Off to Cajunland!
Well… It seems forever since I’ve posted something of consequence here.
Last week I traveled with The Wife, my father and his wife to Acadiana (the Cajun heartland of Louisiana) to do a bit of genealogical research on one branch of my family. For those who don’t know, I’m nearly a full blood Cajun/Creole (with a mix of a few other things in there)
Now, just a bit of background on those two words (partially from Wikipedia):
1. Cajun: an ethnic group mainly living in Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles.
2. Creole (in its most basic form): descendent from the Colonial French and Spanish settlers of Colonial French Louisiana.
We were there to research a Creole branch of my family who came from Flanders to Louisiana in the mid-1700’s.
We flew into to New Orleans, rented a car and headed for a two-hour drive to Lafayette. After a bountiful lunch of gumbo, red beans & rice and oysters on the half-shell, I was ready for some research. We started in the cathedral graveyard where I found the grave of one of my 3rd or 4th cousins and I think some family members of another branch of my family. A quick search through the church records yielded a good bit of information on where a few of my ancestors were buried (St. Martinsville, LA). From there, it was off to the library of the University of Louisiana, Lafayette (the Ragin’ Cajuns!) for a number of hours of research in the special collections room. We actually found old pictures of family members from the late 1800’s.
Sidenote: The abbreviation for the University is U La La - Oooo La La. Gotta love it.
That night it was off to a sawdust-on-the-floor restaurant/bar for softshell crab and some dancing. When the band kicked up, my father turned to me and said: “This music is in your blood!” Boy howdy… he was right! You just can’t NOT dance to the music!
The next day started in the Lafayette courthouse, where I finally bought into a family conspiracy theory (‘nuff said). After that we were off to St. Martinsville, La to do a bit more searching. We found where my first surnamed ancestor was buried (at the church in town). He commanded the Attakapas Militia under De Galvez in the Revolutionary War in Louisiana. We also visited the Evangeline Oak (immortalized in the Longfellow Poem “Evangeline” about the plight of the Acadians (Cajuns).
After a few more hours in the local library, we scooted up the road to the road to the Evangeline State Park where we saw (what we believe) to be a painting on an ancestor in military uniform. I must say that he was quite a dashing fellow. Thereafter, it was off to our family’s sugar plantation (that is still a working sugarmill - the main crop around there is sugarcane). Our family lost the plantation in around 1889 when they defaulted on a loan and the LaVert family foreclosed. My great-grandfather was born there and relayed a few stories to my grandfather and then to my father about growing up there. It was wonderful to walk on the grounds of the plantation house surrounded by 60-80 100+ year old oaks with the stereotypical Spanish moss hanging form their limbs on the banks of the Bayou Teche. While I’m Texan to the core, this area felt comfortable and familiar. When I told the wife that, she looked at me and said… it’s in your blood and your memory.
We headed back to Lafayette and out to dinner at Mulate’s (http://www.mulates.com/). They serve GREAT Cajun food and have a band playing every night. As before, my father commented that this music was in my blood… and he’s right. We saw the Jay Comier & the Cajun Country Band and here are a few youtube videos of them.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BnKXlef9FCU&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sC1UjWAfKxQ&feature=related
The next day, The Wife and I were scheduled to fly back to Texas, so we packed up all of the research we’d amassed, picked up some boudin and cracklins to eat on the road from Poche’s market (www.poches.com) and drove to New Orleans for about 6 hours prior to our flight. Had a good/HUGE lunch at Acme Oyster Bar (http://www.acmeoyster.com/). When my father and his wife waddled off to their hotel, The Wife and I walked around for a good while and then drove the car back to the airport. We decided to use the in-car GPS to guide us back as we usually just take a taxi from the airport to the Vieux Carré. So began our last little adventure… getting lost and seeing the horrible wreckage that exists of some of those neighborhoods. It’s bad… but a number of people have a “can-do” attitude and are going to survive. One funny tshirt I did see said: “Make Levies, Not War”.
Anyway, I think the thing I’ll take away from the trip is the reality of those ancestral memories. The music and the land were in me and I knew it.
Last week I traveled with The Wife, my father and his wife to Acadiana (the Cajun heartland of Louisiana) to do a bit of genealogical research on one branch of my family. For those who don’t know, I’m nearly a full blood Cajun/Creole (with a mix of a few other things in there)
Now, just a bit of background on those two words (partially from Wikipedia):
1. Cajun: an ethnic group mainly living in Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles.
2. Creole (in its most basic form): descendent from the Colonial French and Spanish settlers of Colonial French Louisiana.
We were there to research a Creole branch of my family who came from Flanders to Louisiana in the mid-1700’s.
We flew into to New Orleans, rented a car and headed for a two-hour drive to Lafayette. After a bountiful lunch of gumbo, red beans & rice and oysters on the half-shell, I was ready for some research. We started in the cathedral graveyard where I found the grave of one of my 3rd or 4th cousins and I think some family members of another branch of my family. A quick search through the church records yielded a good bit of information on where a few of my ancestors were buried (St. Martinsville, LA). From there, it was off to the library of the University of Louisiana, Lafayette (the Ragin’ Cajuns!) for a number of hours of research in the special collections room. We actually found old pictures of family members from the late 1800’s.
Sidenote: The abbreviation for the University is U La La - Oooo La La. Gotta love it.
That night it was off to a sawdust-on-the-floor restaurant/bar for softshell crab and some dancing. When the band kicked up, my father turned to me and said: “This music is in your blood!” Boy howdy… he was right! You just can’t NOT dance to the music!
The next day started in the Lafayette courthouse, where I finally bought into a family conspiracy theory (‘nuff said). After that we were off to St. Martinsville, La to do a bit more searching. We found where my first surnamed ancestor was buried (at the church in town). He commanded the Attakapas Militia under De Galvez in the Revolutionary War in Louisiana. We also visited the Evangeline Oak (immortalized in the Longfellow Poem “Evangeline” about the plight of the Acadians (Cajuns).
After a few more hours in the local library, we scooted up the road to the road to the Evangeline State Park where we saw (what we believe) to be a painting on an ancestor in military uniform. I must say that he was quite a dashing fellow. Thereafter, it was off to our family’s sugar plantation (that is still a working sugarmill - the main crop around there is sugarcane). Our family lost the plantation in around 1889 when they defaulted on a loan and the LaVert family foreclosed. My great-grandfather was born there and relayed a few stories to my grandfather and then to my father about growing up there. It was wonderful to walk on the grounds of the plantation house surrounded by 60-80 100+ year old oaks with the stereotypical Spanish moss hanging form their limbs on the banks of the Bayou Teche. While I’m Texan to the core, this area felt comfortable and familiar. When I told the wife that, she looked at me and said… it’s in your blood and your memory.
We headed back to Lafayette and out to dinner at Mulate’s (http://www.mulates.com/). They serve GREAT Cajun food and have a band playing every night. As before, my father commented that this music was in my blood… and he’s right. We saw the Jay Comier & the Cajun Country Band and here are a few youtube videos of them.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BnKXlef9FCU&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sC1UjWAfKxQ&feature=related
The next day, The Wife and I were scheduled to fly back to Texas, so we packed up all of the research we’d amassed, picked up some boudin and cracklins to eat on the road from Poche’s market (www.poches.com) and drove to New Orleans for about 6 hours prior to our flight. Had a good/HUGE lunch at Acme Oyster Bar (http://www.acmeoyster.com/). When my father and his wife waddled off to their hotel, The Wife and I walked around for a good while and then drove the car back to the airport. We decided to use the in-car GPS to guide us back as we usually just take a taxi from the airport to the Vieux Carré. So began our last little adventure… getting lost and seeing the horrible wreckage that exists of some of those neighborhoods. It’s bad… but a number of people have a “can-do” attitude and are going to survive. One funny tshirt I did see said: “Make Levies, Not War”.
Anyway, I think the thing I’ll take away from the trip is the reality of those ancestral memories. The music and the land were in me and I knew it.