Buttercups and Bitter Weeds

Rose P. Marcantel grew up on a small farm in south Louisiana with a strict father and a mother with a strong will. Born in 1937, she had two brothers and a sister, and they enjoyed the wonders of childhood together. In the summers, she looked forward to spending time on the levee with her grandparents, aunts, and uncles. The family would move into her other grandparents' house, where she and her siblings enjoyed extended family, riding horses and picking pecans in the fall. Large yellow and black banana spiders that made huge webs in big oak trees didn't stop them from playing in the shade on sunny days. After completing business school, she worked for a local company for five years before meeting her husband, "Train." While she expected to settle down to a quite life, she soon found herself moving every few years with their four children in tow. From the innocence of childhood to deep chasms of despair, she looks back at highs and lows and the rewarding in-between times in Buttercups and Bitter Weeds.