| Agent finds writing
career in retirement By TOM KELLY When Walter C. Abbott, Jr., retired in 1974 as County Agent of Jackson Parish, after 30 years' service, he figured to get in a lot of fishing. He and his wife Edna bought a house on Lake D'Arbonne near Farmerville, and began spending most weekdays on the lake. A trophy wall in the den of their Jonesboro home today is covered with a collection of mounted bass going up to six pounds. (We don't have a picture to prove it; our camera flash was out of sorts on the day we visited, but take our word for it: These are real fish.) After awhile, they spent less time on the lake, slowing down some with age. And then he began to get serious about another avocation, writing. Always one to enjoy a good story, he had begun writing down some of his favorite recollections more than 40 years ago. On a visit to their home, the Abbotts' daughter, Mrs. Blanche Fowler, who teaches high school English at San Augustine, Texas, discovered the manuscripts. ``What are these?'' she asked. Mrs. Fowler, the only daughter, is one of four children of the Abbotts. ``Just some recollections I've written down,'' Mr. Abbott said. Knowing good things when she saw them, Mrs. Fowler said, ``Daddy, I'm taking these home with me, and I want you to write some more--lots more, and we'll put them in a book.'' She took the manuscripts back to Texas, where she collaborated with a Jack Malone, fellow teacher who teaches printing at the San Augustine school. Together they put the stories in type, and issued what became ``Tales about People and Places in Louisiana'' by W.C. Abbott, Jr. A first printing of 1000 copies in April 1999 sold out in three-and-a-half months. A second printing was issued in March 2000. It is over half sold out also, Mr. Abbott said. And now, he's putting together a new collection of original pieces for a second book. W.C. Abbott grew up in the Bayou Manchac country of Ascension parish south of Baton Rouge, where he was born in 1914, 86 years ago. Young Edna Webb, whose father had a store at Prairieville, caught his eye during high school days. They attended LSU in Baton Rouge when the late J.G. Lee was dean of agriculture. When he graduated with an agriculture degree in 1934, they were married-- into the teeth of the Great Depression. Within two weeks he had a job with the Soil Conservation Service, and then came the offer of a job teaching agriculture at Evergreen High School in Webster parish at the grand salary of $92 a month. He took it. Mrs. Abbott recalls that in that economically depressed time, that salary was adequate for their family living. After a year, he took a teaching job in Tangipahoa parish. After settling up his bills at the Evergreen community, and filling his car with gasoline, he had the grand total of $1 in his pocket--and planned to make it to their South Louisiana destination and re-supply. As they prepared to leave, Mr. Abbott went to the mailbox, where he found a check from the Parish School Board for $72--a bonus voted by the Board for the teachers, who frequently had problems cashing the Board's checks. With all his bills paid, and $72 in the clear in his pocket, Mr. Abbott says today, ``That was the most money I ever had in my life,'' in terms of buying power. After four years of teaching agriculture, and four years working with the Farm Security Administration, Mr. Abbott served as Assistant County Agent in Ouachita Parish for two years, and in 1944, took the job as County Agent in Jackson Parish, where he would spend the next thirty years, until his retirement in 1974. The period from 1944 to 1974 just about exactly spans the period when Northern Louisiana made the shift from a rural subsistence farm-based population, with some livestock, and the beginnings of reforestation after the great timber boom of the late 19th and early 20th century, to an economy based almost entirely on timber. The Depression was winding down with the wartime economy of the early 1940s. When World War II ended in 1945, most of the young men who had left the farms for military service never came back to the farms they left. Today, the rural areas that were abandoned in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s are being repopulated by people from the cities seeking escape to country estates in retirement, or to commute to jobs in town-- not to farm. And while timber continues to be the main economic
engine in North Louisiana, Mr. Abbott sees other
opportunities in Agro-Forestry, the marriage of timber
and agriculture on private lands. "If it's in timber, keep it in timber, and manage it well,'' says Mr. Abbott. ``If it's open land, think about cattle. But learn about cattle before you get in. Work with your County Agent every step of the way.'' And, there is money in poultry, Mr. Abbott says. ``But, it's a seven days a week job. It's tough work.'' If the land is available, chicken and cattle go well together, with the chicken house litter good for fertilization of the cattle pastures. Experiments are also being done with use of chicken house litter for fertilization of pine forests. Mr. and Mrs. Abbott have four children, nine
grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren. In addition
to Mrs. Fowler in San Augustine, a son, Robert, lives in
Alexandria, and is retired from civilian service with the
Louisiana National Guard at Camp Beauregard; son George
is in Monroe, a senior underwriter with State Farm
Insurance, after a time spent teaching school; and son
Walter III is an industrial forester in Ruston, with
Western Pneumatics. |