Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1927-05-05
Exile Is Old sg..y of
Acadians { : he Delta
Creoles Leave F .r-Banked Cot
tages to Fury Fellow Streams
to Saw Orleans

Exile, such the Acadians knew
and Longfellow made immortal in
'Evangeline" is an cd, old story to
the French Acadians and Spanish
Creoles of st. Bernard and Plaque
mine parishes, Louisiana who last
Wednesday and thursday left their
homes in order that New Orleans
might be saved.
Thursday their homes, banked IN
bright flowers of blue and gold and
crimson that blossom in a Louisiana
springtime smiled in the sun. Their
fields were green with growing corn
and ear Y vegetable planned to meet
the demands of a nations market.
Great green sodded banks of the Mis-
sissippi river levee reared a giant
bulk between those homes and fields
and ,he turbulent muddy, brown
flood that rushed toward the Gulf
of Mexico; the channel down which
roars the flood waters of 81 great
states.
But at noon Friday, by proclama-
ton of Governor Simpson, the levee
was cut at Poydras to let the ter
rifle torrent through that the south's
greatest city might be secure. At
that moment a rushing flood engu fed
the homes of these people, ripped
across their fields and tore its way
out through Lake De Lery and down
Bayou Terre Aux Boueffs through
Breton Sound into the Gulf of Mex
leo.
The great trek went on until the
time set for the breaking of the levee.
1t was gaunt and terrific thing to
witness but at the same time
scene of stole courage and high ad
venture which stirred the heart.
All the hurt that any family knows
at seeing the labor of years in build
ing home swept ruth .essly aside was
there, but the hurt was hidden. These
people, many of them AcadianS,
know what exile means. 1t is ira
dition born in their blood, bred in
! their bones. The great-greatgrand-
fathers of some of these people who
trudged and rolled and rode up the
river road to New Orleans, had built
homes and titled farms in far north
Nova Scotia, in the little village of
Grand Bre when on the day the
British ships of war appeared in the
offing. In family after family the
tale has been told of the exile that
followed. Nor do the folk of St.
Bernard and Plaquemine have to go
back to the days of the Acadians in
Nova Scotia to know what exile
means.
With the peope of French and
Spanish blood they streamed into
New Orleans in 1915 when the Brit
ish came and were hurled back by
the rifles of Andrew Jackson's
troops In 1922 they experienced the
great flood when the Poydras Gre
vase let the flood come crashing
through on their plantations and
farms.
Strange and motely is the exodus
of the early French and Sanish set
tiers. Up the road since last Tues
day they have come with their
flocks and their herds, their cattle,
their household goods and treasures.
Men and women and little children,
white and black side by side Cloud
less Louisiana sky above them. But
they marched in choking dust-dust
raised by the feet and rubber tires
of automobiles, great motor trucks
and the steel wheels of farm wagons.
For forty miles down the East
River bank, below the southernmost
limits of New Orleans, that heart
string line trudged and rolled on its
way. Just on the other side of the
leveee the river growled and seemed
to chuckle with sinister mirth as
though it knew that it would soon
have it's will of the land from which
until noon Friday it was barred.