Royal memories of cotton

Hidden behind overgrown grass, weeds, and vines is a vestige of days gone by when cotton was king in Ville Platte. This remnant reminds those people who know it is there about yesteryear when trains would make their way through the city bringing bales of Ville Platte cotton to the mills where the cotton could be turned into goods that benefitted the rest of the country. This remaining piece of history is the old train platform that is still located near the Louisiana Swamp Pop Museum.
“That platform is slowly deteriorating and rotting,” said Ville Platte native Fr. Richard Vidrine. “The tracks are no longer used, and the grass is growing. It’s just something to remember before it’s gone. When it collapses and rots, nobody will ever remember that is where the cotton was put from the local gins.”
“It’s made out of big heavy creosote lumber and creosote posts,” he continued. “The platform was where they used to put all the bales of cotton. People would bring the bales from the gins and store them there on that platform.”
According to Fr. Vidrine, the cotton that was loaded onto the platform was shipped out by train to the mills which benefitted the local economy. “It was sent up north to be turned into other things, so the whole country benefitted by our hand work in the fields,” he expressed. “All of the beautiful tablecloths that came out for the tables in those beautiful homes in New England, the napkins, the pretty dresses, and the beautiful lace collars that they wore all came from us poor people in the South who were working for so little, yet we were so happy to have what we had.”
Fr. Vidrine recalled that he remembers seeing the platform and the old train depot while he was growing up in Ville Platte during the 1950s when cotton was king. “Almost everybody planted cotton,” he said. “At that time, tractors were just coming in, and a lot of people were still farming with horses and mules and the old horse drawn equipment in the fields.”
Fr. Vidrine grew up picking the cotton that was left over after the bales were loaded on his grandfather’s farm. “After they had finished picking all of the cotton,” he said, “my grandfather would tell me that I could have the leftovers. Everyday after school, I’d go in the fields with my sack of cotton, and I’d pick all those bolls of cotton.”
“I’d do the entire field,” he continued, “and I’d bring in all those sacks of cotton and store them in the barn at my parents’ house. Then, when I had them all picked, my dad and I would bring them in the truck and take them to the cotton gin on the Opelousas Road where they are building that new Mexican restaurant. We’d go with all those sacks of cotton, and they would weigh them and pay me according to how many pounds I had brought in.”
Besides picking cotton after school, Fr. Vidrine also helped his cousin Jerome pick cotton during the summers. “Jerome’s dad sharecropped on Mrs. Joe Vidrine’s farm which was across the street from Champagne’s,” he stated. “When we had a bale of cotton, we would load it in these big wicker baskets. We would fill a basket and hand it to my uncle, and he would dump it into a trailer.”
He continued, “I remember my uncle taking us to the cotton gin in the old wagon with the horses, and I remember thinking how strange it seemed because some streets in town were gravel and some had a hard surface. The wagon wheels would crunch in the gravel, and then we could hear the horses’ hooves down the street when it was clear.”
Fr. Vidrine also recalled what days were like while picking cotton during the summer. “I remember the boss’ wife would have lunch for us, and it was the same thing every day,” he explained. “We had field peas and some beef meat. It wasn’t choice meat; it was the bony pieces of meat that was tough. It was fried in a big pot with some onions and peppers. Occasionally, we would get a little piece of something after lunch. And, it was always Kool-Aid to drink with our food that was with or without ice.”
“In the afternoons around 3:00 p.m.,” he continued, “the boss lady would come with a jug with a little bit of ice and some more Kool-Aid. Sometimes she would bring a pan of little muffins to eat. We’d stop for a few minutes and sit on a sack of cotton. Then, we’d pick cotton until the sun was going down.”
Over time, the cotton production slowed and was replaced by sweet potatoes in the late 1950s and early 1960s. “I remember picking sweet potatoes for $5.00 a day,” said Fr. Vidrine. “We’d start digging potatoes at daylight, and we would work until it was sunset. We would work five and a half days a week. We would get paid $5.00 a day, and we thought we were doing really well.”
Sweet potato production has also slowed over time in the parish like that of cotton. While the roots of the crops of sweet potatoes and cotton no longer run deep, Fr. Vidrine commented that is still important for the parish’s residents to remember their roots of where they came. He concluded, “It is important to appreciate what we have today. It is also important to appreciate how God has blessed us as a people that we can afford to go out and buy better things today and that we have the money to buy them with.”