Mary Evelyn Parker - A Real Political Player

A Real Political Player

Dodd helped Miss Dickerson to obtain the position of executive director of the Louisiana Department of Commerce and Industry in 1948 in the Long administration. From 1948-1952, she was also the Democratic national committeewoman from Louisiana. Miss Dickerson was a delegate to the 1948 national party convention in Philadelphia.

In 1952, Miss Dickerson ran for the statewide position of register of the state land office, when the incumbent, Lucille May Grace stepped down to run unsuccessfully for governor. She ran on the Long ticket, with Carlos Spaht of Baton Rouge for governor and John McKeithen, a young lawyer from Columbia and an Earl Long floor leader in the legislature, seeking the position of lieutenant governor. Also running on the Long ticket was the choice for attorney general, Joseph A. Sims of Hammond. The Long candidates lost that year, and Miss Dickerson was defeated by the anti-Long choice, Ellen Bryan Moore of Baton Rouge.

Miss Grace, as a Long candidate, but one distrusted by Earl Long for his own reasons, returned in 1956 to unseat Mrs. Moore in the Democratic primary. She died in office a year later. Mrs. Moore returned to the post in 1960 and served until 1976, when the position cease to be elective.

Miss Dickerson married W. Bryant Parker of Baton Rouge on October 31, 1954. Sadly, the marriage lasted less than eleven years, for Mr. Parker died in May 1965. The Parkers had two daughters, Mary Bryant Parker and Anne Graham Parker. Mrs. Parker, widowed at forty-four, did not remarry. She has four grandchildren, Adam Smith, Bryant Smith, Mary Evelyn Smith, and Parker Crochet. She has three great-grandchildren, Summit,David and Caleb Smith.

During a period when she was not in political office, Mrs. Parker was a successful insurance agent from 1952 to 1956 and a member of the prestigious Million Dollar Roundtable.

Mrs. Parker was chairman of the White House Conference on Children and Youth in 1960. She headed the Board of Public Welfare from 1956-1963. She was also a president of the Louisiana Conference of Social Welfare. She was a member of the board of directors of the Women's Hospital in Baton Rouge and a trustee of Episcopal High School.