TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
Course of a Century The Life and Lessons of Dorothy Langdon on Her 100 TH Birthday BY TIFFANY HORTON
O ne 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
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SENIOR LIVING 2026
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