Cary Warren had called earlier in the week asking if she could visit for the weekend. The unlikely pair had become friends after sitting together on a flight into New Orleans. Cary, in her mid-twenties at the time, and Landie, approaching eighty, had become very close – like family. Having been adopted at birth, Cary had come to New Orleans searching for relatives; Landie had helped.

The young woman had sounded in need of a confidant when she called. Expecting there might be time during the visit, Landie went to the closet where she kept her late husband’s family journals and selected one that contained a couple of incidents she thought would be interesting to Cary. Landie also pulled a notebook of her own that consisted of family details she had compiled on a trip to the Louisiana bayous when she was young – approximately sixty years ago.

Through her research involving very old bibles and other church records that she located during her trip, Landie had traced down a number of her own ancestors. With that information at her fingertips, she had then set out to find and ask questions of the oldest of her own relatives who still lived in the bayous.

Fortunately, the then twenty-one-year-old Landie had been able to locate two distant 90+ year old female cousins on her mother’s side of the family. She was also able to find a male cousin-by-marriage on her father’s side who had reached 101 years of age. All three individuals were sharp of mind, with memories both of their own experiences and of things they had heard or been told by their elders when the cousins were young. Landie had realized these three individuals had been young in the years going back to approximately 1850. That could easily make the birth dates of the relative’s elders in the mid to late 1700’s.

A number of the relatives and others had lived in the area around New Iberia, Louisiana in those earlier years. The settlement, dating back to 1779, was also known as Nueva Iberia, Nouvelle Ibérie New Town by American settlers after the Louisiana Purchase. The area received its first post office from the federal government in 1814. Originally settled by a group of 500 Malagueños colonist (Creole people) led by Lt. Col Francisco Bouligny, those brave individuals came up Bayou Teche and settled around Spanish Lake.

The young woman from New Orleans had been awed by the deep and varied history she shared with these relatives in the south Louisiana bayous.

Learn more about Landie in coming episodes.