tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.comments2021-01-01T19:38:47.162-08:00In search of LouisianaElizabeth DeVita-Raeburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06830680868671437204noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-50344432045838699692011-08-22T21:33:36.267-07:002011-08-22T21:33:36.267-07:00I'd forgotten about the DeBakey connection. Gl...I'd forgotten about the DeBakey connection. Glad you wrote this down.Paul Raeburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06850931965720154814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-42873171895988973762010-05-23T11:55:43.901-07:002010-05-23T11:55:43.901-07:00Howdy! This is Richard Ziglar, co-producer of Sti...Howdy! This is Richard Ziglar, co-producer of Still Singing the Blues. Thanks for the mention about our documentary.<br /><br />I wanted to give you an update.<br /><br />This work was originally conceived as a 55-minute radio documentary that would "burrow into the lives of three outstanding older performers"... the problem is that there is way too much talent in South Louisiana to squeeze into one hour. So now we have expanded it to be a two-part series. The first part has just been released. It features Carol Fran of Lafayette, Harvey Knox of Baton Rouge and Little Freddie King of New Orleans. Radio stations can download it for free (and any registered listener can hear it for free) at the prx.org website. Still Singing the Blues has its own dedicated website as well as a presence on FB. Please take a listen and see what you think:<br /><br />PRX: <br />http://www.prx.org/pieces/48501-still-singing-the-blues<br /><br />WEB: http://stillsingingtheblues.org/<br /><br />FB: <br />http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Still-Singing-the-Blues/123544507675680Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-66419591110357533072010-02-04T20:59:11.332-08:002010-02-04T20:59:11.332-08:00Elizabeth,
Thanks for posting links and an update...Elizabeth,<br /><br />Thanks for posting links and an update for our Restaurant / Specialty meats Store. It has been very gratifying to perserve Lori's (my wife and the daughter of Wallace Johnson whom was one of the owners of Johnson's Grocery) family business. Here are a couple of links to articlse that you might enjoy<br /><br />http://www.theind.com/content/view/2418/1/<br /><br />http://www.ldaf.state.la.us/portal/Portals/0/News/MarketBulletins/mb2009-11-05.pdf<br /><br />Please let us know when you plan a trip down here again. We would love to get to know you, and as always (even in August) we will have a cup of coffee waiting for you.<br />Auvoir mes amis<br />Greggreg with johnson's boucanierenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-34736840384877967362010-01-30T10:31:51.119-08:002010-01-30T10:31:51.119-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-42679659341486760772010-01-26T12:11:49.847-08:002010-01-26T12:11:49.847-08:00I'd be remiss in not adding that I'm so so...I'd be remiss in not adding that I'm so sorry about Steve Johnson--a lovely guy--and that we will definitely take you up on the coffee when we get back to Lafayette!Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06830680868671437204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-24583448520765120902010-01-26T12:10:17.675-08:002010-01-26T12:10:17.675-08:00Hi Rhett! I am THRILLED that the Johnsons are open...Hi Rhett! I am THRILLED that the Johnsons are open for business again! I'll do a post on the main page on the new place--do you have a picture of the place you can send? And a web site address? When did you open? My husband and son and I were actually in Lafayette in early September, and we were on the hunt for boudin. Had I known I would have made a bee-line for the place. Congratulations on continuing the family tradition--I'm proud just reading about it.Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06830680868671437204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-61892954461845703752010-01-25T20:42:35.985-08:002010-01-25T20:42:35.985-08:00Hi my name is Rhett Johnson i am the last generati...Hi my name is Rhett Johnson i am the last generation of johnsons to work in Johnsons Grocery. I am proud to inform any one reading this that we have reopened a store in laffayette it is called Johnson Bouaniere ( cajun french for Smoke House )u can find us on urbanspoon.com . and we r proud to say that we have won the award for best boudin in the area. I am sorry to in form that the cowboy hat wearing old man ( Steve Johnson ) has passed on and out of the four brothers there r only 2 left Wallace ( my grandfather ) and Matt Johnson. it is my aunt lory that has the store now and she is enjoying every minute of it my grandfather is there every day that it is opened and u can meet him around lunch time. It puts great pride in me to see how much our little store has acomplished since the thirties from being the first to comercially market boudin to the best at doing so. I am twenty now and depending on the day and year that u visited u may have seen me learning the ropes, recipes , and culture. but thank u and yes we ship boudin now and our SPECIALTY MEATS. thanks and godbless // oh and by the way the coffees ready would u like a cupRhett Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18196221226666475634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-48956258552329417832009-12-29T19:45:37.056-08:002009-12-29T19:45:37.056-08:00Hi - we stumbled across your blog and, having help...Hi - we stumbled across your blog and, having helped my father-in-law, Ivy Creel, write a little booklet on his family history, I just had to chime in. PaPa Creel, as we call him, grew up on a farm in Joyce, LA, (approximately in the middle of the state). His grandfather, Thomas L Creel, and his family migrated to LA from the Meridian, MS area. He and his wife, Sarah Frances, had four children: Thomas, Piedy, Ellen and Callile Frank, (PaPa's father), or Frank, as he was called by family and friends. Frank settled in Joyce, LA, the father of 12 children. PaPa Creel (Ivy) has lived his adult life in Baton Rouge, LA. At 92 yrs old and the patriarch of those 12 children, he seems to know very little about his roots. If any of these names resonate with anyone, I'd love to know.. I'd love to be able to fill in some blanks for him before he leaves this life. Thanks for listening.Sher Creel, Butterbean Design Studio - Photography, Graphic/Web Design and Arthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08855780079858302244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-34134941558404981912009-12-29T19:34:49.363-08:002009-12-29T19:34:49.363-08:00Hi--we stumbled across your blog, and having helpe...Hi--we stumbled across your blog, and having helped my father-in-law, Ivy Creel, write a little book on his family history, I could not resist chiming in. My husband's father grew up on a farm in Joyce, Louisiana, located approximately in the middle of the state. HIS grandfather was Thomas L. Creel, whose family migrated from the Meridian, MS, area. Thomas Creel and his wife, Sarah Francis, had four children: Thomas, Piedy, Ellen and Callile Frank, (PaPa's father), or Frank, as he was called by family and friends. Frank ended up in Joyce, LA, father of 12 kids! My precious father-in-law (Ivy) is now 92 and the patriarch of the family. I don't know if this resonates with anyone else's history but if it does, I'd love to hear it. PaPa seems to know very little about his roots. I'd love to tell him more before he leaves this life. Thanks for listening.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08820838873763226654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-60670103493980152152009-11-03T02:18:02.508-08:002009-11-03T02:18:02.508-08:00Not a huge surprise to see Bobby Jindal sensitive ...Not a huge surprise to see Bobby Jindal sensitive on race issues, party affiliation aside, and it's not hard by now (I hope) for a politician to take the high road on this one, particularly if the spotlight is national.<br /><br />I have no doubt some reactionaries found politely coded ways to express their lack of dismay, fishing for support from the usual set of bottom feeders who apparently are happy to undermine our two-party political system by making one party more irrelevant with each passing sound bite.<br /><br />Curiously, if I understood the situation right, no justice of the peace is compelled to perform any particular marriage; all are empowered to perform marriages, but they don't have to do it just because they're asked. Maybe they're ill that day, or maybe they were planning to be out of town, or maybe their marrying suit is at the dry cleaners: They can ask the couple to pick a different justice for any number of reasons. It's not like a physician's duty to help anyone who needs medical attention.<br /><br />This one seemed to pick the pharmacists' way out (from time to time, unwieldy rules come up that allow individual pharmacists to decline to sell birth control pills, if it's against their morals), but I'm not sure a justice of the peace is allowed to discriminate openly based on race, any more than a public librarian would be. Had he picked some other excuse, he would have escaped attention. Some people would rather stir the pot.<br /><br />Funny thing is, I remember Mom saying something similar to me once about mixed-race marriages ("It's harder on the children, who don't get to choose"), and I in my youth and self-righteousness swatted her right down. She was no racist, Mom, and there's a true point in there, but I was not yet at an age where I could see the nuance behind the political rectitude. Although I acknowledge that given our historical context, it's a challenging decision, I still staunchly believe that it's one people should be encouraged in, rather than discouraged.<br /><br />I saw my mom, in that exchange, as a creature of a different generation, someone who could be open-minded but also was used to an earlier set of habits, an earlier set of nostrums about human relations. She wasn't a dinosaur, and she certainly was not on the side of this justice of the peace, but her observation dated her in my eyes. Looking back on it, I see that partly it was just an older, wiser voice speaking practicality. Partly, no matter what, it was still abhorrent.<br /><br />She was also talking about people I knew and (completely independent of race) admired, which left me even more startled that she would say such a thing.<br /><br />I compare that older attitude about miscegenation (there's an ugly word for it) to the modern fear of same-sex marriage. Sure, they're not quite the same, but they're pretty darn similar. I hope one day it won't even occur to our kids to wonder whether people with different skin colors could share a household, and instead they'll be asking us what it was like in that long-ago Cro-Magnon era when to declare permanent love for someone and share community property without an L.L.C., you had to be from the opposite gender.<br /><br />I lead a sheltered life. I'm usually way too optimistic. If these unreconstructed justices of the peace are still stomping around in the hinterlands, there's probably no hope.<br /><br />But our President is sure a short answer to Mom's and this justice's doubts about whether a child of mixed-race parents can ever get past his challenging lot and have a shot at success in our harsh society.mrjumbohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00564375101442753257noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-10018666722794060432009-10-25T11:37:49.566-07:002009-10-25T11:37:49.566-07:00It was intresting to find that Creel's have a ...It was intresting to find that Creel's have a Night in their ancestry. My family (Father and Grand Father are from north Florida and Alabama). I live in Wisconsin. It's also intresting to see how prominant the Creel name is in Mexico.<br /><br />Steven CreelAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-68728006072202959782009-03-02T19:10:00.000-08:002009-03-02T19:10:00.000-08:00Have you ever seen the inside of the jail? At the ...Have you ever seen the inside of the jail? At the bottom of my blog there is a picture video of the inside of the jail. It's quite freaky!<BR/><BR/>www.deridderjail.blogspot.com<BR/><BR/>Thanksmr_msimmonshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09015279159241764186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-67231975522404889222009-02-06T20:58:00.000-08:002009-02-06T20:58:00.000-08:00Hi Douglas. Thanks for your post. Actually, the mo...Hi Douglas. Thanks for your post. Actually, the more info, the better. I'd love to trace the line....my vague understanding, from last time I checked this out, was that the family moved from Virginia on down. So that fits with Charles. Sounds like you've done a lot of the geneaology...do you have any of it online? I'm actually thinking about doing a book on some of this...Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06830680868671437204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-78090863004085750372009-02-06T17:04:00.000-08:002009-02-06T17:04:00.000-08:00There is a reasonable chance you are related to th...There is a reasonable chance you are related to the Creel family that first appears in 1680 Virginia with Charles Creel. If so, you are related to everybody. One group moved to Wood County VA, now Parkersburg, WV (my stepmother's home town). Some then went to KY or MO. The KY Creels spread far and wide. They include the Creels of Mexico (Google Henry Clay Creel). The MO Creels include George Creel of WWI media fame.<BR/><BR/>It is more likely you are related to the Creels that went to GA and then AL (my grandmother was a Creel from AL). Those Creels moved from AL, state by state, to eventually get to CA. It includes the Creels that were in 19th century New Orleans.<BR/><BR/>There are Creels in Ireland, Scotland, and England. I don't know how we are related, except that most, if not all the Creels that are in this country probably came by way of Ireland. Until you have more info, enjoy the story that is the most fun to tell. Don't worry about unimportant details. Feel free to follow that old Scots & Irish tradition of using what every version of a story gives the desired result for the time.Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15237861973157031295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-27449427869078663732009-01-30T16:39:00.000-08:002009-01-30T16:39:00.000-08:00That's funny! I did some digging in ancestry.com, ...That's funny! I did some digging in ancestry.com, which Ansley is a big fan of. I found a cousin who knew some info about my family.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-91527911984454089062009-01-07T17:23:00.000-08:002009-01-07T17:23:00.000-08:00Gotta love hometown journalism! Enjoyed the link.Gotta love hometown journalism! Enjoyed the link.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-6516925893114793482008-12-12T19:06:00.000-08:002008-12-12T19:06:00.000-08:00It's an awfully nice looking building, considering...It's an awfully nice looking building, considering what it was used for.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-60470911547520962022008-11-09T13:15:00.000-08:002008-11-09T13:15:00.000-08:00Corinne somehow lost a year...doesn't seem fair. O...Corinne somehow lost a year...doesn't seem fair. Otherwise, the coincidences are amazing.Paul Raeburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06850931965720154814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-87203318255493707232008-11-08T12:39:00.000-08:002008-11-08T12:39:00.000-08:00Club crackers. Click on the highlighted word "Club...Club crackers. Click on the highlighted word "Club" in the text of the blog and it should bring up a picture.Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06830680868671437204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-21835780792224969462008-11-06T11:19:00.000-08:002008-11-06T11:19:00.000-08:00ahh i want some more boudin! what crackers did you...ahh i want some more boudin! what crackers did you put them on again?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-37621285301540183422008-11-06T11:18:00.000-08:002008-11-06T11:18:00.000-08:00i think all of the U.S should have gone Obama...bu...i think all of the U.S should have gone Obama...but that's just me :) ha!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1532009864367029685.post-83849203566083647262008-10-31T13:20:00.000-07:002008-10-31T13:20:00.000-07:00I'm fascinated by such explorations into the meani...I'm fascinated by such explorations into the meaning of place and identity. My childhood was marked by lots of detachment from place. In some ways, I had no sense of home. I'm figuring out how being in boarding school from first to third grades, plus moving often, staying at places other than home, having divorced parents (they split when I was 3),etc., have shaped me. In adulthood, I've become a major homebody.<BR/>Delia<BR/>girlssentaway.wordpress.comDeliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15074597128679317744noreply@blogger.com