, New Jersey, he embarked for overseas
service. He landed at Brest, France, on the 21st of that month, and on
Christmas day he arrived at Bassens, six miles distant from the City of
Bordeaux. The next day he took his company out to work on railroad
construction, and he continued to be stationed at Bassens until midsummer in
1918. In this interval he was engage(l in the construction of all railroad
yards, courthouses, cold-storage plants, docks, etc., built by the American
Expeditionary Forces in that district. Thereafter he was engaged in railroad
construction in the vicinity of Talmont, at the mouth of the Girond River,
until November 11, 1918, which was marked by the signing of the now historic
armistice. He remained at Talmont, engaged in general work in connection with
the closing of the service of that camp, until January, 1919, and thereafter
was in charge of road repairing, with headquarters at Bassens, until the 1st of
the following March, when he was detached from his company and sent to the City
of Paris, where for four months he had the privilege of attending the famed
Sarbonne University. He arrived in the Port of New York City July 31, 1919,
and on the 25th of the following mouth he received his honorable discharge at
Camp Pike, Arkansas.
Mr. Watson is an ardent advocate of the principles of the democratic party, and
has been an active worker in its ranks. By a very few votes in the primary
election of January 15, 1924, he was defeated for nomination for representative
in the Louisiana Legislature. He and his wife are zealous members of the First
Baptist Church of Baton Rouge, and he is superintendent of one of its Sunday-
School departments. His basic Masonic affiliation is with Baton Rouge Lodge
No. 372, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is senior warden (1925),
and in the Scottish Rite of the great fraternity he has received the thirty-
second Degree in the Consistory at New Orleans, where also he k a Noble of
Jerusalem Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Watson is an active member of the
Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce, and his property holdings in the capital city
include his modern home place at the corner of Drehr Avenue and Oleander
Street, in the attractive district known as Drehr Place.
December 17, 192l, marked the marriage of Mr. Watson and Miss Janie L. Palmer,
daughter of James and Mattie (Rogillio) Palmer, the former of whom died in
Baton Rouge, where the widow now resides with her daughter. Mr. and Mrs.
Watson are popular factors in the social life of their home city.
Additional Comments:
A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 80-82, by Henry E. Chambers. Published
by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.
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