My grandmother lived to be 93 years old. In the last decade or so of her life, she was not a reliable source for
family stories, but when I was about twelve I asked her some questions
about her childhood. She remembered going to visit the family
who had adopted her mother. Their name was Blanchard and they lived near
Paincourtville in one of those big houses that were built up on brick columns.
What she remembered most was playing under that house with her siblings,
but she really couldn't give me any more detail. My father later told me
that the name Blanchard was the Louisiana equivalent to Smith, so I figured
that information would not prove to be useful.
I became
determined to find Regina Daigle's parents. In the course of my research, I learned
that while normally only the heads of household were indexed in the Census,
if a child had a different last name from that of the family her or she
was living with, the census indexed them separately. Knowing that Regina
used Daigle as her maiden name, I searched separately for her, and, low
and behold, she was living in the household of Pierre-Adolphe Blanchard
and his wife Olivia and their children in June 1900. The household must
have been bilingual because, while Pierre-Adolphe, Olivia, and Regina (who
at age 17 was listed as their adopted daughter) spoke English, several
of the younger children spoke only French. (This was important because
in the 1900 census, Clebert and his family did not speak English. In 1910,
however, Clebert could both read and write in English as well as French--maybe
Regina taught him?) Now I knew who the Blanchards were, but I wanted to
find out who Regina's parents were. The 1890 census had disappeared and
Regina, at age 17 in 1900, would have been born around 1883--three years
after the 1880 Census. Because the Diocese of Baton Rouge records compilations
ended around 1875, there was no way I could conclusively prove anything
about Regina's parentage--thus I decided to focus a little on her adoptive
family to find out more about them.
A lifetime Assumption
Parish resident, Pierre Adolphe Blanchard served in the Confederate army
(an unusual occurrence in the family, many of the young men of Acadian
descent in South Louisiana chose to not get involved in the Civil War.
After the war's end, he returned home and in 1868 he married Olivia Daigle.
Her last name made me think--maybe she is a relation. She, like Pierre-Adolphe
was a member of St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church in Paincourtville and had
grown up in the area. Her parents were Henry Daigle and Emerente Dugas
and she had several brothers and sisters. It was the name of one brother
in particular that caught my eye--Charles Theogene Daigle. He was born
in 1845 and in 1869 he married Marie-Noemi Leblanc. At this time, I had
not yet seen the baptismal records listing the "mystery" children of Clebert
and Regina, but on the 1910 census was included in their family a little
boy named Theodore. My grandmother had remembered this little brother who
had died as a toddler. The combination of the Charles-Theogene's name (Theogene
is a French version of Theodore) and the name Marie-Noemi (your father
and my grandmother had an older sister named Noemi--baptized Marie-Noemi)
piqued my interest. As I studied the Diocesan records, I learned that the
people of South Louisiana often used the names of relatives when they named
their children. I then did some research into the family of Charles Theogene
and Marie-Noemi. By the time of the 1880 census, they had four children:
Edouard b. 1875, Elisa-Jeanne b. 1876, Claiborne-Leonard b. 1877, and Laure-Valerie
b. 1880. Because Regina was indexed under her own name in the 1900 census,
I looked for her siblings the same way.
In 1900, they
were living in Ascension Parish in Donaldsonville. 25 year-old Edouard
lived alone and was listed as a school-teacher. Claiborne-Leonard was listed
as living with an Adrian Blanchard as his adopted son (I don't really have
any information on him). The two girls and another sister, Laure who was
born in 1880 after the census was taken, were living with their aunt Lavinia
Lenares, widow of Ozeme Lenares in Donaldsonville. I think that Lavinia
may have been a sister of their mother, Marie-Noemi. I'm pretty sure that
these three sisters are the "Maiden-Aunts" whom my father remembers going
to visit in Donaldsonville when he and his brother were little. These women
worked as seamstresses and apparently made some of my grandmother's clothes.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to discover when they died--apparently
after the 1940s. Do you know anything about them? -- By the way, this about
Regina's parents hunch was later proved to be correct. In June 1994 I drove
through Baton Rouge with my mother on they way back to Houston from a family
wedding and I looked up Regina's baptismal record. Her parents were indeed
Charles Theogene and Marie-Noemi. She was baptized Marie-Reine Netie Daigle
on November 7, 1882 at St. Elizabeth's Parish Church, Paincourtville. Her
sponsors were Auguste Hebert and Irma Dalferes. I was also able to get
some more information that told more of her family's story.
The family of
Charles-Theogene and Marie-Noemi was broken up in the mid-1880s. Charles
died in June 1883 and Marie-Noemi less than eighteen months later in Nov.
1884. I guess that the children were parceled out to relatives who could
take care of them, though why three of the girls were sent to one aunt
and Regina, who by the way was born in November 1882, was sent to the Blanchards.
Pierre-Adolphe Blanchards was financially comfortable according to the
census records and he and Olivia had children the same age as Regina so
maybe they felt they could easily take care of her along with the rest
of the family. I remember both my grandmother and great-aunt Madeline saying
that Regina had received a convent education. Perhaps there she learned
enough so that she could later teach her husband Clebert the basics of
reading and writing in English. Because of this, she may have had more
advantages with the Blanchards than her sisters did with their aunt Lavinia
Lenares.
I also think
that it was through the Blanchards that she may have met, or at least gotten
to know better, her future husband Clebert Marroy. Pierre-Adolphe's younger
sister Marie-Laurenza Blanchard, had married Adeota Joseph Ursin Marrois
in June 1868 and in September 1876 she gave birth to their fifth child,
baptized Clebert Louis Joseph Marrois.
Regina and Clebert
married on April 23, 1902 in the newly built parish church of St. Elizabeth
in Paincourtville and there they had most of their children baptized. The
structure is one of the most amazing I've ever been in--local artisans
worked for several years on the church: the walls and ceiling are handpainted
and the people in the stained glass windows were modeled after the local
populace. Its size is incredible: in a community that is little more than
a couple of cross streets, the church probably seats over 400 people. There
is a Lady chapel and an alter to St. Joseph in the transepts on either
side of the main altar and the baptismal font is intricately carved. My
mother and I stopped in to see the church in Paincourtville in June 1994
and my main regret is that I did not feel comfortable taking pictures of
the inside of the church. Next time, I'm bringing my camera (if the priest
allows me, of course).
The ceremony
of baptism was important to Regina and Clebert because when they were living
near Paincourtville, all of their children were baptized the day they were
born. They may attest to the couple's devotion, the fact they were living
close to the town, the high infant mortality rate of the time and place,
or the swiftness of the priest's horse--maybe all of the above!
The family moved
from Paincourtville in Assumption Parish to Ascension Parish briefly and
then near Maringouin in Iberville Parish after 1910. Clebert was always
listed as a farmer on the various censuses, but the information also indicated
that he rented his house and lands. What he farmed, however, I am not entirely
sure of. Before the Civil War, Clebert's father and grandfathers had been
involved in sugar cultivation on a rather sizable scale. Their joint and
separate enterprises are included in the index of a series of Sugar Censuses
that were taken in the 1840s and 1850s in Louisiana. Unfortunately, I have
not yet located an archive that has a copy of the census itself. I just
have seen the indexes. Clebert, too, may have continued to farm sugar cane,
but I am not sure in what capacity. He may have been a tenant farmer or
a share-cropper, but I have done no research into that aspect of his life.
I don't think the family ever had much money, but I don't think they were
destitute either. Regina didn't work outside of the home; she was always
listed on the census as a "housewife." The children also went to school
rather than helping in the fields, but the fact that the older children
were girls rather than boys may have been the main reason for this. As
their family grew, their happiness was tempered by the tragedy of high
infant death rates. Clebert and Regina's first child, baptized Joseph Clebert
O'Neil, died when he was only six months old. Their second child, daughter
Franoise-Marie Delta, died when she was four years old. Marie-Noemi, Annie,
and Madeline survived to adulthood (though Marie-Noemi died of a burst
appendix in 1933 when she was only twenty-eight years old), but the next
two children, Theodore Edmond and Elizabeth-Reine died on the same day,
November 15, 1913, when they were four and two years old. (My mother's
great-grandfather, who had twenty-five children, lost four of those children
and his wife in November 1854 in a Mississippi community not too far away
from the Marroys--maybe there was a particular sickness that prevailed
at that time of year in that area) More children could have been born to
Clebert and Regina that later died, but I don't know what parish church
they attended in Maringouin whose records would list them. The Dioceses
of Baton Rouge is slowly publishing compilations of their parish records.
Maybe in a few years they'll get to the decade between 1910 and 1920 and
this mystery could be solved. Whether she had any more children or not,
eleven pregnancies over seventeen years of marriage would have probably
left Regina looking very different from the charming woman photographed
at the time of her marriage. I'm pretty sure that she was a rather small
woman- both my grandmother and great-aunt Madeline were petite. My grandmother
had light hair when she was younger and has blue eyes; she once remarked
that she was always told she looked like her mother. My cousin Emily Payne,
Uncle Don's daughter, had many mannerisms, gestures, and expressions when
she was a little girl that were remarkably like our grandmother's. Perhaps
they, in turn, were similar to those of Regina Daigle.
The Children of Clebert & Regina:
Joseph Clebert O'Neil Marroy
b: March 21, 1903
d: September 21, 1903
Francoise Marie-Delta Marroy
b: June 15, 1904
d: June 25, 1908
Marie-Noemi Marroy
b: 1905
m. Vernon Blanchard
d: March 01, 1933
Annie Therese Marroy
b: November 07, 1906
m: November 29, 1929 John Clark Payne
d: February 13, 2000
Marie-Madeleine Marroy b: 1908
m. Wilson Maximileon Montero
d. November 1996
Theodore Edmond Marroy
b: November 09, 1909
d: November 13, 1913
Elizabeth Reine Marroy
b: February 09, 1911
d: November 15, 1913
Wallace Marroy
b: Abt 1913
m: Pearl Gomez
d: October 08, 1975
Walter Marroy (twin with Wallace)
b: Abt 1913
d: Abt 1987
Phillip Marroy
b: Abt 1915
m: Lena Bourgeois
d: July 05, 1980