My family was from gheen/raceland. My great granfather was a trapper/alligator hunter. His name is Noah sampey. His wifes name was Ailene Breaux. Love your channel
Thanks for doing this great history on my home town and anyone reading this from Lousiana, come on out the Gheens Bon Mange Festival the first full weekend of June and enjoy some great local cajun food and music all inside the Air Conditioned building.
Loved the accent and history, not so much the members only jacket lol. Been in Louisiana over 45yrs and love it. Just subscribed so I can get some more history. Thanks for sharing
Hurricane Betsy also demolished St. Anthonys. Flattened it completely. Sitting in the midst of the rubble was "the statue ", unharmed but a little scuffed. Our immediate neighbor, who lived between us and the church, rescued the statue. My mother cleaned her up and Our Lady resided in La-La's yard in a protected spot until the church was rebuilt. For her efforts, my mother was allowed to have one of the pews fromnthe church, that she refurbished. It sat outside my house for many years, with a pecan cracker mounted to it. One of my tasks was to crack the bushels and bags of pecans that we kids gathered from out property so that my mother and I could then make miniature pecan pies to distribute to friends, family, and business associates at Christmas time. Of course, the fathers at Saint Anthony were kept well supplied in these pecan pies too! I often wondered why they didn't use them as communion wafers on Sunday - irreverent Presbyterian kid that I was!
I grew up in Vacherie. My grandparents bought a tract of land from the Uncle Peter Plantation. The land that St. Anthony sits on was donated by my grandfather (a staunch Presbyterian!) to the Holy Savior diocese (I guess that is what it was called). As a child we ran through the woods and swamps to escape our would-be Mardi Gras capturers. I remember visiting Miss Gheens when she was in residence - my sister and I would be invited there when my grandmother visited her when Miss Gheens had her two grandaughters with her. I have so very many memories of an idyllic childhood, one that it makes me sad that I cannot revist today. Our home was Lowood Farm. It was right after the big curve in Hwy 654 that we called Dead Man's curve. No one was killed when I grew up there, but we sure spent a lot of times pulling people out of the cane fields and ditches!
sugar cane seems to have driven so much of the history of louisiana - from layouts of towns, to economies, to politics (and slavery) and so many other things. It still seems to do so today.
