Mrs. Florence “Tenny” Williams Celebrates Her 103rd Birthday

Born May 11, 1921 in Baton Rouge, Mrs. Teeny will celebrate 103 years this May 11, 2024.  She was born to Lillian George Bernard and Walter Joseph Bernard, the second of eight children.  

To put her 1921 birthday in perspective, the year she was born insulin was discovered, Chanel No. 5 perfume was launched, and Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio. The population of Baton Rouge was 22,000.

Mrs. Teeny has fond memories of growing up as a child in the early 1900’s.  She says that she and her siblings spent a lot of time playing outdoors, making up their own games, and even making their own toys, like using clothes pins for guns to play cops and robbers. She says that she learned to swim in the Comite River, and enjoyed playing marbles, baseball, and “pop the whip” just swinging each other around the yard.

Her family had a garden, growing watermelons, canteloupe, Irish potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Mattresses in their home were made of moss, corn shucks, or feathers.  The family did not have electricity until Mrs. Teeny was elementary school age.  She attended Central schools from the first through the fifth grade.  Then her family moved to Baton Rouge and eventually to Baker where she graduated from Baker High School in 1941.

During her senior year at Baker High, Mrs. Teeny excelled.  She was a cheerleader, served on the yearbook and school newspaper staffs, was a member of the French and Journalism Clubs, played basketball, and was a “Baker Belle.” 

One of her classmates at Baker High was Ossie Brown, who later became District Attorney for East Baton Rouge Parish. Ossie was the drum major for Baker High School’s first band in the 1940-41 school year.

After high school, Mrs. Teeny went to Business College for one year, before going to work as a civilian at Baton Rouge’s Harding Field. The airfield had been put in use in 1941 by the United States Army Air Corps for much needed pilot training during World War II.  

The field had a hospital complex, barracks, dormatories, a chapel, and a large swimming pool.   Today the old Harding Field site is the location of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport.  

While employed at Harding Field, Mrs. Teeny met her first husband, Lee Roy Koon, who was a master mechanic for airplanes at the field. They married and had three children — Walter Joseph Koon, Charles Gordon Koon, and Lee Roy Koon, Jr.   

Mrs. Teeny later worked as a bookkeeper for 17 years at the State-Times, Morning Advocate newspapers and 17 years as a bookkeeper at Grand Pelican Furniture before retiring.   

Mrs. Teeny and Roy Koon were married until 1985 when he passed away.  After six years as a widow, she married Mr. Loyd Williams who passed away in 1997.

Since 2010, Mrs. Teeny has been back in Central where she lives with her son Lee and his wife Amy. She is amazingly fit, sharp as a tack, and very witty.  

She has outlived all of her siblings, who include Ethel Waller, Margie Fleming, Walter Bernard, Morris Osborn Bernard, L. Jay Bernard, Rev. Tony Elton Bernard, and Rosemary Bernard.  

She is a member of First Pentecostal Church in Denham Springs and is their oldest member.