He was born in Lisbon, Louisiana, to George and Josephine Elliott. He describes his father as a hard-working farmer and well digger, and a very religious man. "My daddy died with a Bible in his hands," he remarks. His mother often worked alongside her husband in the fields, chopping and picking cotton. The family of 14 lived on $12 a month. L.C. took over the farm when his father died. He also worked at a sawmill for fifty cents an hour, and drove a truck for a dollar an hour. He attended school "only four or five years," he says. The only child in the family to enter service, L.C. joined the U.S. Army in 1944 at Camp Beauregard near Pineville, Louisiana, and finished training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. From Seattle he sailed for 33 days before arriving at Guam. There he drove a dump truck building air bases after U.S. troops cleared Japanese resistance. L.C. was bound for Okinawa when Japan surrendered. He was discharged at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, on May 17, 1946. L.C. married Mary Lou Harrison in 1939. In 1947 he married Myrtis Davis. They would have one child, two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. After the war L.C. farmed, supervised a peach orchard, and worked three years in Michigan for General Motors. He came to Ruston and worked at several jobs including Lincoln Builders and Louisiana Tech, from where he retired.