The Age: Retired Winnie farmer reflects on lifetime of rice farming

By Marie Hughes, Chambers County Museum at Wallisville

The Devilliers of Winnie, Texas, descend from a very prestigious pedigree described as “an Elite Military Family of New France.”  They trace their roots back to Mantes, France, on the banks of the Seine River.

Nicholas Antoine Coulon Devillier, born of noble birth to parents Raoul Guillame Coulon and Louise de la Fosse Sieur de Valpantant, was baptized at the Saint Etienne de Mantes Church on March 20, 1683. 

Before his eighteenth birthday, he arrived in New France as an ensign, and in 1725 was appointed Commanding Officer of the Post La Baye.  Nicholas Antoine married Angelique Jarret de Verchères, and together they had 13 children, seven of whom were sons. 

Nicholas Antoine Coulon de Villier’s son, Louis Coulon de Villier, received the flag of surrender from Lt. Colonel George Washington at the Battle of Fort Necessity on July 3, 1754. 

The Devilliers of Winnie, Texas, descend from Nicholas Antoine Coulon Devillier’s son, Francois Coulon Devillier, also known as “The Chevalier,” who, after receiving a commendation during his military service at the Battle of Fort Necessity was transferred to the Louisiana establishment and promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1746. 

A foundation of love and laughter

I received a warm welcome as I crossed the threshold of Mary and Jerry Devilliers’ home in Winnie, Texas. The pleasant ambience of their comfortable homestead showed evidence it had been built with love and laughter. Their gentle faces, etched with laugh lines, and the love radiating in their smiles made me feel immediately as though I was in the company of old friends. Even their beloved lap-dog, Sugar, greeted me with joy, climbing into my lap to assure me I was welcome.

“Soon after my dad’s birth on April 3, 1914, in New Orleans, my grandfather moved the family here. He moved here because this area had potential,” said Jerry Devillier. “As best I know, when they lived in Louisiana, my grandfather bought land, cut the timber, and sold it. Once they cleared the land of timber, they got rid of it. The sad thing is, that’s the land they later found oil on. I was told that by a cousin.”

The Devillier family settled in Bancroft, just northwest of Winnie, in August of 1914. They sharecropped with T. Simon until 1920 and used large Missouri mules for their farm work. The contrast between these large mules and the smaller ones commonly seen in the area was striking.

“They had 16 of those big ole Missouri mules. You know, mules around here are kind of small mules, but those were big ole mules,” Jerry explained with a chuckle. “They had the threshing machines and the binders and that kind of stuff and they pulled them with those ole mules.”

“What was amazing to me — I didn’t remember, but Bubba was telling me — when my grandpa first came here, they plowed with an old moldboard plow. I think it was a two-bottom moldboard plow. The first year when they came down here, my grandpa, Pierre Olide Coulon Devillier, farmed 1,100 acres, and his two oldest boys, Oscar and Olide, they farmed it. They walked behind those big ole mules pulling those plows,” he continued. “I never saw them plow, but I watched them cultivate their corn. They raised their own corn back then and they’d go out with a wagon and get a wagon load. They’d stack that corn up to the ceiling in the little ole building they had. Olide was only about 15 years old when they moved here in 1914. Oscar and Olide tended to the farm then. My dad, Louis, was just a baby. That was the first year my grandfather farmed that land.”

The headquarters was where Jerry’s son, Stevie, lives today at the corner of Oak Island Road and I-10. Jerry’s father attended school in Beaumont but left in the eighth grade. Around 1929, he moved to Winnie to take over running the farm for Jerry’s grandfather. Years later, German prisoners of war would come to work on the farm; they lived at the POW camp off Pear Orchard Road.

Jerry’s memories paint a vivid picture of life on the farm. The transition from having modern amenities to relying on simpler tools and technologies was a significant adjustment for the family.

“At grandpa’s, we had a wind charger. We had an old building; it was about 10 x 10, we called the potato house. We’d dig the potatoes and put them in there on the ground and cover them, you know, and keep them in there. Well, we put all the batteries for the wind charger in there, and my chore was to make sure there was water in all the batteries. We had electricity for three or four years, then my dad moved us over here in 1943 and we didn’t have any electricity. I don’t know if it was a step up or a step down when dad bought this half section from the Broussards,” said Jerry with a twinkle in his eye.

The move brought about many changes for the family. Jerry reminisced about the challenges and innovations they encountered during this period.

“Mr. Mendenhall had put in the phone company, and he told my dad if he put the pole up he’d run a phone line for us, so we had a telephone before we had electricity. When Gulf States Electric Company was making plane trips to Washington trying to get more money to provide electricity, some folks were saying, ‘Oh, my goodness, they’re paying $300 for a plane ticket, we’re going to be having increased power bills,’ but I said I’d be happy to pay more for electricity ‘cause I’ve been without before. I’d fill those old kerosene lamps and we’d sit in at the kitchen table to do our schoolwork. My sister would have to keep the globe clean, and it was a chore,” Jerry said.

Life on the farm without modern conveniences was challenging but memorable.

“Then my dad came in with one of those old tall Aladdin lamps. Oh, I thought it lit up the world,” laughed Jerry. “My mother had kidney problems and was kind of sickly, but my dad had an old black man who cooked for the farmhands and took care of us. I never knew his last name; he just told us he was Old Joe. I was a little bigger and could take care of myself, but Joe cooked and cleaned and bathed my brother and changed his diapers. He meant a lot to us,” Jerry added softly.

Missouri mules and fresnos

“They used the mules to pull the fresnos to build the levees. At first, they just used shovels, then they got up town and used those fresnos,” Jerry said with a laugh. “A fresno was a little old wooden scoop. I’m just going by memory, but I think it was about six or eight feet wide and you would lock it in place to scoop up the dirt. When they got to the levee, they would pull the lever and it would roll the dirt off to build the levee. They were farming the land on the Roedenbeck laterals at that time. That’s by where Stevie is now. I haven’t seen a fresno in a long time, but I’m sure there’s still some of them around.”

The transition from manual labor to using simple machinery marked a significant shift in their farming practices.

“Of course, then they had the binders to cut the rice. They’d be going around the field with the mules pulling the binders at first, then they got up town and got them some old tractors and went to using them. They had the guys shocking the rice and I was a water boy back then. I was just a little kid; I wasn’t but nine years old then. They had the pull-type combines then to cut the rice. There was a man up top who would sack the rice and then it would slide off. Someone would come by with the wagon and pick the sacks of rice up. That’s the way it was back then, you know. That’s how we cut the rice on my dad’s place when we were first there,” he continued.

Jerry’s eyes lit up as he recalled the evolution of farming equipment over the years.

“When they first came out with the combines, they were about nine foot wide. Now they’re 30 or 40 foot wide. It’s kind of like all the changes my dad saw in his lifetime, and he thought, ‘What kind of changes there will be in a hundred years?’ He never thought man would be going to the moon and such as that, you know. I never pulled a nine-foot combine; I pulled a twelve-foot and the last one I fooled with was thirty-foot. Now, I think they’ve got ‘em with forty and sixty-foot headers, I’m not sure how wide. Little Halley would know. I did some custom planting for him a while back and he is a worker. He goes all the time; he’s a good guy,” Jerry said with admiration.

Jerry then turned his thoughts to the landscape and infrastructure that had changed over the years.

“Spindletop Bayou, it was part of that Rush ditch, it was a little bitty ole thing when my grandfather started farming here. Dadgum, we could almost jump that ditch. Now it’s a big ditch running through our country. The Rush ditch starts on the Dugat land on 1663 and ends at the LeBland land where the Devers Canal crosses Hwy 65. Used to they’d take and ride the canals. They’d ride from Nome down this way checking them by horseback, you know,” he said.

Jerry’s tone turned nostalgic as he remembered the canal riders.

“I know my dad would sell three or four horses a year to this one canal rider, ‘cause he would wear them out. They would ride all the way from south of Nome to the Anahuac road (Hwy 65). I can’t remember the old boy’s name but he’d get to the house every day about twelve or one o’clock on that Roedenbeck lateral. I wasn’t interested in that stuff back then, but I’m interested now. I regret I didn’t pay better attention,” Jerry said with a look of remorse. “Uncle Olide would have been the one to talk to.”

There was some thievin’ going on

“Mr. Graves Peeler was a Texas Ranger back then, he was a rovin’ Ranger, wherever they had trouble they would send him. There was some thievin’ going on up there on the Boyt land near where Uncle Olide lived, it was near where the Boyt’s had their buzzard roost where they trapped all the old buzzards that were killing their calves. That was way back there, I think in the 1920s or before. They sent Mr. Peeler to put a stop to it and he set up a surveillance and caught the old man that was thievin’ the cows,” Jerry recounted.

The tale of Mr. Peeler’s encounter was both thrilling and tragic.

“From what I understand, the ole man was bent over skinnin’ the cow and his two young boys were there with him. Mr. Peeler had been watchin’ him and he walked up and said something to him. The ole man had his rifle laying there by him and he raised it up and shot, the shot went through the Ranger’s earlobe. Then, Mr. Peeler killed the old man,” Jerry said.

Jerry’s family had close ties to this dramatic event.

“My Uncle Olide was staying in a tent not too far from Double Gum, they lived in the tent when they first arrived ‘cause they had no house when they first came. Two of my dad’s brothers, Adam and Edward, were staying there. Those two boys came running up there wanting them to take their wagon and pick the old man up ‘cause he was dead. They were scared of the old man even dead, ‘cause he was kind of a bad ole man. Adam and Edward said they couldn’t ‘cause Uncle Olide and Aunt Hilda had taken the wagon to Beaumont where my grandfather lived. That was an all-day trip on those muddy roads, I don’t see how they managed it,” added Jerry.

Switching gears, Jerry reflected on his own farming experiences.

“I farmed rice with my dad for a couple of years and started farming on my own in ’53, I was 19 then. I had another job, so I started out with just 13 acres. It was just a little bitty patch that was more of a nuisance, but it got me started. It wasn’t too many years after that I had a little bit of base built up, but not enough to farm, so me and my brother, Sammy, and my dad formed a partnership, and we bought a bunch of acreage. My dad never wanted to farm too big, he only farmed about 300 to 400 acres, but when Sammy and I went into partnership with him in 1958, we increased the acreage,” Jerry said.

Mary interjected to remind Jerry of an important aspect of their farming history.

“What about when the government came in?” she asked. “Oh yeah, they had acreage control,” answered Jerry. “You couldn’t farm unless you had allotments, but we were able to buy some from older farmers who were going out of the farming business. At first, we owned the allotments, but we didn’t own the land. Eventually, we were able to buy our own land. We got up to about 1,400 or 1,500 acres, it was a good bunch of acreage.”

Jerry detailed how their farming operations evolved over the years.

“We raised a little cattle, each of us had our own cows and my dad had a few and we tended to his. We sold our cows and started raising soybeans. We farmed about 2,000 acres of soybeans, but it wasn’t too profitable for us. We had a couple of good years, then we went to putting fences back up and got back into the cattle business. Sammy had a heart attack during that time, and he opened up the feed store by the school in Winnie. He stayed and worked there, and I ran the farm for a while as my dad had gotten older. Then when my dad died, Sammy and I divided the land between us and each went on our own, that was in 1982. Sammy’s boys were coming on then and Yale took over and worked Sammy’s part of it. My boys, Culley, Randy and Stephen farm, too.”

Jerry continued to share more about the family’s entrepreneurial ventures.

“We had our own dryers there in town. My dad, Louis Coulon, and his brothers Olide Coulon, Jr., and Edward, who is Richie’s grandfather, built that dryer about the early 40s and Oscar, Sr., managed it after it was built. They had a seed warehouse and they got to needing a dryer,” said Jerry explaining the need to build it. “It was the first dryer there in Winnie.”

He described how the operation was crucial for their farming success.

In an article on Louis Coulon Devillier by the Winnie Rice Festival they stated, “It was a complete operation in that they furnished the seed, cut, hauled, dried, and shipped the rice by train to the Supreme Rice Mill in Crowley, Louisiana, owned by a first cousin, Joe Dore. There the rice was sold.”

They added onto it for several years,” continued Jerry, “and it gave me a pretty good job all through summer. I did carpenter work for them, rough carpenter work, not no finished work. I worked for Mr. Lilton Sonnier. He did a lot of the welding work and I was kind of his helper at the time.”

Jerry’s skills and contributions were valuable during those times.

“He had two or three carpenters who couldn’t climb, and I could climb. Heights never bothered me, but I couldn’t get in a hole. I’d start smothering right quick if I started climbing down in a hole,” Jerry recalled.

His brother Sammy, on the other hand, had no issues with tight spaces.

“Now Sammy could get in a pipe and go half a mile in it, and I’d get sick just knowing that he was in there. I had claustrophobia bad, it was terrible!” he said.

Jerry’s work schedule was demanding.

“I worked there after school. I could work from four o’clock to ten o’clock at night. I didn’t know what the beach was or nothing like that; heck, I had to be on the job. We worked 90-something days in a row one time. They paid me less ‘cause I was one of the kids. I was mad, but they thought because my dad was part owner, they could get me cheaper than anybody else,” said Jerry.

Despite the low pay, Jerry stayed committed.

“The old carpenter wanted me to quit and go to work for him, but I told him my uncle would kill me if I were to quit. I worked there for $0.50 an hour for I don’t know how long. The other carpenters were getting $1 an hour at the time, so you know that was a long time back,” he said with a laugh.

“They kept building the dryer bigger and bigger to meet the family’s needs. They got up to four additions. Olide, Jr., Edward, and my dad each farmed three to four hundred acres. Then their kids came along, and the farming operations continued to expand,” Jerry explained.

The family’s growth led to more demands on their drying facilities.

“Uncle Olide’s grandsons, the Rollo boys, went into farming, too. At drying season, everybody was ready at the same time, and we just weren’t big enough to take care of everybody in the family then. So, some started going to the round tanks; they had come in about that time,” he explained

Adjusting to new methods, they made significant changes.

“We ended up selling our part of the dryer to Richard and put up about 14 of the dryer tanks. We had some smaller ones and some bigger. The bigger tanks would hold about five or six thousand barrels of rice. The smaller ones held about two or three thousand, if I remember right, and I might be way off.”

The work involved in using these tanks was intense.

“There was a lot of work to them. They had flat bottoms and there was a lot of scooping, and it was hot and dusty. We used them for soybeans, too, and that soybean dust would get you sick right quick. It would work on your lungs bad.”

Jerry ended that part of the discussion with a note on the dryer’s fate.

“Richard still owned the dryer when it burned in 1997,” he said.

From skating rink to lifelong partnership

“Mary lived in Anahuac and I met her when she ran me down at the skating rink one night,” said Jerry with a chuckle.

They had the Winnie skating rink, and Mary and one of her friends, Ida Lynn Dugger, had gotten a ride over there from Ida Lynn’s brother.

Jerry continued, “He was supposed to pick them up, but when it came time for them to go, they didn’t have a ride. He told them he couldn’t make it and they’d have to find a way home. I didn’t know either one of the girls, but Ida Lynn knew Tootie Hoffpauir, so she asked him for a ride. He said, ‘I don’t have a car, but I have a buddy who does,’ and that’s when they came and got me. I saved the day and she’s put up with me ever since.”

Their relationship quickly blossomed into something more serious.

“We married eight or nine months later on Jan. 14, 1955. We’ve been married 69 years,” Jerry proudly stated. “By the time Mary came along, we had combines. Before that, when I was a little boy, we had the binders and separators and stuff like that.”

Jerry shared more about their family and their sons’ lives.

“We have three boys; Stevie is the youngest, Culley is in the middle, and Randy is the oldest. Randy was farming down toward the beach on the Fontenot land, and the doggone hurricane came in and wiped him out in the 60s. He couldn’t recover. He was farming pretty big down there and lost his whole crop, so he went to work as a crane operator in construction,” Jerry said.

Despite the setbacks, they managed to continue their farming legacy.

“Randy and Culley were partners, and Culley went to work on a lay barge where they laid the pipelines out in the North Sea. I tended to Culley’s farm while he was out at sea. Stevie and his cousin Kyle went to farming soybeans together. Stevie eventually bought Kyle out. Stevie is still farming rice today,” he said.

The hardest part was quitting

“My greatest joy of being a rice farmer was just seeing the rice grow, you know, and then seeing it at harvest time. I was always glad to see we had a good stand. Some of the farmers this year don’t have that, the drought hit them hard and there’s not enough seed for most to replant. I quit farming the first of last year,” Jerry proclaimed wistfully.

Reflecting on his decision to stop farming, Jerry, who turns 90 in September, shared a story about a valued employee.

“I had an old Mexican who worked for me, he was a good old man, but he had hernia surgery and got to where he was unable to work. I go visit with him now and then, he’s a good man. That left me working by myself out here and fooling with cows, and you get a little ole calf out on the road and it seems like it was always one of mine. I’d open the gate and they’d run by and look at it and go on past it and I’d run ‘em back again, and I thought, I’m fixin’ to get shed of all this. I’m impatient anyway,” he confessed.

Jerry then spoke about the difficulty of leaving farming behind.

“The hardest part of rice farming was quitting. That’s the worst. I’ve been an early riser all my life, I’d always wake up at five o’clock in the morning before I married and make coffee for my mom and dad. It’s just a habit with me, I guess. When you wake up and you don’t have anything to do it’s hard. When you get as old as I am you don’t have many friends left to go visit. There’s a lot of young people but not many old folks anymore.”

Jerry described how he spends his days now.

“I hate to be a nuisance, but I go up and sit at Gulf Coast Automotive and talk to Robert. He was behind me a little bit in school. I sit there for an hour or two and wart him, then go to one or two places but then I get to thinking, those people have heard all my complaints,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll sit and watch television and get three-day-old news.”

Despite the challenges, Jerry finds joy in small activities.

“I still deer hunt, but this year it will depend on whether my sore back gets straightened up. I’ve sat and counted cars for I don’t know how long, over a year now, I guess. I’ve got now to where I can look at ‘em and not count ‘em,” he said with a laugh.

The laughter left Jerry’s eyes as he concluded, “It’s tough when you’re used to getting up and having something to do and now you’ve got nothing to do.”