Hattie Perkins Fontenot Pouncey celebrated her 104th birthday surrounded by family and friends at Heritage Manor on Tuesday, December 30. A native of Huntsville, Tennessee, and resident of Ville Platte since the 1940s, she was the last of 12 children born to Thomas Williams Perkins and Emma Stykes Perkins on December 30, 1921. Her sister, Fran, and Fran’s husband, Art Beverung, moved to Ville Platte in the 1940s, and Hattie moved with them to help with their new baby daughter, Frankie, who was born in October 1945. Art worked at Ardoin’s Sanitarium, and one day, he and a co-worker set Hattie up on a blind date with Allen Fontenot, and they were married eight short months later on June 28, 1946. The couple later had three sons, Greg, William Patrick “Ricky,” and Mitchell. Patricia and Millie. Hattie worked with an abstractor, running land titles and surveys throughout a portion of the Acadiana area. As part of her job, she would travel around to the area courthouses to research land titles. Later on, Hattie worked as secretary at Ville Platte Lower Elementary School for many years. After her husband died in December 1976, Hattie got remarried several years later to Cecil Pouncey in October 1981, becoming step-mother to his two daughters, She has numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. (Gazette photos by Heather Bogard)
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.