Z 2003.000 Lloyd (Margaret Elise Lott) and Family Papers

Biography/History:

Margaret Elise Lott was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1902, the daughter of James Ira Lott (1872-1958) and Roberta R. Lott (1880-1970). The Lotts had three other children as well: James R. (b. ca. 1907), Annie Payne (b. ca. 1911), and Sarah C. Lott (b. ca. 1917). The Lotts moved to Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, in 1909. Margaret Elise Lott attended Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus between 1921 and 1924, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1924.

In the late 1920s, Margaret Elise Lott married William Brown Lloyd, Sr., of Jackson, Mississippi. He was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on March 8, 1896, and he moved to Jackson in 1922. A veteran of World War I, Lloyd was an insurance agent who eventually owned his own insurance agency and sold real estate as well. The Lloyds had four children: William B. Lloyd, Jr., James L. Lloyd, Mrs. William L. Crim, and Mrs. Richard M. Mills.

Margaret Lott Lloyd began working for the Jackson public school system in 1932. In addition to her work there, Lloyd worked with the alumnae association of Mississippi State College for Women, and in 1933 she was president of the Jackson chapter of the alumnae association. In the 1940s, Lloyd was also a counselor at a girls’ camp named Edgewater, located in Gulf Park, Mississippi, where at least one of her girls attended camp. When Lloyd retired from the Jackson public school system in 1967, she was in charge of fifty-six school cafeterias. William B. Lloyd, Sr., died on December 14, 1967, and Margaret Lott Lloyd died around 1990.

Scope and Content:

Among the family papers of Margaret Elise Lott Lloyd are a scrapbook, forty-five photographs, twenty postcards, nine ration books from World War II, and a few miscellaneous papers.

Margaret Elise Lott (Lloyd) compiled the scrapbook with a variety of materials between 1921 and 1924, and it primarily concerns people and events at Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus during her years there as a student. A number of fellow students signed the scrapbook and listed their hometowns and birth dates. Lott kept a short diary in the scrapbook from September of 1921 to May of 1922, and several school and local events are described in Lott’s narration or in various accompanying newsclippings. Some of the most prominent events were the Halloween parties and the trips that Lott and other girls took. Several loose items removed from the scrapbook include miscellaneous newsclippings dating from around 1972 and 1973, cartoons, and other college memorabilia.

Similarly, thirty-eight of the photographs are of people and buildings at Mississippi State College for Women, except for one photograph of a man at an unidentified location. Two photographs are dated March 1922, and the people in them are identified; two other photographs are dated 1951. There are three photographs of public schools in Jackson, Mississippi: Barr Elementary, 1918; Poindexter, first-grade class, 1910; and Poindexter, seventh-grade class, 1917. There are also four panoramic photographs of Edgewater Camp in Gulf Park, Mississippi; two of these photographs are from 1944, while one is from 1945. Twenty-three of the approximately two hundred girls in the 1945 photograph are identified. The last of the panoramic photographs is apparently of the same girls’ camp conducted at Gulf Park in a later year.

Many of the postcards are also of Mississippi State College for Women, but none of them is inscribed except for one dated October 21, 1937, from “Ruth S.” at Delta State Teachers’ College in Cleveland, Mississippi, to Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Lloyd in Jackson, Mississippi. Three of the blank postcards are of miscellaneous other subjects, including one of Weidmann’s Restaurant in Meridian, Mississippi, and these are apparently from later dates than those of Mississippi State College for Women.

The nine ration books from World War II were printed in 1942 and 1943, and several of them still contain a number of ration stamps. They were issued to Joanne Lloyd, William B. Lloyd, Sr., Sarah Ruth Lloyd, Margaret Scott Lloyd, and James L. Lloyd.

All of the miscellaneous papers are related to Mississippi State College for Women. The first is a 1933 certificate of exemption from federal taxes for the Jackson chapter of the Mississippi State College for Women Alumnae Association. There is one letter dated November 13, 1951, from Alice Hamer, alumnae secretary, to Mrs. W. B. Lloyd, concerning the two 1951 pictures present in the Lloyd papers. There are also two undated personal notes, one without a salutation or signature, and the other a thank-you note from the president of the college, B. L. [Burney Lynch] Parkinson, to an unnamed faculty member (or members) at Mississippi State College for Women.

Series Identification:

1. Scrapbook. 1921-1924; ca. 1972-1973. 3 folders.

   Box 1

2. Photographs. 1910-1951; n.d. 2 folders.

   Boxes 1-2

3. Postcards. 1937; n.d. 1 folder.

   Box 1

4. War-Ration Books. 1942-1943. 1 folder.

   Box 1

5. Miscellany. 1933; 1951; n.d. 1 folder.

   Box 1