Kate Chopin House, Natchitoches, Louisiana

Most people have heard the word “Creole,” often used to describe a style of food.

But the real meaning of Creole can be found in Louisiana, where it defines a person of mixed heritage:

French, African, Spanish and/or Native American. Many Louisiana Creoles can trace their ancestry to second and third sons of French and Spanish aristocrats.

Steeped in Southern traditions and populated by proudly unconventional characters, Cane River Country is a cradle of Creole culture that has long inspired authors and artists. Located off Interstate 49 between Shreveport and Alexandria, the region is a narrow valley 35 miles long and six miles wide, stretching from Natchitoches to Cloutierville.

Established as a French-Canadian trade post by Louis Antoine Juchereau de St. Denis in 1714, Natchitoches is the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase. Built on the banks of the Red River, it quickly became a prosperous port. Cotton kings built sprawling plantations down river and fine homes in town as winter residences and for social events. However, in 1825, the river began changing its course, and by 1849, it had moved five miles east of town, leaving a 32-mile-long oxbow-shaped lake in its place.

Today, the town's 33-block heritage district is a National Historic Landmark. Creole architecture, featuring second-story galleries with lacy wrought-iron railings, still lines brick-paved Front Street, overlooking Cane River Lake. Storefronts disclose a variety of boutiques, antique shops and restaurants specializing in regional cuisine, while dozens of homes offer bed-and-breakfast accommodations.

When native son Robert Harling wrote his first play, Steel Magnolias, in 1987, he based it on real-life experiences of his mother, his sister and their friends in Natchitoches. The story focuses on six Southern women who remain loyal to each other through thick and thin, who may sometimes appear delicate but underneath are tough as nails. When the play was made into a movie it 1989, it was filmed entirely in Natchitoches, with many residents acting as extras.

Visiting film fans often recognize local buildings from the movie. The Lemee House (310 Jefferson Street) served as Ouiser's home; the Henry Cook Taylor home (320 Jefferson Street) as M'Lynn and Drum's; the Chaplin House (434 Second Street) as Aunt Fern's; the D.M. Deselle home (453 Henry Boulevard) as Truvy's; the Tauzin Plantation Home (1950 Williams Avenue) as Clairee's; and the Odalie-Lambre Gwinn house (1972 Williams Avenue) as Shelby and Jackson's.

The fount of Ya-Ya

Another writer who captured the idiosyncrasies of 20^th-century life in north Louisiana is Rebecca Wells, who was born in adjacent Rapides Parish. Her 1996 best-seller, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, made into a movie in 2002, also emphasizes the strength and resilience of Southern belles. The title comes from the Creole phrase "gumbo ya-ya," which means "everybody talking at the same time."

Using fiction to stitch together facts, Lalita Tademy published Cane River in 2001. A selection of Oprah’s Book Club, the work has been called “an epic novel of four generations of African-American women.” Tademy had no intention of becoming an author when she left her executive position at a Fortune 500 company in 1995, joined the Natchitoches Genealogical Society and immersed herself in research. She was merely seeking answers about her family history.

A writer drawing inspiration from Cane River Country is nothing new, though. One of the first to do so was Kate Chopin, an early feminist. During the 1880s, she lived in Cloutierville, 20 miles south of Natchitoches. Her French-Creole husband managed the family plantation and general store, while she raised their six children and keenly observed Cane River society.

After her husband died of "swamp fever," Kate managed the family businesses for more than a year, before scandal changed her life. She became involved with a married man, and local gossip forced her to move to St. Louis to protect the reputations of herself and her children.

There, Kate turned to writing stories for popular periodicals, and her former neighbors in Louisiana were appalled to learn that some of those stories were based on their lives, which weren't exactly squeaky clean. Bayou Folk, a collection of 23 stories published in 1894, and A Night in Acadie, a collection of 21 stories published in 1897, reflected not only life in Cane River Country but also the author's interest in sexuality and self-fulfillment, subjects considered unseemly for a woman in Victorian-era America.

The Kate Chopin House in Cloutierville, built in the early 1800s by community namesake Alexis Cloutier, is now a National Historic Landmark. A raised Louisiana cottage, it exhibits typical Creole architecture and French construction methods. The house contains the Bayou Folk Museum, while a restored blacksmith shop and a restored doctor's office share the grounds.

Among the plantations that lie between Natchitoches and Cloutierville is Melrose, also a National Historic Landmark. It was built by descendants of another feisty woman, Marie Therese Coincoin. Born a slave in the household of Natchitoches founder St. Denis, she and her four children were bought by French planter Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer after St. Denis died.

Marie Therese had another 10 children by Metoyer, who eventually freed her and her enslaved Metoyer children. He also deeded her some land, which she and the children cleared and cultivated, developing it into a successful plantation. The property includes nine buildings constructed between 1796 and 1833.

Yet another remarkable woman, Cammie Henry, put Melrose on the literary map. Shortly after she and her husband John bought the plantation in 1898, "Miss Cammie" began welcoming writers and artists to stay at the property as long as they were working on a creative project. Those who were unproductive were asked to leave after three days; others, such as Lyle Saxon, whose book Children of Strangers portrays Cane River Country, stayed for years. Miss Cammie's guests also included Erskine Caldwell, John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner.

During the 1940s, a visiting artist left some paints at Melrose. Miss Cammie's cook salvaged them and painted her first picture. The cook was Clementine Hunter, and with Miss Cammie's encouragement, she continued painting and became regarded as the South's foremost folk artist. Not surprisingly, her works mainly depict plantation life. Clementine was born a few miles south of Cloutierville at Hidden Hill (now Little Eva) plantation, which according to local legend was the real-life inspiration for the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. But she lived at Melrose from the age of 15 until her death in 1988 at age 101.

Clementine Hunter is buried in the cemetery behind nearby St. Augustine Catholic Church, where French-inscribed wrought-iron crosses and tombs shaped like miniature houses mark the graves. The church was founded around 1803 by Augustine Metoyer, French-Creole son of Marie Therese Coincoin and "grandpere" of many descendants who still inhabit the area 

In the film Steel Magnolias, the St. Augustine sanctuary was the setting for the wedding of Shelby, the character based on author Robert Harling's sister. Harling himself played the minister at the wedding.