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Much of south central Louisiana had originally been settled by Acadian exiles from the maritime provinces of Canada. Known colloquially as Cajuns they had a deserved reputation as excellent cooks. When England defeated France in the Seven Years War (1755-1763), many Acadians of Nova Scotia and in the nearby islands were deported from Canada since they had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the King of England. Many returned to France but since France owned Louisiana many settled in south Louisiana. Take note of the many French geographic names in the article.
From about age 9, until I graduated from high school, I would spent many pleasant summer days in the woods on the Pointe Claire road in Leonville, Louisiana. When I was younger I would explore the woods with my brother, Gene. One time while boating in the Pointe Claire Canal he noticed that I was seated very near a large coiled-up poisonous (moccasin) snake. Instead of warning me and taking a chance that I would panic, he merely docked the boat on the side of the canal and asked me to get out.
After I had done so he showed me where the large venomous snake was resting - right below my boat-seat. That was an incident I have never forgotten. My brother and I also explored that part of Pointe Claire Canal which went into the woods. The scenery was quite beautiful with ancient cypress trees with moss-covered branches and mysterious protruding knees root system. We sliced open water vines and drank from them. We also swung like Tarzans from those same vines.
On an occasion I picked a large sack of moss from those trees and sold it at my father's general merchandise store for about ten cents. He was in the moss business and usually bought moss by the wagon-load from area inhabitants. The amount of work required to pick a sack of moss was a good lesson on the value of money for me; no doubt it being repeated by many children of area farmers who mostly produced cotton and sweet potatoes. After World War II cotton slowly lost is prominence as a crop. By the seventies soybeans had become the major crop.
The boat we used for our adventures was a "shallon" - a flat-bottom boat. A few years later, I wanted a more cajun boat - a "pirogue" - a boat used by trappers and other denizens of the swamps of Louisiana. My father contracted with an elderly man, to build my pirogue. Many years earlier, in 1926, the same person, "Demouche" Auzenne, had built my parents' home.
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My pirogue was much smaller than the one shown on the left. It was more narrow and shorter. The one-seater pirogue had a tendency to capsize, but I soon learned how to balance the boat. Harnett T. Kane, author of The Bayous of Louisiana mentioned that sometimes only a wink of the eye was all that was needed to disturb the delicate balance of the pirogue! He also mentioned that a heavy dew was sufficient to float the boat! Since I could not bring it to my favorite swamp because it might be stolen, I used it mostly for jaunts down Coulée des Marks in the Prairie des Femmes settlement, transporting it in the trunk of the 1952 Chevrolet my father owned. I'd paddle upstream, lie down in the pirogue and float dreamily down the coulée.
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The pirogue was named "L'aigrette" - or in English, The Egret. I even used a stencil to paint a picture on its bow of an egret in flight. The boat was light blue with the word L'aigrette prominently displayed. All of the swamp pictures below are of the shallon boat which was very wide and light. My favorite swamp was where the shallon was kept. It was never stolen, although, no doubt, at times, it was borrowed!. It finally rotted away.
Here are some of my photos of my favorite swamp - circa 1940s.
When I was 13 years old, I used to get to my favorite swamp seated back of my Uncle Theophile - on his horse. He was my father's brother and owned the swamp and had cattle and farming operations in that area. We began our journey along the railroad track in Leonville next to the LaHaye Brothers sweet potato packing shed.. In about ten minutes we had arrived at his property. As I grew older, I would walk through the woods on the Arnaudville road to arrive at the swamp. Surprisingly, the woodlands still exist - not having been bulldozed during the soybean farming heyday. It was quite a long walk from my home to Uncle Theo's property and my favorite swamp but there was excitement along the way. In the summer my friends and I picked and ate blackberries along the way.
As I mentioned, my father owned a general merchandise country store, and thankfully he never made me feel guilty even though I spent an inordinate amount of time playing in the woods instead of helping him at the store. He let me have my childhood even though I could have helped him and his assistant at the store. The Second World War had begun and marked the end of the depression.
I was born in 1931 at the height of the depression. Before the depression, Leonville had a reputation for excellent illegally produced homemade (in the woods) whiskey. Although we were not poor, times were hard for many during the depression. Many farmers lost their property; some because they could not pay their very low property taxes. Shipping a bale of cotton to market sometimes would not bring the cost of the freight involved, but that was at the beginning of the depression. My father had to be very cautious in extending credit to his customers.
He had paid every creditor except one - a New Orleans dry goods wholesaler. The wholesaler's salesman told him that the account was long overdue and that he would foreclose if payment was not made.
My father immediately handed the store keys to the salesman. He turned down the offer and told my father that he could pay when he was able. The amount of money involved was $75.00! My father mentioned to me how depressing it was to sell merchandise at a loss, but the sale had to be made - even at a loss. Money was needed to pay the debts and replenish the inventory. He recounted to me that only two of his farmer-customers had paid their depression accounts.
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