Paul Centennial Marx, Sr.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mr. Marx attended school until the untimely death of his father Adolph in 1886 forced him to go to work to help support the large family. The unwillingness of the German pastor to hold a funeral ("pass the body through the church") without a payment that the widow Marx felt she could not afford turned Mr. Marx away from his Catholic upbringing. (Near the end of his life he told his daughter Ione who had converted to Catholicism that he hoped she was not planning to send a priest around when he was dying, so the experience made a life long impression.)

Mr. Marx "wrote with a fine hand" and moved to Crowley, Louisiana to work as a clerk copying legal documents at the court house. To earn extra money he began to press men's clothes in the evening, which started him on his path as a dry cleaner and tailor shop owner. He had the first modern dry cleaning plant between New Orleans and Houston on the main street of Crowley. He also sold fine men's apparel and measured for men's suits which he had made. His business stationary read, "P.C. Marx, Merchant Tailor. SANITARY METHODS. NO SWEAT SHOP WORK. French Dry Cleaning Plant Installed. Hats Cleaned and Blocked. Res. Phone 352, Shop Phone 46. All work called for and delivered."

Before the depression struck Louisiana in the late 1920's, Crowley was a very prosperous town because of the high demand for rice brought about by world trade and the first world war and Mr. Marx's establishment prospered as well, according to his son Paul Jr. When the local bank failed, however, he lost all of his money and was reduced to bartering with other merchants to feed his family.

Mr. Marx was a leading citizen in the town and even entered politics, running as a reform candidate for mayor vowing to clean up corruption in the local government. The local paper pictured him as a cat chasing the mice away from the town's cheese. He did not win the election. (JBHIII, 7-12-10)

A proponent of the germ theory of disease, Mr. Marx sent each of his children to school with a collapsible tin cup hooked to their belts so that they would not drink with their classmates from the common dipper. They were also told never to exchange chewing gum (a practice his son Paul Jr. said was quite common, as in "I've got blackjack, what flavor do you have? Wanna trade?") or caps (a potential source of lice or ringworm). He also had them eat an orange before bed. He took a cold bath every morning and his daughter Ione remembered hearing him protest as he got in the tub. He also drank a small glass of tonic, Quin a la Roche, every day and slept with a revolver under his pillow.

He was a natty dresser and one of his stepdaughters remembered that it was often said that he was "the most winsome man in the Parish." He read widely and urged his children to read since, as he wrote one of them, "You can work with a shovel all day, but if you read you have something to think about when you come home at night." His personal caution and concerns about health and safety are passed down in the generations beginning with his son, Paul.