I was raised as a cradle Catholic, the oldest of eight children born to my parents, Joseph Vallery Will and Jeanne Elizabeth Stadeker Will. I attended St. Augustine Elementary School in New Roads through the fourth grade, taught by the Holy Spirit Sisters and Mary Immaculate of San Antonio, Texas, whose charism was to serve the social and educational needs of the African American community.
Even though neither of my grandparents were able to complete high school because of the racial climate in the early 20th century, my parents believed we needed to complete high school.
Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, I experienced various forms of racial injustices. Even my birth was one from the Jim Crow practices of 1960.
I was born at St. Joseph Hospital in New Roads but at that time Black babies could not be placed in the nursery with White babies. My grandmother had to come to the room after I was born to assist my mother.
My father still had to pay the same amount for our hospital stay even though we weren’t treated equally.
Another incident was when my parents went to purchase Christmas toys. One day while visiting my paternal grandmother’s house, I saw sitting on a bed a large Black doll. I had never seen a Black doll before.
When I returned home, I excitedly begged my mother to tell Santa Claus to bring me a Black doll for Christmas.
My parents tried to faithfully fill my request, visiting a retail outlet in New Roads to purchase this prized doll. Though the doll was not available, the White saleswoman said it could be ordered.
Days later she notified my parents their order had arrived. When they went to the store to pick up the doll, it was wrapped in brown paper. Written on the package was “For that colored lady and that colored man.”
My father was infuriated and informed my mother that they were not going the buy that doll. The clerk could not understand why. I received a White doll and I was very disappointed. This doll did not look like me. I was about four or five years old at the time.
After I was older and my mother explained to me what had happened I vowed that when I would earn my own money, I would buy my own Black doll. Thus, I developed at any early age the sense of Black pride and cultural awareness.
Because my father was a school principal I had books, magazines and other periodicals readily available for reading. We grew up with Black school teachers often visiting our home. The Ebony and Jet magazines demonstrated Black life from around the United States and the diaspora.
I couldn’t wait to read these magazines. The writers were Black and wrote about the Black community’s history and accomplishments. I could visualize myself in some of these stories.
My years in the catechetical ministry began in high school in the 1970s assisting with the religious education classes.
Numerous years later, Sister Celeste Barrett, St. Augustine’s CCD director in 1984, called me about teaching religion. I was extremely hesitant at first but after Sister Celeste’s convincing I finally said yes.
I taught fifth grade for about a decade. In 1986, Father Henry Offer SSJ became the pastor of St. Augustine and established the first Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults process. I served as first RCIA director and also served in other ministries at St. Augustine.
During this time as a young adult, I began to feel a deeper call to church ministry. One summer around 1992, a transitional deacon was serving at St. Augustine. I confided in him that I was interested in doing the work Sister Celeste was doing for the church. However, my confidence did not remain a secret.
Weeks after this conversation, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit formally announced that because of declining vocations
in their religious women they would no longer be able to staff St. Augustine and recommended a lay person be hired to fill this void.
Eventually after the formal process of submitting an application, letters of recommendation and an interview, I was hired as the director of religious education in 1994. Though there were other people serving in the capacity of DREs in the African American parishes of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, history was made when I became the first-full time lay DRE of an African American parish.
Upon being hired I was informed that although I had a bachelor degree, I needed more than diocesan certification. I enrolled in Xavier University of Louisiana’s Institute of Black Catholic Studies in New Orleans and worked on my master of theology for several summers, meeting Black Catholic seminarians, novitiates, deacons, laity, priests, religious sisters and brothers.
Classes were focused on how we would continue to serve in the Black Catholic communities we hailed from. Our professors were Black priests, religious sisters, ministers and laity from various Catholic and Christian universities from around the United States and world.
Some of my favorite classes were Black Approaches to Catechetics, Black Catholic History, Slave Narratives and the Spirituals. These courses enabled me to bring to St. Augustine’s religious education program a deeper and richer appreciation of our Catholic faith by incorporating more Black imagery, music, history and culture for our catechists, students and their families.
My employment at St. Augustine lasted for more than 19 years. By then both of my parents were deceased, so I began to refocus on completing my master’s degree.
My thesis was on the Plantevigne brothers of Pointe Coupee, a historical essay entitled “Tribulation and Jubilation: The Plantevigne Brothers’ Quest and Legacy of Education in Southeast Louisiana.”
Professor Plantevigne had founded the first high school for African Americans in Pointe Coupee Parish. His younger brother, Father John Plantevigne, was the first Black Josephite priest from Louisiana and the second Black priest from the state of Louisiana.
Both of their lives were tragic, yet inspiring. I used their fortitude, tenacity and courage to teach people of the accomplishments of Black Catholics to the Roman Catholic Church and society as a whole.
Throughout this journey, which included many rocky roads, wrong turns and dead ends, God has kept me on his path to continue catechizing people about the Catholic faith and the contributions of people of African descent to Christ’s church.
Will attended Southern University of Baton Rouge and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor of science in psychology in 1982. She graduated with a master’s degree in pastoral theology from Xavier University in New Orleans in 2015. She is president of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women.