Irene Whitfield Holmes

[1] She grew up on her family's rice-livestock farm, La Belle Savanne, between the small towns of Duson and Rayne in Acadia Parish.

Daniel Kingman has described Whitfield's conception of the 'layering' of French language folk music in southern Louisiana, arising from various racial and cultural communities who have settled in the region.

He writes that:[9]Whitfield has identified three distinct layers: that of the Louisiana-French, the settlers and their descendants who came either directly from France or indirectly with a stopover of a few generations in the Caribbean; that of the Acadians, or Cajuns, refugees from Acadia (now Nova Scotia), who were welcomed into Louisiana and given land by the Spanish rulers after their expulsion from Canada in the mid-eighteenth century; and... those of African descent.

[9]For these approximate divisions, Whitfield followed Professor James Broussard of Louisiana State University, who described three 'forms' of French: Louisiana-French, Acadian, and 'Negro-French' or Creole.

[13] Whitfield also assisted the Lomaxes, John and Alan in gathering American folk songs for the collection at the Library of Congress.