Viola Fontenot shares 'A Cajun Girl's Sharecropping Years'

Today's guest to Louisiana Book News is Viola Fontenot, author of "A Cajun Girl's Sharecropping Years" by the University Press of Mississippi. Her book has been chosen as the 2019 Humanitarian Book of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

It was great to be retired. Like most Wednesdays at 7 a.m., I was enjoying my cup of coffee and lively conversational French with my friends at Dwyer's Cafe. My friend, Jane, was enthusiastically sharing her writing experiences with me. My ears perked up — maybe a weekly writing class would bring some structure to my free-flowing weeks.

And that’s how/why/when I enrolled in the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s 2009, off-campus Senior Life Writing Class, now well known as Chere Coen's writing class.

To my surprise, writing came naturally to me. Journaling was a lifetime habit. After several weeks of listening to my fellow writers reading their life stories, I began to reflect on my own humble beginnings. One morning as I was brainstorming for my weekly class story, a few early childhood memories, long ago suppressed, floated up around my head. I jotted these down in my notebook, put it aside, then wrote my story on a different subject. But those childhood memories/experiences kept cropping up and noted in my notebook journal. About mid-semester, I gathered my notes and wrote my first sharecropping story, intended for my family history and genealogy. Surprisingly, it was well received by my classmates. So began my sharecropping essays. Several years later, the essays were the foundation for my manuscript, now a published book.

“A Cajun Girl's Sharecropping Years,” which was selected as the 2019 Humanities Book of the Year, with a forward by Chere Dastugue Coen, published by University Press of Mississippi, made its debut at Lafayette's Barnes & Noble on July 14, 2018. Here are some excerpts:

"I grew up speaking only French until I entered first grade . . . went to school barefoot. . ."  (Page 29)  

"We slept four on a double-size moss mattress. . ." (Page 33)

"It was1948 or 1949, electricity was headed to rural Acadia Parish . . SLEMCO (South Louisiana Membership Corporation) . . . with glee I pulled the chain of the light bulb for bright light to read and study!" (Page 84)

From my 18 years of picking cotton, digging sweet potatoes, and my Christian faith, to married with children, then a successful 17-year banking career, and now a published author, my French language and Cajun culture continues to be the source and background of everything I love!

Viola Fontenot will receive her LEH award along with other recipients at the annual Bright Lights Award Dinner April 4 on the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campus. Learn more here.