Laura Jr. 72 and Fabulous

Mom turning 72 was somewhat momentous for me and most likely a significant milestone for her. Mom just shrugs it off like it's just like any other day, but, I know she's aware of the significance.

Mom retired a long time ago, but I suppose she really didn't retire because she had spent the last 20 years or so taking care of both her step-father Carl after his stroke and then her mother, Laura, who most sadly passed in 2005.

She's still sharp as a whip, with the same wry sense of humor. She loves being surrounded by her great-grandbabies, well, they aren't babies anymore, Adrian is 8, Enrique is 6, and Shyann is 4.

My sisters, Debbie and Shawn Mari are always celebrating something, they love cooking and family get togethers, so, I arrived knowing there was going to be a huge production over Mom's birthday, there was a cake, candles, and balloons of course. It was great sitting at the dinner table watching Shyann, Enrique and Adrian competing over who was better at decorating the cupcakes that Shawn Mari had just taken out of the oven.

I truly can't remember the last time I was here in Austin to celebratel Mom's birthday. I've been living out of state since 1997. So, it's nice being home and being part of family events.

My mother, Laura Mae McAcy  was born on September 8, 1939 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Laura Mae Stewart of New Iberia and James Elbert McAcy, of New Orleans. Mom describes her dad as a "pussycat," but, he was a huge man at 6 foot, 5 inches tall.

Mom was born the year WWII broke out. Her father and uncles served in the military and the women in the family worked in the shipyards in Westwego. She was 6 years old and taking her first Holy Communion by the time the war ended.

In the 1950's Mom was living most of the time with her grandmother, Blanche and step-grandfather Galbert Benoit in New Iberia, where she attended Mount Carmel Catholic School.

She liked listening to the new sounds of Doo Wop music which was popular, she also liked listening to Johnny Cash and Elvis, back then, it was called Rockabilly music, that was before it was called Country Music. Mom also had a really nice album collection of broadway musicals like South Pacific and Oklahoma and I remember playing those records and singing them over and over again.

She was still young and styled her hair with a bouffant, the latest style, when she experienced the 1960's. This was a time when minimum wage was $1.00 an hour and gas prices were around 31 cents a gallon. This was also a time when we grew up wondering when "the bomb" might drop. I remember going to school and routinely having air raid drills where we would all hide under our desks with our arms covering our heads because of the Cold War.

Mom's fondest childhood memories are of the times spent with Grandma Mac, Aunt Betty, Uncle Paul, in New Orleans and Aunt Agnes in Biloxi.  I remember the stories she would tell of family gatherings on Sunday's in the backyard with huge tubs of boiled crab and shrimp. Now everyone she has grown up with is gone, but, she still has her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Grandma Mac and Bert 

Bert and Laura Mae (1942)

Blanche LeBlanc



Blanche LeBlanc (1899-1968)



My great-great grandmother was born on April 17, 1899 in New Iberia, Louisiana. She was the fourth child of Joseph Huval LeBlanc and Antonia Dartès. Joseph and Antonia had ten children. Joseph was a farmer and planted corn.

My memories of my great-grandmother were of her sitting in her chair with her rosary in her lap. She would religiously say her “rosary” in the mornings and in the evening without fail. I also remember those wonderful fried chicken dinners on Sunday's after church.

Some of my memories were also of her chasing us down with a freshly snapped switch from a nearby bush, we were way too fast for her to catch, but, we knew we wouldn’t get away with anything, because we always had to return home.  I can look back and laugh, but at the time it wasn't very funny. Blanche raised my mother, Laura Jr. until she about 15 and she loved her granddaughter as if she were her own. My mother tells me Blanche’s favorite pastimes were dancing and playing bingo.

I asked my mother about Blanche’s mother, Antonia, and she mostly remembers how petit and quiet she was, and that she didn’t speak English, only French as most people did in those days in southern Louisiana, Cajun country.

Blanche was close to all of her brothers and sisters. Her older sister, Lucia, died relatively young at the age of thirty-eight. Lucia moved to Biloxi with her husband Dorcie Broussard and there, they had three children, Agnes, Joanne and Wesley.

Her older brother Huval Jr. and his wife, Anita lived on Avery Island, a short distance from New Iberia.

Her older sister Lucille, died in childhood.

Her younger sister Clamance never married.

Anne also died in childhood.

Jeanoria, who we lovingly call taunt Bea lived in New Iberia with her husband, Stanley Lancon and their two children.

Irma also lived in New Iberia with her husband Jules Egloff.

Alice also moved to Biloxi around 1930 with her husband Whitney Brown and their son, Allen. Alice married 2 more times to Wilson Dore and had daughter, Margaret, she married Freddie Premeaux in 1947 and they had a son, Donnie.

Clausel was the youngest, she lived in New Iberia with her husband Cleus Lopez.

In photographs you can clearly see how Lucia, Blanche and Irma resembled each other.

Blanche was a nurse when she married Galbert Benoit of Lafayette, Louisiana. Galbert served in the Louisiana National Guard and owned a saloon in Youngsville, Louisiana. Blanche and Galbert married in 1926 and shortly thereafter moved to St. Martinville, about ten miles east. By 1940, they moved back to New Iberia, with their infant granddaughter, Laura Jr.

Galbert died in 1952 at the age of sixty-four. He was buried at St. John’s Catholic Church Cemetery, in Lafayette, with about 50 friends and relatives in attendance.

Six months before Blanche passed away, she moved in with her daughter, Laura Mae Hurlburt in Austin, Texas. Blanche was in poor health, primarily due to diabetes. She was sixty-nine when she died. She was buried next to her husband, Galbert at St. John’s Catholic Cemetery in Lafayette, Louisiana.

You can see more about my family at http://cemassie.tribalpages.com/

A Little Background on My Cajun Roots

My family is from New Iberia, Iberia Parish, Louisiana (French: La Nouvelle-Ibérie), which is about 30 miles south of Lafayette. Lafayette is referred to as “The Heart of Acadiana.”

My ancestors were among the French settlers from Acadia, Nova Scotia.  The Acadians are the descendants of the 17th-century French colonists who settled in Acadia and most of my ancestors had settled there around the 1640’s. To put things in perspective, Port-Royal, Acadia was established in 1605.

Beginning in 1755, the British deported the French Acadians, in what has become known as the "Great Expulsion," and were expelled because they refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. The French-Canadians ended up settling in lower Louisiana, where most of my ancestors settled in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. Church registers from Acadia were carried by Acadian settlers to Louisiana and that is why there is such a wonderful repository of family documentation there.

My ninth great-grandfather, Daniel LeBlanc, was born in Martaize, France and left France in 1648 on the ship LaVerve to Acadia, with his wife, Françoise Gaudet, settling on the north banks of the Port-Royal River (today called Annapolis River).

At the time of the “Great Expulsion” in Acadia, the LeBlanc family was expelled and exiled in Maryland before their eventual migration to Louisiana (The Founding of New Acadia by Carl Brasseaux).

Simon Joseph LeBlanc, son of René LeBlanc and Ann Teriot of Grand-Pré, Acadia, were among the people that were deported and migrated to the area of Fausse Point (St. Martinville), Louisiana. Three generations later, my third great-grandfather, Joseph Huval LeBlanc (1872-1948) was born in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. His daughter was my great-grandmother, Blanche LeBlanc (1899-1968). Blanche was a nurse and had only one child, my grandmother, Laura Mae Stewart (1922-2005). When I was little, I remember most households in New Iberia spoke French (Cajun French).

My third great-grandmother, Antoinette (Antonia) Dartés (1876-1953) was the daughter of Jean Dartiel Dartés (1849-1934) and Marguerite Broussard (1852-1953) of New Iberia, Louisiana. Antonia’s ancestors arrived in Louisiana in 1765, when Jean Dartés enlisted as a crew member on an ocean going vessel headed for the French Colonies in America. He was indentured as a blacksmith apprentice in Natchitoches for a period of three years after he arrived. Jean was the son of Pierre Dartés (1706- ) from Castres-Gironde, France and wife, Marie Garssaut (1715- ).

Antonia’s mother Marguerite Broussard is the descendent of Jean François Broussard (1654-1716) of Anjou, Isère, France and Catherine Richard (1663-1716) of Port-Royal, Acadia, Nova Scotia. We are descended from both brothers Alexandre dit Beausoleil Broussard (1700-1765) and Joseph Gaurhept de Beausoleil Broussard (1702-1765). Joseph was know as Beausoleil, a leader of the Acadian people. He was among the first 200 Acadians to arrive in Louisiana on February 27, 1765 aboard the Santo Domingo.

Most of my ancestors were Catholic. As far back as I can remember, my family had a strong Catholic faith. We went to Catholic schools and my mother, still today, makes the sign of the cross when we drive by a Catholic Church.