Belle Terre Acadie
The Story of One Family of the Acadian Diaspora
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About the Book
The Acadians had a long and arduous journey from their paradise in Nova Scotia (Nouvelle-Écosse) with their expulsion and diaspora by the British. Tossed to the winds like seeds of grass they finally took root settling and finding peace and prosperity in the rich alluvial lands of South Louisiana.
Étienne Guédry, who was content in Cobiquid, Nova Scotia, but who was subjected to threat, flight with his wife and two small children to Île Saint-Jean, in 1758 was captured by the British when the last remaining French stronghold at Fortresse de Louisbourg fell. Exiled with them to St. Malo, France were his friends from Cobiquid, Jean-Baptiste Hébert, Pierre Saulnier and family, and Gabriel Melanson with his wife Ysabelle and his teenage sister, Anne.
Étienne mourned the deaths of his wife and children in France. He eventually remarried and his final voyage to la Louisiane (Louisiana) with his second family was by the benevolence of Spain after twenty-seven years of living in abject poverty. In Louisiana his line flourished and prospered. They reclaimed paradise in Nouvelle Acadie. (New Acadia) Like many others he settled his family on Bayou Lafourche, receiving the customary land grant from Spain of about one acre wide and in depth to the marshlands. He was given provisions: seeds, tools, a few livestock, and all needed to begin this new life. He was successful in his"strip farm" and in succeeding generations his descendants became prosperous as their holdings grew with the planting of sugar cane, rice, cattle ranching, and in the twentieth century, the oil industry. They were now called Cadiens. (Cajuns)
This is a story of how the people known as Cajuns became a living monument to human fortitude and the will for survival. From their ancestors through the centuries echoes the cry, "N´oubliez pas!"....We don´t forget!
-A.K. Keller
About the Author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anna Renée Kadakova Keller was born on Mosella Plantation the year before America entered W.W. II. Her mother was Louisiana French and her father was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. In her mid-twenties she graduated from Louisiana Technical College School of Nursing. She married Lionel Keller from Hahnville, Louisiana, on Côte des Allemands. In 1974 she and the children followed her husband, an electronic engineering technologist, to Libya and Saudi Arabia where he was employed in the petro-chemical industry by Oasis Oil Co. of Libya and Aramco, respectively. While in Saudi Arabia she attended an extension program to Indiana-Purdue University, studying Anthropology. Upon their return to the USA, she again practiced nursing in hospitals, physician's office, and as a home health field nurse from which she retired her career in 1997 doing QA, assignment scheduling, and marketing for her company. She also had a weekly column called l'Chaim for the local newspaper, "The St. Charles Herald-Guide." During The Gulf War, she organized a military support group with a friend and appealed to the local American Legion Post and American Red Cross Unit for sponsorship, to which they agreed. Her work and leadership in this endeavor with her all volunteer staff moved the St. Charles Parish Council to name the group as the official military support group of the parish. Her work in support of the troops and their families in all branches of the military was recognized by the American Red Cross, the U.S. Army who included the group, The St. Charles Military Support Group, in their Pentagon list of official American military support groups of that war, and by proclamation of the governor of the State of Louisiana naming the group's rally following the war as the official Louisiana Red, White, and Blue Day. She was also recognized by the Louisiana Army National Guard (LANG) as "The Mother of All Soldiers." She now live quietly with her husband in Louisiana.