On Jan. 19, 1870, the (Franklin) Planters’ Banner reported, “They lately had an earthquake in St. Landry, and it extended to Alexandria. Houses trembled, lamps shook on the table so that they nearly upset, families were alarmed, and it produced a decided sensation.
The roads weren’t all paved but neither were they crowded when one of the first ocean-to-ocean highways stretched through south Louisiana.
I stand corrected. I wrote several weeks back that there had never been a white Christmas in Acadiana. Eddie Broussard sends a note reminding me that a good part of coastal Louisiana woke up to snow on Christmas Day in 2004, and sends along pictures of his home on Pecan Island to prove it.
If you have roots in north St. Landry or Evangeline parishes, the chances are pretty good that you are a Soileau or kin to one. But the family may never have made it to south Louisiana if the first of the clan to come to these parts hadn’t been able to escape a Natchez Indian massacre.
Last week, I wondered in this column about the origin of a woman named La Christiane who distributed gifts to Cajuns at Christmas time. That was about all I knew about her, and that little was based on an article that appeared in the Morning Advocate in 1980.
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