Sights, Smells and Sounds of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana
HistoryMaker Student Ambassador, Simone Quary and her family at her grandfather’s [Jesse Quary] childhood home in Washington, Louisiana
When applying to become a HistoryMakers Student Ambassador, each applicant was tasked with finding themselves in The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Each applicant searched for terms related to them using three of the search functions: Stories Search, Biography Search, and Topic Search. Using the stories search, my first search was the town my late grandpa grew up in: Washington, Louisiana.
According to the town’s website, Washington, Louisiana is the “the 19th century’s largest steamboat port between New Orleans and St. Louis” with “cotton, cattle, sugar and molasses [being] the primary exports of the day” [1]. When I searched the archive for “Washington, Louisiana”, one story appeared mentioning the town from federal district court judge The Honorable Ivan Lemelle (1950-) when asked about his maternal grandfather:
“Their primary residence was at Washington, Louisiana, which is a small community right outside of Opelousas, Louisiana, basically agricultural community” [2].
Based on the information from Lemelle’s clip, I decided to look up Opelousas in the archive and 108 stories appeared.
When asked about a sight, smell or sound from his childhood, Lemelle describes an early childhood memory on his grandparent’s farm in Opelousas:
“I guess the farm--chickens (laughter), seriously, you--chickens. One of our duties on the farm was to tend the chickens, collect the eggs and, you know, make certain the chickens were going to roost when they were supposed to go to roost. And, and between the chickens and being chased by geese--my, my [paternal] grandmother [Idolia Donato Lemelle] raised chickens and geese. And my [paternal] grandfather [Joseph Lemelle] tended to the hogs, the cattle, the agricultural crop. And I remembered being chased by geese, I remember being chased by some bad roosters as a young kid.” [3]
Furthermore, Lemelle describes the neighborhood he moved into after his family moved from his grandparent’s farm:
“And we moved more into the Opelousas proper, the city part of Opelousas as opposed to the farming part of Opelousas. And it was on a street called Market Street. In fact, the original address is 831 North Market Street. And Market Street was a popular street in that it connected back then and still does, what I would call the two city parks.” [4].
Additionally, the town of Washington’s website stated that they were located in St. Landry Parish. Using the Topic Search and selecting, “Neighborhood”, I searched St. Landry Parish and 21 results appeared.
Within this search result, I found several videos from Merline Pitre (1943-), the first African American president of the Texas State Historical Association. Pitre grew up in the town of Plaisance, Louisiana, which is located in St. Landry Parish.
Pitre describes a sound from her childhood:
“We had a radio, and they didn't play too much rock and roll or whatever. It was more or less (laughter) that country music on the radio” [5]
The interviewer proceeds to ask Pitre if zydeco music was played on the radio station:
“Zydeco. Yeah. But they didn't play it too often. They played more often than not on that station that we had (laughter) it was just country, Cajun music. You, you would hear zydeco sometimes” [5]
Although I did not hear my grandpa listen to zydeco music often, my dad would tell me that during his childhood my grandpa would blast zydeco music on the weekends, much to his dismay. Moreover, as I was doing some organization in my grandparent’s home, I found old vinyl records. After showing them to my grandma, she told me that some of the albums were from his favorite zydeco artists.
An album cover of Clifton Chenier, who is known as the King of Zydeco
After viewing this story, I headed to view Pitre’s entire interview. Within the first tape of her interview, I saw a tape titled, “Merline Pitre describes her early experiences of sharecropping”. Pitre extensively details her experience of sharecropping:
“My earliest childhood memory is (laughter) going to church [Mohorn Baptist Church, Plaisance, Louisiana] and going to school [Plaisance School, Opelousas, Louisiana]. We were always working in the field as sharecroppers, as sharecroppers and looking at other children whose parents owned certain land--owned their own land. They got to go to school more frequently than we did. They dressed better than we did. And kept wondering but kept being told that if you get an education, you can move out of this situation.” [6]
Pitre further details her experience with going to school and sharecropping:
We went to school approximately seven months out of nine. In the fall, we were harvesting the crop, particularly cotton and potatoes; and in the spring you were chopping cotton. [6]
The Plaisance School Historical Marker
Within the search results for St. Landry Parish, multiple interview clips from the former Ambassador to South Africa The Honorable James Joseph (1935-) also appeared. I opted to view his entire interview and found a clip of him reminiscing part of his childhood in town of Plaisance (a Google Maps search revealed that Plaisance and Washington are 8 minutes from each other):
“We used to like to try and catch crawfish. We were living near a, a rice field and at certain times of year they'd let the water out, and when they'd let the water out there would be all this crawfish, that, that, that I sort of remember, and we'd go out and catch crawfish. But we used to like to just steal some sugarcane and cut that up. In the summertime just being able to chew a piece of sugarcane was really pleasant (laughter).” [7]
Next, I decided to search Opelousas again since this town was mentioned in Pitre, Joseph, and Lamelle’s stories. When searching for Opelousas, stories from renowned allergist and immunologist Dr. Floyd Malveaux (1940-2020) appeared.
A picture of a cotton gin in St. Landry Parish (believed to be in Opelousas or Washington) in the early 1900s
When asked about the sights, smells and sounds of his childhood, Malveaux provides extensive detail:
“I lived near a, what we called a cotton gin, where they took cotton and extracted oil and so on from cotton. So, I remember those smells from this cotton gin.” [8]
“We started off with a street that was dirt. I remember when they put gravel on the street. That was a major improvement for us at the time, and God, I was old when they actually did put black top on the streets (laughter), so I remember all of those things. I remember we had the ice man who would deliver ice to us, would come through in a wagon and actually leave ice for us. And we didn't have refrigeration, a refrigerator at the time. We had an icebox. So, you actually took the ice and put it in there to keep food cold and so on.” [8]
Malveaux elaborates on the sights, smells and sounds of his childhood when discussing his grandparent’s home: “I recall, of course, that some of the heavyweight fights, you know, everyone would gather around the radio at that time to listen to the heavyweight fights. Joe Louis and people like that were fighting.” [8].
Moreover, within these in the search results, I found someone with the same last name, television news correspondent Suzanne Malveaux (1966-) with a clip titled, “Suzanne Malveaux describes her father’s family background”. Wanting to know if the two HistoryMakers were related, I went into her interview and typed in “Floyd” and 15 stories appeared.
I then went back to Dr. Floyd Malveaux’s interview and typed in “Suzanne” and 2 results appeared with her name. Upon watching the clips after typing in their respective names, the information was consistent.
Suzanne Malveaux describes visting her paternal grandparents (Dr. Floyd Malveaux’s parents) when asked about the sights, smells and sounds of her childhood:
“The train in my [paternal] grandmother's backyard. We used to love to see the train and we'd run out every time the train went by in their backyard. And it wasn't anything special for them, because they're in Opelousas [Louisiana] and they're tired of seeing this train go through the backyard. But for us, visiting my grandparents, that was really special, to see a train and to hear the train horn in the backyard.” [9]
A train makes a stop in Opelousas
SEARCH TERMS:
“Washington, Louisiana” [1 result]
St. Landry [21 results]
St. Landry Parish [21]
Opelousas [108 results]
Topic Search: “Neighborhood” + St. Landry [21 results]
Bayou Courtableau [0 results]
Courtableau [0 results]
Port Barre [0 results]
REFERENCES
1. https://www.townofwashingtonla.net/
2. The Honorable Ivan Lemelle (The HistoryMakers A2010.054), interviewed by Denise Gines, June 8, 2010, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 4, The Honorable Ivan Lemelle describes his mother's family background
3. The Honorable Ivan Lemelle (The HistoryMakers A2010.054), interviewed by Denise Gines, June 8, 2010, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 8, The Honorable Ivan Lemelle describes his earliest childhood memories
4. The Honorable Ivan Lemelle (The HistoryMakers A2010.054), interviewed by Denise Gines, June 8, 2010, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 9, The Honorable Ivan Lemelle recalls his family's move to Opelousas, Louisiana
5. Merline Pitre (The HistoryMakers A2016.116), interviewed by Denise Gines, November 28, 2016, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 6, story 2, Merline Pitre talks about her community in Plaisance, Louisiana
6. Merline Pitre (The HistoryMakers A2016.116), interviewed by Denise Gines, November 28, 2016, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 8, Merline Pitre describes her early experiences of sharecropping
7. The Honorable James Joseph (The HistoryMakers A2007.186), interviewed by Cheryl Butler, June 24, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 9, The Honorable James Joseph remembers his activities in Plaisance, Louisiana
8. Dr. Floyd Malveaux (The HistoryMakers A2012.053), interviewed by Larry Crowe, June 27, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 11, Floyd Malveaux describes the sights, sounds, and smells of growing up
9. Suzanne Malveaux (The HistoryMakers A2012.080), interviewed by Larry Crowe, March 17, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 2, Suzanne Malveaux describes the sights, sounds and smells of growing up, pt. 1
