Course of a Century
The Life and Lessons of Dorothy Langdon on Her 100th Birthday
One of my oldest, most vivid memories is sitting on my grandmother’s kitchen counter while my grandaddy holds me gently. Careful, I wouldn’t fall, he slides me side to side and laughingly teases, “My Tutu.” “No, myyyy Tutu,” I’d reply.
“Tutu,” as we call my grandmother, looked on this scene fondly. Even decades and generations later, what she saw in this moment was also the central lesson of all her stories: that the people in your life are the real treasures of this world. Despite both growing up with nothing of material value, my grandparents achieved a lot during their lives, yet every favorite story my grandmother shared reflected the people who made her journey worthwhile.
Dorothy Byrd Langdon (Tutu) was born January 3, 1926, in Gahagan, Louisiana, but spent most of her childhood in Mansfield, Louisiana, surrounded by siblings, parents, and grandparents. As the youngest of four, Tutu was incredibly close to all of her siblings. Each stair-stepped just two years apart, they not only played together but also looked out for each other.
“My oldest memory was playing outside with [my brother] T.J. One time, he accidentally knocked me down, and he felt so bad he cried,” Tutu said. “Another time, I got stuck in a tree at my grandparents’ house, and my grandfather had to come help me down.” She described spending time at her grandparents’ house as her very favorite place to be. “I knew there would be an abundance of food, and every Christmas, we would spend the night at my grandparents’ house. Before bed, we would each label a shoebox with our name and set it out. When we woke up in the morning, there would be half a banana or an apple and a few candies,” she said. “It was the best day of the year. I’ve always loved spending time with family, especially at Christmas.”
Though surrounded by lots of family in Mansfield, Tutu was primarily raised by her oldest sister, Mildred. Mildred saw that her siblings were cared for, led their weekly Sunday march to church, and once she was old enough, got a job as a waitress to help make ends meet. She would eventually marry a gentleman named Reginald Smith and start a home of her own, but instead of distancing her from the family, this move only strengthened and further proved her love for them.
“When I was about 10, Reginald bought me my very first pair of tap shoes. He and Mildred knew how badly I wanted to learn to dance,” Tutu recalled. These shoes would be the highlight of her childhood. “I had a young teacher around the same time whose little sister was taking dance classes,” she said. “She would go home every weekend and have her sister teach her what she had learned in class, and then come back to school and teach some of us girls in the afternoons after the school day was over. I loved Shirley Temple and had wanted tap shoes for years. I wanted them so badly that one time I even nailed the rings from old jar lids to the bottom of my shoes. It ruined them, of course, and probably didn’t even sound good,” she said with a laugh. “My mother made me pull the lids off, and I had to wear the shoes until I outgrew them, even though they had holes in the bottoms.”
As the years passed by, Tutu would spend more time at Mildred and Reginald’s house. Living with them allowed her to finish high school, where she even had the opportunity to be a majorette. In her free time, she sang in a quartet or could be found at the movies. “I always wanted to be a movie star. I loved going to the movies after school and would watch anything that was playing. I even named my son Gary after Gary Cooper,” she said.
It was during high school she met Reese Langdon. “I was out riding around with friends, and we were sitting three across in the front seat. One of my friends saw a group of boys that she knew and invited them to ride around with us. The boys were sitting in the back, and Reese reached up and pinched my hand. ‘He’s flirting,’ I thought, but I didn’t mind,” she said with a wink. Reese had moved to Mansfield when he joined the Army, but stayed there because of Tutu, getting a job as a welder at Neighbors’ Trailers.
Later, during World War II, he joined the Navy as a Seabee and was set to be stationed in Tampa, Florida. Reese and Tutu knew that they wanted to get married and make this move together. “My mother wouldn’t give her approval, but we went to the courthouse and got married anyway, being certain not to tell my family,” Tutu explained. “ That was November 15, 1941, during my last year of high school. I waited until school was finished in May, left Mildred a note that said I was leaving to marry Reese, and then took a Greyhound bus to Florida. By the time I got to Minden, [Louisiana], I already had a message at the bus station. Mildred had called, pleading with me to wait for her before I got married, but I told her the truth—that we’d already been married about six months. I’m glad that I got married when I did. I wouldn’t change that decision.”
The Langdons lived in Tampa until Reese was sent to help with the cleanup of Pearl Harbor. My grandmother moved back to Mansfield, pregnant with her first child. The delivery was scary, almost killing her, and the small-town doctor informed her she should never have another baby. A job opportunity eventually took the young family to Houston, Texas, and their time there would be pivotal.
“My doctor in Houston said I could definitely have another baby and that he could help me safely deliver,” Tutu said. “That’s when we had Claudia.” Just six months after Claudia’s arrival, the opportunity to buy a small welding supply store in Texarkana arose. Reese’s experience in the Navy and his job in Houston had given him just the right background to run this type of business. “Reginald helped us purchase the welding supply store. He said he didn’t want anything to do with running it and that we could just pay him back later. I was actually scared to move to Texarkana because all I knew about it was the Phantom Killer, who had been in the news a few years before. But I quickly discovered that it was a really nice place to live,” she said.
That business was eventually renamed Langdon Oxygen Company, and they expanded to include five locations. “Once Claudia was in school,” Tutu said, “I would drop her off, drive down to Langdon [Oxygen] to help with some of the filing, and then pick Gary and her up when the school day ended. Reese worked hard to grow the business and provide for our family.”
My grandad’s focus at work also allowed my grandmother to be fully present for her kids. She helped with the youth choir at First Baptist Church, served as a room mom, and was a den mother for Scouts. “If I could go back to any time, it would be when my kids were little,” she said. “I remember riding horses with Gary. He has always loved horses, and Claudia loved dance.” Langdon Oxygen continued to be the family business, later employing Gary, son-in-law Pete Snow, and eventually grandson Todd Langdon. In October 1990, heartbreak shook the family when Reese died unexpectedly in a car accident. “I remember holding your hand at the funeral,” my grandmother said to me, something I also remember very clearly. She never remarried. No one could compete with the love she has for my grandad.
For years after my grandad passed away, my grandmother continued traveling to their favorite destination, Hawaii. “The first time we went to Hawaii, Reese didn’t really want to go because of what he remembered from Pearl Harbor, but he knew that I had always wanted to visit,” she said. “While we were there, we met a very sweet local family. When we got back home, I asked [my grandson] Justin if he knew what the Hawaiian kids called their grandmothers and told him they call them ‘Tutu.’ He was about two or three and just chuckled, pointed at me, and said, ‘You Tutu,’ and I’ve been Tutu ever since.” Hawaii has continued to hold a very special place in my grandmother’s heart. Her sister Mildred served as a missionary there in the 80s. After she passed, my grandmother traveled to Hawaii to scatter her ashes as she had requested. My grandmother also served the local church there each year when she visited. She would attend the Hawaiian Baptist Association Convention and serve at the Hawaiian Baptist Academy.
Dorothy Langdon lived through the Great Depression and World War II; she didn’t have a phone in her house as a child, but now she carries one in her purse. A lot has changed in the last 100 years, but her love for family has stayed the same, and the lessons she’s learned are universal. She tells others that “going to church every Sunday, surrounding [herself] with people she loves, and always telling the truth” has been the source of her long, full life. As she celebrated her 100th birthday on January 3, I was able to witness how many lives she has touched as years’ worth of family and friends came to wish her a happy birthday.
photos courtesy of Claudia Snow
