Loretta Sinette finds a treasure in someone’s trash site

By: CARISSA HEBERT

Managing Editor

That old saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is especially true for former Ville Platte resident Loretta Sinette of Opelousas.

Sinette loves to find old fans in trash piles and take them home to repair and use. “Me and my fiance’ have this thing about fans,” she laughed as she recalled how she found her treasure. “About two months ago, we were coming from Wal-Mart. On the southside of Opelousas, someone had thrown a fan away. It was kind of misting outside, but we stopped. Underneath the fan was this old cake box. I picked it up not knowing exactly what it was.”

Sinette said she is legally blind in the state without her contacts. She didn’t have them in, because she wasn’t driving. So she wasn’t too sure what the box was until she returned home.

She threw the box in the back of the truck with the fan, and when she returned home, she found an assortment of beautiful stamps from around the world.

Among the stamps were envelopes addressed to “the Honorable Jefferson Caffery.” Sinette went online and discovered Caffery was born in Lafayette, to Charles Duval Caffery and the former Mary Catherine Parkerson. The internet states, Caffery “was a member of the first graduating class of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then called the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute). Caffery launched his career of international diplomacy in 1911 when he entered the Foreign Service as second secretary of the legation in Caracas in 1911 during the William Howard Taft administration. In total, he worked 43 years in foreign service under five presidents, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower.

“He was awarded the Foreign Service Cup in 1971 by his fellow Foreign Service officers. He held several honorary degrees and decorations, including the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, in 1954. He received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor from the president of France in 1949 and the Order of the Cordon of the Republic from the president of Egypt in 1955.

“Caffery married the former Gertrude McCarthy of Evansville, Indiana, in 1937, while in Rio de Janeiro. They had no children. He retired with his wife in 1955 to reside in Rome, where he was the honorary private chamberlain to Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI. He returned to Lafayette in 1973, shortly before Mrs. Caffery’s death.

“The Cafferys are buried behind St. John’s Cathedral in Lafayette. A portion of Louisiana Highway 3073 in Lafayette is named Ambassador Caffery Parkway in his memory.”

Sinette was amazed someone had thrown the stamps of this man who was an ambassador and an important part of our history. She said the part about Ambassador Caffery Parkway being named in his memory caught her eye. She emailed a local television anchor at a news station in Lafayette and promised to give them an exclusive.

“I felt like a celebrity,” she said of her time on the television screen. Everywhere she went, people asked if she still had the stamps. She said that is the number one question she is asked is if she still has possession of those stamps.

Someone offered her a million dollars for the stamps through the television station, but she declined the offer. Sinette moved to Opelousas to help her grandmother. At the first of the year, she went to New Orleans to assist a cousin, who was having a baby. Her grandmother called to say they had received a sheriff’s notice that her house, which she had owned since 1997, was being sold. Despite the family attempting to save their home, they lost it. Sinette didn’t use the stamps, because she said God gave them to her for a reason and he hasn’t told her to let them go yet. And if someone, who hasn’t seen the stamps offered her a million dollars, they must be pretty valuable.

Things worked out for the family. Her grandmother is living in an elderly housing complex. She and her six children, ages seven to 14, have moved into a two bath, four-bedroom home in Opelousas. She didn’t have the money right away, but with her faith in God, she said the house was still empty a month later when she was able to get the money together.

She said God has a plan for her, and he will tell her when its time to let the stamps go. Until then, she’s researching and learning more about this unique man, Caffery. She has the stamps in a safe place, and she’s enjoying them. “I just think this is a blessing from God. Hopefully it’s worth money, but if not, I found it and they’ll still be mine.”

She decided to share her story with The Gazette, when her sisters, Sheila Dennis and Ethelnell Smith, both of Ville Platte, urged her to tell this unique story to the newspaper during the family’s Good Friday celebration.

“This is a part of our history,” she said. “How does Caffery’s stamp collection end up in Opelousas?”