Spencer Myrick

Spencer Myrick aka Willie Spencer Myrick was born in 1918 in Simpson County, Mississippi, one of 10 children to James Martin "Jim" Myrick and his wife Allie Artimissa Parker, tenant farmers who later moved their family to West Carroll Parish, Louisiana shortly before the Great Depression where they would soon after purchase the 100 acre farm. He died in 1991 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

W. Spencer Myrick first entered Louisiana State politics as an elected member of the House of Representatives from West Carroll Parish, Louisiana, later becoming a State Senator who finished his political career as the Insurance Commissioner of Louisiana. W. Spencer Myrick also worked periodically as an aide to Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long for whom Myrick became a close confidant and friend.

Although Spencer Myrick went on to become a highly respected politician in the State of Louisiana, he was off to an inauspicious beginning when having to drop out of school during the 3rd grade to help his parents work on their farm. In the Louisiana State Senate the opinion of Senator W. Spencer Myrick of Louisiana was held in great regard. Senator Myrick was the 3rd great grandson of (Major) Samuel Earle, III, born: abt. 1690 in Cople Parish, Westmoreland County, Virginia, who was an early graduate of William & Mary College, became an attorney, and went on to be elected the 1st Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from Frederick County, Virginia holding the seat that would later be held by then (General) George Washington who would later become (President) George Washington. Earle also owned land adjoining that of George's father, Augustine Washington, and Earle's plantation was the site of Yeocomico Episcopal Church where the Washington and Ball families attended along with other related families and the Earle family.

Myrick was descended from numerous ancestral grandfathers who arrived in the Virginia Colonies in the very early 1600's from England who were of royal and noble bloodlines and whose descendants would be part of the major plantation owning citizenry of Southern states from Virginia through the Carolinas and Georgia and later into Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana with many of them losing their land and fortunes during the Civil War and many becoming tenant farmers as with Senator Spencer Myrick's parents who then purchased their land and sat about restoration for their families.

Myrick and his wife the former Marie Gammill lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana until their deaths and were the parents of two sons, Jimmy and Ronnie, and have several grandchildren.

References

* [http://www.legis.state.la.us/members/s1880-2008.pdf Membership in the Louisiana Senate, 1880–2008]
*Michael L. Kurtz and Morgan D. Peoples, "Earl K. Long: The Saga of Uncle Earl and Louisiana Politics". Louisiana State University Press, 1992. (ISBN 080711765X, ISBN 9780807117651)

ee also

* Bill Myrick
* Bellinda Myrick-Barnett
* Bellinda Myrick