African American, Alaska Highway, H&S Company. Born: 17 September 1916, New Orleans, LA. Died: 14 January 2006, Durham, NC. Enlisted: 22 July 1941, Jacksonville Army Air Field, FLA. Education: post graduate, teacher. Civilian Occupation: Artist, Sculptor.
Census 1930 household listed: His father, Hayward Oubre, Sr., age, 43, born in Louisiana, worked as a mail clerk in the post office. His mother, Amelie M. Keys Oubre, age 37, was born in Mississippi. They had three children, Marjory, age 18, Bernice, age 15 and Hayward, Jr., age 13.
Census 1940 household listed: His father was 52 and mother 46. Marjory Oubre Neems was 28 and married to Roy C. Neems, age 31, who worked as a mail carrier at the post office. Myrna Lynne Neems, age 2, daughter of Marjory and Roy and granddaughter of Hayward, Sr. and Amelie. Hayward, Jr. was 23. Marjory and Hayward, Jr. completed five years of college.
After graduating from High School, Hayward enrolled in Dillard University. He graduated in 1939 as the first art major in that institution. He continued his studies at Atlanta University under the tutelage of painter and muralist, Hale Woodruff and sculptor Nancy Elizabeth Prophet. In 1941 he helped with a special art initiative at Tuskegee Institute where he met George Washington Carver.
On April 29, 1942, Hayward, a member of the 97th Engineers, docked at Valdez, Alaska to begin to built the northern section of the Alaska Highway. “When you first behold the beauty and nature in Alaska, you are overwhelmed. It was April, the snow was on the ground. I had my parka on and I said, Praise God, I’ve never seen a landscape so beautiful.”
With the GI Bill, he continued his studies in art at the University of Iowa earning his master’s degree. He launched his career as an art educator, teaching at Florida A&M University then at Alabama State College and finally at Winston-Salem State University.
In the 1950’s Hayward began creating his acclaimed wire sculptures from delicate shaped wire clothes hangers. Hence the nickname “the master of torque.” A reviewer of his sculptor opined that “light and air are as critical to the work as the metal that gives them definition.”
In 1993, the Pentagon honored Oubre and other veterans from the three segregated Engineer Regiments that built the highway.
Serial #34079797