A Love Story Rooted in Avoyelles

Virginia Ellen Gray was born in Kleinwood, a small village south of Marksville in 1900.

After receiving her teaching degree from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, she taught school in several rural communities throughout Avoyelles Parish.

One weekend, she attended a dance at the Marksville Armory and fell in love with a soldier there. When World War I ended, that soldier, Alfred Moncla, arrived at her front door asking for her hand in marriage.

Virginia and Alfred were married for 55 years and raised five children on a farm in Moncla, seven miles north of Marksville along the Red River, where Alfred was born.

The land had been given to Alfred’s grandfather, Dr. Joseph Moncla, a surgeon who came to America from Paris, France. Dr. Moncla settled in Avoyelles Parish in the early 1800s. Some of that property remains in the Moncla family today.

Pictured are Alfred and Virginia Moncla on their honeymoon following their marriage in 1923.

To submit any Avoyelles Parish history from the past, email photo, information and contact news@avoyellestoday.com or come by the newspaper office at 208 N. Washington St. in Marksville.