“I am the only Primitive Naive Acadian Artist.”

“I am the only Primitive Naive Acadian Artist,” she would always tell me.  Mrs. Mary Anne Pecot De Boisblanc was indeed the only known Primitive Naive Acadian Artist designated as such. Her art is classified as “primitive” because of its simplistic ethnic content. It is noted as “naive” due to the style in which this simple…

Life on Byron Street

Life was good on Byron Street.  My father could walk to work every morning from our house to his store located on the corner at Plank Road. My grandmother lived down the street behind my Pa-pa’s store, which was connected to my father’s store.  The local fruit stand was next to them. I could walk…

The Courtship of Ick and Jez

She called him Ick…short for Ichabod Crane because he was so skinny.  He called her Jez…short for Jezebel, the evil queen from the Bible, because, well — he would have to answer that. Stamps, pen and paper, funny quips, warm fuzzies, and the occasional light jab all came together in over 400 letters written from…

A Pile of Cotton and a Lighted Pine Knot

Angeline was out behind her house stirring the family’s clothes in the hot, soapy water in her iron washtub.  Suddenly 54-year-old Jeremiah*, one of her most trusted slaves, came running up the path toward her. “Union soldiers are coming up the bayou!” he shouted, nearly out of breath.  Jeremiah had discovered that a runaway slave had gone…

“Poor boy, he had just got ready to live…”

22 Sep 1941 – Hot “… Around three Mr. Culbertson came, said I had a long distance call.  It was Edward. Nelson had called him and told him C.L. died today.  Earl hasn’t come in yet, and I don’t know what do to.  Poor boy, he had just got ready to live, it is terrible….

The Woman Wore Black

Mary Mariah Louisa Currie Morgan (1824-1900) As Mary sat down in the firm wooden chair in front of the large boxy camera in the photographer’s studio in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, she called her little great grand-daughter, Olivette, to come over to her.  Mary held her tightly just as she had done so many times with her…

Of Plantations and Hurricanes

The air was thick and sultry around the plantation on this hot August day — usual weather for a south Louisiana summer. And this day in 1856 was no different. Aspasie Frere, a youthful lady of society, had just given birth three months earlier to her seventh child. At 34 she was feeling weak and…