| 145 Years Ago In A Small Cemetery
Lay a family of French Acadians whose names had long been forgotten.
Little
did the experts know that when they started a project three years ago to save two badly
deteriorating graves from the 1850's, they would write a new chapter in the history of
Louisiana's French Acadians. During the summer of 1995, the Historical Exhumation Project
was developed by proposal & contractual agreement with the legal title holder of the
two burial sites by forensic consultant Lucretia McBride. The multidiscipline Team is
comprised of specialists from the Historical, Anthropological and Forensic Science
Disciplines.
Beginning
with the discovery of the first cast-iron Mummy Case coffin, religious artifacts and
textile clothing, the Project Team Members quickly developed an awareness that they were
reconstructing factual Acadian Culture and Lifestyle based on well preserved artifact
evidence. 145 years ago, resting in a small religious cemetery lay a family of French
Acadians whose names had long been forgotten. On the exterior walls of the two family
burial crypts existed four names when in reality eighteen individuals rested in the burial
sites. This is the story of their discovery, restoration of individual identities &
confirmation of their very existence in a small French Acadian community known today as
Bayou Lafourche - Thibodaux, Louisiana. |
