Interviewer: Laura Ek

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I met Abigail Ransonet at her home in Lafayette. Running into her since then at the post office, I gave her a call and we set up an interview at her company office, Abacus Data Exchange.

Abigail Ransonet was born and grew up in Loreauville, LA. She describes her community there as an agricultural (sugar cane) and boat building community. Her father started out in the oil industry and ended up with a job at Dow Chemical. All three of her brothers worked for Texaco. Her mother worked making dirty rice and other local dishes for offshore catering companies, which she helped with from 1976-1983. She did extensive marketing for the tourism industry in the area, including in preparation for the world fair at New Orleans in 1986. In 1975, she began serving on the New Iberia chamber of commerce. She raised two daughters and a son, two of whom still live in Lafayette. Abacus Data Exchange also services oil companies in the Oil Center and in Lafayette.

She starts off discussing the repurposing of the Oil Center and the building where her office is currently located. She discusses extensively the tenacity, dedication, and creativity that she finds the local Cajun and Acadian culture has lent itself to the success of (and indeed the shaping of) the oil industry in Lafayette and the greater Southern Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. She talks about the diversification of Lafayette, and the development of the city since that time. She also discusses the difficulties they faced with the 1980s booms and busts (including who stayed and who left) and the prosperity of the 1970s, and where the community is headed for the future. She also mentions Katrina and its effect on the Lafayette community as well as their unique response to the disaster, another thing she attributes to the culture here. She ended by showing me a few historical photos of her family as moss pickers and sugar cane farmers.