Terrebonne Genealogical Society TGS Newsletter Vol. 19 No. 1 March 2000 Visit our home page at http://www.rootsweb.com/~laterreb/tgs.htm

 CONTENTS:
NEXT MEETING | DEATHS | BIRTH | MEMBERS' PROJECTS
CAJUN HISTORY | BEGINNER CLASSES

Membership and/or address changes:
Please send by mail to TGS, Station 2 Box 295, Houma, LA 70360-0295

North Branch Library, Gray, LA 1:00 p.m.

If you have been following the Republican and Democratic primary races and the Reform Party news reports, you will be amazed by the results of our elections at the last meeting. All the incumbent officers were elected without opposition. The board members elected were Essie Cavalier, Louis Duet, Patty W. Gravois and Daniel C. Guidry. The officers and board members will be installed at the next meeting, whereupon Patty and Daniel (a. k. a. Chuck) will begin voting at the Board meetings. They attended the March meeting, but had to abstain because they were not officially in office as yet. Gloria Hicks is in charge of the installation ceremony. Be sure to make plans to meet and welcome our new board members.

This may be your last newsletter! Check your mailing label to see if it says your membership expired in February of 2000. We generally give you an extra issue of the newsletter (this one) because so many of our members are so busy that they tend to forget little things like writing a check for membership in the Terrebonne Genealogical Society. If yours has expired, you need to renew today, so you won’t forget. Send a check or money order for $25 for an individual membership or $30 for a family. For other categories, see our latest quarterly, Terrebonne Life Lines. While you are checking your membership expiration date, please help us keep our database up-to-date. We have included the first three letters of your e-mail address (if we have it) as the second field of the top line of the address label. If it has not changed in the last year or so, no problem. If it has changed, or you now have e-mail whereas a year ago you didn’t, please let us know so we can put it in our list of e-mail addresses. We do not sell our list. We use it to contact you for genealogical information. You probably already know how useful good communications can be to our avocation. Sometimes just a hint about a name or relationship is just what we need to "take a brick out" of that brick wall we so often meet in our research.

DEATHS

We wish to extend our deepest sympathies to lifetime member Sheila Brunet Fernandez in the loss of her husband, the Honorable Sheldon G. Fernandez. He was admired and respected as a person and as judge of the 24th Judicial District Court for Jefferson Parish. He died on Sunday, February 27, 2000. Judge Fernandez served in the Army National Guard of Louisiana, and was a member of the District Judges Association, 4th and 5th Circuit Judges Association, the Jefferson, Louisiana and American bar associations, and the Louisiana and American trial lawyers associations. In 1998 he was named Southeastern Louisiana University Alumni of the Year. Survivors besides his wife include two sons, Stephen J. and Stanton J. Fernandez; and a sister, Shirley Fernandez Barbara.

Our sympathies also go to Mrs. Jan Cenac Kay, member since 1984, who lost her sister, Julie Cenac on March 5, 2000. Miss Cenac was preceded in death by her parents, Irene Sterkens and George Lee Cenac, and brothers Walt Anthony, Burt Lee and Red Cenac. She is survived by two other sisters, Fanny Lee C. Faucheaux and Mary Ann C. Hutchinson.

Member Richard Morgan of Springfield, VA, lost his beloved brother, Benjamin Morgan, Sr., native of Gibson and resident of New Iberia. Mr. Morgan is survived by his wife, Alice Raymond Morgan; three sons, Paul, Robert R. and Benjamin Jr. and two daughters, Mrs. Bill (Virginia) Moore and Victoria Morgan; two brothers besides Richard: Tommy and Harry. He is also survived by 15 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents, Edward Fenwick and Virginia Guedry Morgan; five brothers (not named) and five sisters (also not named). He was a retired derrick barge captain for Cenac Towing Company and a World War II veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard.

All of us who do genealogical research in South Louisiana will miss the presence of Father Donald Joseph Hebert. A leader in the field of vital records, he was responsible for publishing Southwest Louisiana Records and South Louisiana Records, as well as a number of other books in the field. Father Hebert died at his residence in Mire, LA, Tuesday, February 22, 2000. He attended Immaculata Seminary in Lafayette, LA, St. John Seminary in Little Rock, AR, and graduated from Notre Dame in New Orleans, LA, in 1968. He began his clerical duties in Arnaudville, went on to Cecilia, Eunice, Duralde and Ville Platte. His last assignment was Pastor of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Mire, LA, in 1989 until his death. He is survived by one sister, Barbara Hebert of New Orleans.

BIRTH

Please welcome Bryce Nicholas Barbier into the world. He was born on February 29, 2000, at 10:18 p.m. at Thibodaux Regional Medical Center, and weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. on a frame of 19 ½ inches. His proud parents are Cody and Aimée (Thibodeaux) Barbier and his grandparents are Michael and Jackie (Ford) Thibodeaux. Jackie and Michael are both members of our society.

MEMBERS’ PROJECTS

Patty Whitney Gravois has started a new and unusual project which should interest many of our members. She is collecting invitations and announcements of weddings, engagements, ordinations, etc. to be indexed and placed in a binder to be housed in the Genealogy Department of the North Branch Library. She will accept photocopies if you don’t want to send the original. Mail them to her at P. O. Box 5807, Thibodaux, LA 70302.

Phoebe Chauvin Morrison is nearing completion of her project of revising, editing and updating the book Generations...Past to Present. Watch this space for more pre-pre-publication news.

CAJUN HISTORY

If you consider yourself Cajun (even if you don’t have a single Hebert or Theriot in your line) or if you have children that are Cajun, you won’t want them to miss a new TV film directed by Pat Mire titled Against the Tide. So set your VCR to record Channel 32 on Saturday, April 29, 2000, at 7:00 p.m. You will be pleased, I know, even if you feel they left something out. It is an hour-long film that covers 400 years of history. But the main theme is identity. Will the identity of the Cajun people be preserved with or without the language? The story is not as rosy as Longfellow portrayed it. The reality was even more dramatic and interesting. The film discusses three major events in the Cajun history: the deportation from Nova Scotia, the U.S. Civil War and World War II. It probes the effect those had on the identity of the Cajun people -- the language and the music. Everyone should watch the film because it is a beautiful story, but Cajuns especially should watch it; we can’t assume we already know that story.

BEGINNER CLASSES

The Louisiana Division of the N.O. Public Library and the Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans (GRSNO) will offer beginner classes in family research on Saturday, April 15, from 9 a.m. to noon in the auditorium on the third floor of the Main Library at 219 Loyola Avenue . Topics include basic research methods and record keeping and an introduction to the records in the N.O. City Archives and the Orleans Parish Civil and Criminal Court collections. It is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Reservations must be made by calling the Louisiana Division at 504/596-2610 during the regular hours of service: Monday - Thursday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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