Chapter 9: Local Voices Speak of the Meaning of Magnolia
Magnolia’s black former tenants and its white owners and their kin,
former business associates and neighbors, preservationists, and former employees
were asked what they thought about the meaning or importance of Magnolia.
Different people used somewhat different language and concepts to describe
their views, but overall, their responses showed few variations across ethnic/class
lines. People generally agreed that Magnolia’s past and present importance
rests on three major themes:
-
the plantation as a successful and continuing organization,
-
the plantation as a self-supporting and family-run agricultural venture,
and
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the plantation as a combined residential and working unit or rural company-town
where residents were both community members and players in the productive
unit.
White Views
White respondents noted the importance of Magnolia’s continuity as
a recognizable and extensive physical entity with largely intact standing
structures and still-cultivated fields. Admiration was expressed for the
farming and business acumen required to successfully manage an agricultural
undertaking of its size. Farming skills were seen as crucial to success
but not the single most important factor. Instead, skills were seen as operating
in tandem with the deep and steadfast emotional investment needed to persevere
over the centuries despite unpredictable natural threats, political disasters,
and economic uncertainties. While acknowledging that Magnolia is privileged
by its location on rich farming lands, respondents recognized that “just
keeping the farm going is an accomplishment” and considered Magnolia
one of the better farmed units in the area. Its designation as a Bicentennial
Farm, one that is still productive, is seen as richly deserved.
Continuity is also a critical attribute in terms of kinship and Magnolia’s
centuries-long unbroken association with a particular local family line.
Magnolia is seen as the only historic family-managed farm still working
on the Lower Cane River in an area and era where ownership by extended families
or family corporations is increasingly rare and public corporations or agribusinesses
managed from impersonal board rooms and by remote decision-makers are expanding.
As such, it is considered symbolic of a way of life that once characterized
much of rural Louisiana. One older white interviewee noted: “Magnolia
is in a class by itself, representing the best example of plantation life;
like Gone With The Wind, it was the old south.” Mr. Matt was called
a Southern gentleman who exhibited the best of the old qualities, like caring
about the welfare of his servants who were seen, reciprocally, as devoted
to him. These long-term ties between the family and the place and their
active involvement in the long history of Magnolia and Cane River are also
viewed as giving current family managers “a feel for Magnolia.”
A sense of connectedness to the farm and the workers who made it run is
seen as distinguishing the family management style and relationships to
the farm community from those of other local agricultural enterprises.
Several whites drew on childhood memories to recall Magnolia as a wonderful
place, “a fun place to visit.” There always was something to
entertain youngsters—horseback riding, surrey rides, swimming at the
camp, and the magic tricks Mr. Matt performed for them. “There always
were caring people around.”
Some whites perceived Magnolia’s black community as a peaceful place
occupied by relatively happy people who were well treated. People in different
households at the quarters were thought to visit frequently and attend church
together, although they sat apart from others if the church congregation
was mixed. White people who had visited Magnolia as children recalled “good
natured blacks” and fishing or horseback riding around the place with
little black, or “colored,” boys. They rode to the hayfields,
the blacksmith shop, or where the hoe hands were working. From the perspective
of whites, who primarily viewed blacks in public rather than private venues,
it seem that “no matter where you would go, when blacks were working
they were always laughing and having a good time, no matter how hot it was
or how hard the work was.”
White former employees or their offspring, who worked at Magnolia for several
years, also appreciated the plantation as a self-sufficient unit. But they
perceived Magnolia in less personal terms, although expressing respect and
affection for some Magnolia people and pleasure in recalling some experiences.
These few specialists did not experience a strong attachment to the place.
They tended to see their roles compartmentalized, primarily as work related,
but not as irrevocably linked to a more complex set of social and political
plantation roles. One person explained: “Magnolia was where I worked
and where Mr. Matt taught me about farming and the philosophies needed to
make it work. He was a strategist. For example, he said the crops that fronted
the road had to be as “clean” as possible so that people driving
by, rubbernecking, would be impressed. Crops in the back need not be so
good-looking.” He recalled Mr. Matt’s delight in having the
tractors repainted in time for Christmas and lining them up near the Big
House, glistening like new, to impress the arriving family visitors and
passers-by. Still, from the overseers’ perspectives, working at Magnolia
“…was a job, like going to a plant. Unlike some neighboring
plantations, which are just showplaces, Magnolia was where people worked.
It needed to make money for the family and for the workers.” Planting
was a business. As these comments demonstrate, Magnolia was a place in which
management and workers had a complementary concern for productivity, for
“clean,” not “dirty,” fields. From management’s
perspective, “clean” fields indicated effective husbandry, good
labor relations too, and a basis for enhancing the owners’ standing
in the community. Whitewashing the quarters at Christmas is a counterpart
of “clean” fields, reflecting good management and another sign
of the Hertzogs’ pride in their place. “Clean” meant “cared
for” and well-managed.
Black Views
Black former tenants did not explicitly articulate Magnolia’s importance
as a persisting Hertzog family establishment, working farm, and community.
That sentiment was expressed in other terms. Sensitivity to the strong connections
among the Hertzog family, its lands, and the community was repeatedly implied
by personalizing and individualizing the plantation and its community. As
mentioned before, local people preferred to identify the farm by its owners’
family name, the Hertzogs’, or the Hertzogs’ place, rather than
by its impersonal formal title, Magnolia. One lived at the Hertzogs’,
worked for the Hertzogs, and shopped at the Hertzogs’. So compelling
was the link between the place and the family name that interviewees who
had lived in the area for decades failed to recognize “Magnolia”
as a local entity. On the other hand, they responded immediately and with
interest when “the Hertzogs’ place” was mentioned. Like
“Ms. Lizzie’s place,” “the Cohens’ place”
and “the Carnahan store” in Cloutierville, families long associated
with particular sites lent their names to the social geography.
Pride in “the Hertzogs’” and an association with it, as
well as pride in their own contribution to a well-managed place, is implied
in criticisms of the present appearance of the quarters, the store, blacksmith
shop, and some fields. According to one former resident, “When we
lived here, this was a superb place. It was clean then.” Other observers
disapprovingly commented on the presently “dirty” place. “Dirty”
did not mean trash-strewn fields or residential areas, or even the exuberant
growth along the riverbanks. “Dirty” implied neglect. It described
overgrown and weedy areas in and around the quarters that formerly were
occupied, or cultivated, weeded, cleared, and otherwise managed for a traditionally
recognizable farming purpose. While they lived and worked at Magnolia, laborers
and sharecroppers, it seemed, considered themselves responsible for maintaining
a worthy place, and took pride in doing it. Without them, the quarters,
the farm center in general, and the fields had suffered, had shifted from
the clean to the dirty status, from the cared for to the uncared for. The
National Park Service was admonished to clean up the place.
Black tenants, like white respondents, saw Magnolia as a company town that
met their needs from birth to death. However idyllic these recollections
might strike outsiders, Magnolia was seen to have provided food and shelter,
health care, religious ministering, and a limited cash income. Not that
living with meager funds, few material possessions, and limited options
was good, rather, people who remained at Magnolia until the 1960s fashioned
a life in which problems and good times co-existed as integral parts of
a larger complex package. As one person recalled, “you could make
that little money and you were so happy over it and everything…It
was a good life for me and I enjoyed it, because I didn’t know nothing
no better than that.” A different woman appreciatively noted the gifts
of elegant children’s clothes she received for her own family when
children from the Big House outgrew them. Another elderly woman reminisced:
“It was a wonderful place to grow up. No one ever went hungry. Either
everyone had milk cows and chickens or people shared and exchanged the foods
they had.” Someone else recalled, “…we always had good
neighbors; it wasn’t like it is now where everyone is for himself.”
Tasks were shared too. “You weren’t the only one to raise your
children. Everyone raised them in these quarters and if they saw some kid
doing something wrong, well, they would tell the kids about it. Everyone
raised the kids in these quarters...I loved it (this place) because it did
so much for me.”
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