by Wesley Harris
If fire engulfed your home, what would you try to save?
For Tommy Adkins, it was a work of art given to his family in exchange for food and a place to sleep over a century ago.
Tommy passed away in 2020, but his daughter Jenny Adkins James proudly displays the framed drawing Tommy retrieved from their burning home in 2012.
Tommy J. Adkins grew up in Claiborne Parish, home of the Adkins family since Lemiah Christopher Columbus Adkins and his wife Jincy moved the family from Georgia in 1852.
Tommy attended Summerfield and Homer High Schools, graduating from Homer in 1962, where he played football and basketball. His basketball skills earned him a scholarship to LSU, but he had to decline it for health reasons.
Instead, he graduated from Louisiana Tech where he met Dianne Britt. They married in 1967. Tommy completed LSU Law School and served two terms as district attorney for Lincoln and Union Parishes. When Tommy passed away in 2020, he and Dianne had been married 53 years.
In 2012, the Adkins family was living on Lakeshore Drive in Ruston when lightning struck the home, causing a massive fire.
Jenny James remembers January 25, 2012 well.
“It was a bad storm,” James recalls. “The lightning was unlike anything I’d ever seen. A bolt hit the heater vent on the roof and traveled down through the house. It was right above our heads in the upper level of our split level house.”
James says she saw sparks fly and black smoke poured through the vents. She and her son and mother fled the house.
Ruston firefighters and police officers responded to the blaze. Police called Tommy at his office and he rushed home.
The stubborn fire put a number of Ruston firefighters out of commission from exhaustion and police officers took up several of the hoses. Tommy pleaded with Ruston Police Lieutenant Curtis Hawkins to let him go in the burning house. He told Hawkins there was one item he had to save.
Hawkins was hesitant and Tommy continued to plead.
Tommy explained it was a family heirloom and in a room not directly involved in the fire at that moment. Hawkins decided they would try entry but first conferred with firefighters. Tommy and Hawkins entered the smoky room, removed the framed drawing from a wall, and escaped.
James says she and her mom had gone to a neighbor’s and did not know Tommy had gone into the burning home. She remembers the drawing hung in a closed living room on the lower level, so the fire had not reached it.
Tommy told Hawkins part of the family story. The artist, hungry and in need of shelter, had stopped at the family farm in Claiborne Parish generations ago.
Jerry Adkins, Tommy’s brother, still lives in Claiborne Parish.
“A man came to the house needing food and a place to stay for a few nights,” Jerry Adkins says. “The man said he did not have any money, but he could pay by drawing a picture for the family.”
“But I don’t know if that was my grandparents, great grandparents, or even further back.”
The drawing titled “Goin’ to See Grandfather,” is dated 1877 and portrays a European farm scene with a castle in the background. It was likely given to Jerry and Tommy’s great-great-grandfather Lemiah who was 58 that year. Or the recipient could have been Lemiah’s son Miles who at 22 in 1877 was married and had his own place.
Apparently the drawing passed to Miles’s son Benjamin Christopher Adkins, and then to Aloys Adkins, a well-known Claiborne Parish educator and father to Tommy and Jerry.
Jerry Adkins said the drawing was never displayed in their parent’s house, but “The detail in the artwork is as fine as you will see in a pencil drawing. You can see the woodgrain in logs and individual leaves on the trees.”
Adkins says the traveler was German, according to the story passed down through the family. The Adkins farm in the Camp community in Claiborne Parish was close to Germantown, a settlement initiated by Bernhard Müller, known as Count de Leon, northeast of Minden in 1836. The Count died before his small band reached the site, but his wife led them on to the tract near Minden.
The small German enclave meant to be a sort of utopia for religious freedom lasted until 1871.
Perhaps the traveling artist had sought out Germantown, unaware it no longer existed. But he needed a place to stay and found the Adkins family.
Hawkins, now Ruston City Marshal, says he was stunned by the detail and quality of the work. “Tommy said the man had used many pencils to complete the elaborate drawing.”
“I am impressed by the man’s ability,” Hawkins says, remembering when he rushed the artwork through the rain and placed it in his patrol car. “He had nothing but his talent and what he carried on his back, but he used his skill to trade for what he needed.”
Hawkins suspects the man used that artistic talent to support himself in his travels.
If the family’s account is correct that the itinerant artist only remained a night or two, the elaborate illustration is even more incredible.
The family wishes it knew more about this mystery artist. He signed his work but the name is unclear. The first name is “Eduard” or “Edward,” then “Rouge” or “Hoage” or something similar, possibly followed by a name starting with “J.” A cursory search of the internet failed to produce any matches.
James said the drawing will continue to be passed down in the Adkins family.
If you can help identify this artist, email Wesley Harris at campruston@gmail.com.
