Jim Bradshaw: Celebrating the woman who was inspiration for Evangeline

Even the New York Times took notice of the “literary birthday” at the end of October 1967 of Emmeline Labiche, “heroine who made her name … in real life and then gained immortality in the lines of a poem.”

Some people claim she and her sweetheart Louis Arceneaux were the real-life models of Longfellow’s Evangeline and Gabriel, but the Times did it right in making it a literary birthday, not a real one.

The newspaper recorded on Oct. 28, 1967, “After futilely searching in many places for her lover, [Emmeline] finally settled … among old friends in St. Martinville, [where she] lived an unhappy but normal life, until … she learned that her sweetheart had married another, [and] her mind became deranged. For years after that … she wandered through the beautiful Bayou Teche country, weaving bridal garlands of flowers for her hair.”

It’s a romantic story that the Times said it heard from Andre Olivier, the St. Martinville shopkeeper, historian, and storyteller who was credited with “enshrining” Longfellow’s heroine in the Teche county.

It’s largely because of his work that businesses and products all across south Louisiana were given the name Evangeline ─ from Evangeline Maid bread to car dealerships and hot sauces and motels, even to a parish that is largely populated by non-Acadians.

A decade before the Times story, in October 1958, the Teche News declared Olivier’s store on the corner of East Bridge and North Pinaud streets “the most famous country store in the United States,” because of the “writers, historians, folk song writers, artists, and people from all walks of life” who over several decades “came to him for information and advice.”

The important distinction here is that he was both historian and storyteller, and that he sometimes intermingled history and story.

Historian Carl Brasseaux has suggested that “growing credence in the Evangeline story… was fostered by Longfellow’s literary successors, particularly Felix Voorhies, whose works were also intended to be purely fictional.”

Judge Voorhies wrote “Acadian Reminiscences: The True Story of Evangeline” (New Orleans, Rivas Publishers, 1907) which tells how Emmeline was about to marry Louis “when the barbarous scattering of our colony took place.”

The lovers tried to flee from the village of St. Gabriel in old Acadia, but were caught by the British and sent their separate ways. In the Voorhies story,
Emmeline was sent to Maryland and eventually came to Louisiana.

Olivier’s story was basically the same as the Voorhies version.

A prominent sign in front of his store read, “The True Story of Evangeline By Judge Felix Voorhies of La. — Also Postal Card Views by Andre A. Olivier.” Another read, “Tourists! Stop Here. Evangeline Enshrined.”

Voorhies and Longfellow wrote fiction, but, Brasseaux argues, other writers embellished their stories, creating “a legend which bore only a faint resemblance to the original story line and none to historical events.”

Something like the tales of Evangeline and Emmeline probably did happen to more than one pair of Acadian sweethearts.

But there is no record that anyone named Evangeline Bellefontaine, Gabriel Lajeunesse (as Longfellow named them), or Emmeline Labiche (the Voorhies heroine) lived in Acadia at the time of the exile.

There was no village named St. Gabriel in Acadie. The St. Gabriel in Iberville Parish wasn’t created until well after the Acadian exile.

There was a real Louis Arceneaux, but he was born in St. James Parish 13 years after the Le Grand Derangement.

None of that deterred the Times from reporting that Gov. Richard Leche and “literary figures and townspeople” planned commemorative ceremonies at Emmeline’s grave “in the little Catholic churchyard” in St. Martinville on Oct. 30, 1967. That, of course, would be difficult, since there was no Emmeline.

Nonetheless, you can still find accounts claiming that the bronze statue next to St. Martin Church marks Emmeline’s grave.

The statue is actually of Delores del Rio, the Mexican actress who played Evangeline in the 1929 movie based on Longfellow’s poem, and who almost certainly looked nothing like Evangeline or Emmeline or any real Acadian girl.

If the governor and literary figures did gather at the statue, they did it very quietly. I find no report of it in any local newspaper. The big story in the Teche News on Oct. 30 was about the St. Martinville High homecoming.

It is true that, even if only loosely based in history, the legend is an important narrative. It reflects the Acadian people’s ability to endure an exile designed to destroy them.

That incredible survival is a fact, and the stories do reflect the real heartbreak and trauma brought on by families torn apart. Those facts are a part of the very essence of the Cajun heritage of south Louisiana.

The stories are an authentic and enduring reflection of that upheaval, just as good works of fiction should be.

But they should be regarded as reminders of our history, not reports of it, even if they’re in the New York Times.

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.