ALLENDOM

A Brief History of the Allen/Breaux Family
Written For The 1990 Allen Family Reunion

©1990
Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin
Ruth Romine Warnie Strange

Seven of the Eight Daughters of George II and Leontine Allen
(Back Row) Cutsy, Alice, Isabelle
(Front Row) Noon, Louise, Florence, Emily

Introduction

When Cousin Ruth called to ask if I would be willing to help with this family project, I leapt at the chance. Had often dreamed of just such an undertaking. Here was the chance to join in a work in progress since she had gathered much of the vital data and had located the important sources of material.

You will need to keep in mind while reading, that what we have done is to simply take the hard data and to draw inferences that seemed most likely. This is the best that one can do when material is as old as most of this is, and when we have only the memories of senior relatives (now nearly a century-old) to use as confirmation. And, like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, each has a subjective memory of events at best.

However, it is the debate that this paper will initiate that holds the magic. ãOh no, it didnât happen quite that way...ä may be the onset of new discoveries that will enrich the legends. Therefore we do invite everyone to add on and alter as each begins to draw their own inferences from the data weâve appended. It is in this way that we can together begin to lay the foundations of a true historical document that will hold together for future members of the Allen Clan.

I would love to get everyone to submit whatever memories have been collected over the years. It will be like the creation of a verbal patchwork quilt with each of us adding our particular shapes and colors to the whole.

These, then, are the shapes and colors of our pieces written in the hope that you will join with us in the ãquiltingä.

Preface

If we accept the premise that understanding and critical analyses of world and national history are essential to the building of a constructive future for all of humankind, it would naturally follow that ethnic and family history must be given equal scrutiny. Together, we can rebuild the cultural underpinnings of ourselves as African/Americans while engaging in one of the most fascinating searches imaginable.

The Allen family history proves that many generations of very strong people dared to cross over a host of unimportant lines in the never-ending quest for love, adventure and achievement. What a great heritage! What a beautiful polyglot these Allens be! Our very existence proves the irrelevancy of race as the determining factor of anything -- an illusion at best.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when -- for political reasons -- we must choose carefully the edge we use in facing a world filled with racial hatred. Our times demands an unwavering allegiance to our African roots.

To the great African stock which created our earliest traceable ancestor-in-common, Celestine, has been added (over many generations) European ancestry (i.e., French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German); many Native American tribal unions; and, in more recent times, various Asian bloodlines. Added to these would be a number of Jewish/Black unions. Given the many ethnic and cultural mixtures in many Jews, and add to that most African/American racial blends, and the entire question of race becomes moot.

To the extent that our family history is indistinguishable from that of most other African/American families, we together share and enrich the cultural base of the entire country.

Hopefully, each of us will consider this as only the beginning of a process of rediscovery and will use the attached documents to deepen the search for ãAllendomä.

How It All Began

Ruth Warnie Romine Strange (daughter of Joseph Warnie and Marie Isabelle Allen; daughter of George Allen, Sr.*, and Marie Leontine Braud who was the daughter of Celestine (slave of Edouard Braud, Sr.) and Rosalie Cloátre; daughter of one Draizín Cloátre, all of St. James Parish, Louisiana, called to say that she had collected a host of names, relationships, family gossip and idle rumor over several years in an effort to piece together the Saga of Allendom. She had recently added to this material copies of the legal documents gleaned from the genealogical records of the Archives of the Mormon Stake Library in Oakland, California. (Ed.; I can now be entered in the Guinness Book of Records for having written this day the longest, grammatically correct couple of sentences in the English language!)

Ruth now added to this melange the relevant church papers from the Archives of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, bringing on the very real threat of terminal confusion!


Enter...


Two years after the fact I, Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin (daughter of Dorson Louis Charbonnet and Lottie Estelle Allen; daughter of Minétte LaRose and George Allen (Jr. or ãIIIä?) who was the son of Marie Leontine ãMammaä Braud, etc., joined the search for clarification.

Calling on skills learned from my late university/professor/research psychologist/scientist husband, Bill Soskin, I set forth a hypothesis with the full intention of making every effort to disprove it -- and having failed to do so -- to offer here what we truly believe is the story of the Allen family.

As in any good scientific experiment, it is the duty of all who follow to work to replace what temporary truths weâve uncovered and to offer more exact findings of their own. This, then (in the tradition of good science) is the job of younger Allens and Allens yet unborn.

For now, the combined curiosity and zeal of Ruth and I have produced some interesting speculations as carefully constructed from the aforementioned documents. We recently added to that work new information gathered in a visit to the National Archives at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Francisco. It was there that we were able to pour over the microfilmed Slave Census documents for the years of 1830 and beyond. Fascinating! Weâve also sent for Marie Leontineâs military pension records from Washington, D.C., and will have them on hand for some future Allen historian to work with.

What was St. James Parish Like In Those Times?

Though it was possible to view only a few of the available microfilms of the
period, given the time we had to spend, our trip to the Archives only served to pique my curiosity. However we did get a sense of St. James from the slave census data.

From the size of the 1830 microfilm it is clear that the area was only sparsely populated at the time. There seemed to be no more than a few large plantations.

In the census of 1830 there is a listing entitled ãHead of Householdsä which list one Augustine Braud. His family numbers 10 though only the names of 3 family members are listed individually; Alexis, a two-year-old; Rosamond, 8 years-old and Marcellin, aged 9. This may mean that these were the only purely French members of his family. Had we gone back to 1820, we may have found other entries for the surname. At that time, non-white family members would have been counted as chattel, only.



Twenty Years Later...

In the census of 1850 we find quite a different picture of the settlement. By that time the population figures were:

Whites 1,677 males

1,588 females
3,265 free persons

Slaves 3,375 males

4,377 females
7,751 slaves

It is interesting to note that the white males outnumbered the females. Among the slaves the opposite is true (by design?).

It is probably safe to assume that the mulattos were children of the slave owner fathers and sons. But -- it is interesting to note that in the same count there is a confusing category called ãColoredsä given as

Males 26
Females 36

though a separate category seems strangely redundant. One explanation may be that these individuals were conceived through unions between Africans and Native Americans. It came as a surprise to me that there were Indian slaves in the Southern States, certainly in the Louisiana census (though unnamed by race, and only mentioned in narrative). Something for some future Allen sleuth to contemplate, right?

Breaux Family Early History...

In closer examination of the relevant pages from the ledger Extract From 1850
Census, (Microfilm Reel #239, 7/30/1850) one finds clear evidence that the heads of households are five brothers Edward (Sr.), Farmer, aged 57; Marcel, Workman, aged 55; Joachim, aged 42; Emile, aged 31; a cousin (perhaps) Emile who was 29; and an unmarried brother named Oscar who was 19.

It is clear from the headings giving age, sex, color, occupation, etc., that
Marcelâs family was ãwhiteä as were those of the two Emiles. Since the heavy
lines denote ãhouseholdsä, it is fairly certain that weâre talking about five
such households with young Oscar ãout thereä on his own.

Our family, that of Edouard and Rosalie (apparently named after her mother) are obviously influenced by that of younger brother, Joachim. If you will note, in the ãcolorä column, his wife, Marie, is a 35-year-old Mulatto woman (M) and that their large family is all listed with an ãMä which signifies racial mixture. They were obviously married and not simply co-habiting since the census shows that they carry the same surname.

It is also quite clear that there was apparently no stigma attached to their skin color since family names are quite evident in the children of the next generation. It is fair guess that this was a close family with Joachim and Marie a major influence in that they set the example that was later followed by our own Edouard who later married the slave, Celestine. The continued closeness of the Braud family is evidenced by the fact that many of our great aunts and uncles carry all of part of the names of Joachim and Marieâs children.

Among those names are, Camille, Marie, Marie Louise, Albert and Louise. The names Marie and Louise are carried as first or middle names for many of Mums daughters. Mamma must have known and loved her aunt, Marie, having given three daughters the name. Celestine, our slave ancestor, named her only son, Theophile, for the son of Marie and Joachim.

Oscar and Valcour are brothers, sons of Oscar Braud and Ophelia Arseneaux. This, according to their marriage records (see appendix) when they were married one year apart in February of 1878 and 1879. If you will examine the archival records of the Diocese (appendix) you will find that Valcour is listed as godfather (ãspä) of our Ruthâs mother, Marie Isabelle Allen.

Eduoard and Rosalie Braud, Sr.

An interesting sidelight was the notation on Draizín Cloátre, whom we know to be the father of Edouardâs wife, Rosalie. The census of 1850 lists him as owning a single slave, a nine-year-old mulatto boy. Makes one wonder if this werenât his own son which would mean that Rosalie might well have been raised with a half-brother of color.

Eduoard, (Edward, etc.) is the eldest of the family and apparently the head of the plantation upon which they all lived. At least, they seemed to have shared the land with Eduoard being listed as ãFarmerä and his oldest son, Silvanie, as ãOverseerä.

Edouard, Jr.

Our ancestor, Edouard, Jr. was the second-born son of Eduoard and was 24 at the time of the 1850 census. This means that he was already the lover of our slave ancestor, Celestine and the father of our Marie Leontine (Mamma) who was born in 1846. She was four at the time of this census but was not accounted for but may well have been hidden, or was counted in with her mother, Celestine, with the slave population. One can only speculate.

It appears from the census profile on St. James Parish that there were many large plantations which owned several hundred slaves. The BRAUD (BRAU, BREAUX) appears not to have been one of these, but rather was one of relatively modest proportions; middle class by todayâs standards. They owned a slave staff of 57 persons. This would have been the household of the elder Breaux and his extended family.

I have always believed that the slave master who fathered our ancestor, Celestine, was that typical older man who exploited his female black slaves. The very word, ãslave masterä conjures up images of rape and sexual subjugation.

To the contrary, the younger Eduoard and his Celestine were lovers in a long-standing relationship which covered several decades. Iâve been told by my Aunt Vivian (daughter of George Allen, Jr.) that Celestine and her daughter, our Mamma lived in the big house and cooked and delivered meals to the slaves who worked the fields. Vivian remembers such stories from her own childhood in St. James. Celestine and Eduoard lived together on the plantation for over a twenty year period preceding the Civil War.

This is also supported by the fact that Leontineâs birth and christening took place in the year 1846, almost twenty years before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation; hardly signs of a casual relationship.

According to church documents (See Daigre letter), Edouard married Celestine at the point where freedom occurred. The Emancipation Proclamation dates to the year 1865 as does their marriage; a marriage which was performed in order to legitimize their two year-old son, Theophile. (Is this child the brother Mamma spoke of as ãRo-bairä; the Robert who was lynched in his youth?)

Our Mamma seems to have enjoyed a ãfamilyä relationship with Edouard which provided both support and protection. There is no evidence that she bore children prior to her marriage to George in 1869-70. Both Mamma and her younger sister, Nonanne, seemed to have enjoyed freedom from sexual exploitation common in the experience of women of their circumstance.

There is ample evidence that Catholicism played an important role in the social behavior of the Breaux family. Records of their marriages and baptisms provide an impressive road to follow through the years of their lives.

Have never given it much thought, but this work is teaching this Allen that the values of institutionalized religion go far beyond individual belief systems. Cultural roots weighed against intellectual integrity carry more power than I would have imagined. Makes me want to go back to reexamine...

Edouard seems to disappear from the Census records before 1870, there is the possibility that he died of natural causes. Have turned up nothing about his military record, but would assume that his role in the War will turn up in a search of the National Archives which are not available on the West Coast and will have to wait for a trip to either Salt Lake City or the Nationâs Capitol.

CELESTINE

ãParents unknownä, she springs upon the world a totally independent being. She may well have been the child of African-born slave parents from whom she was separated through sale or trade at a tender age. It was common practice in that cruel chapter in our countryâs history to separate slave families in order to produce greater allegiance to and dependence upon the host family and its enterprise.

Aunt Vivian describes Celestine (ãMomä) as always walking with a long pole, much in the fashion of the women of Africa (Masai?). My mother, Lottie, speaks of her as being ãbrown skinned with nice, puffy hairä. This suggests that Celestine may well have been the daughter of an African/Indian mixture, one numbered among those described as ãColoredsä. Later generations certainly display signs of the physical characteristics of Native Americans.

There is every indication that she was a house servant who lived in close relationship with the Breaux family. The fact that she raised three children in slavery times but apparently not as slaves suggests that those children were raised in a relatively intact family constellation headed by their father, Edouard.

St. James Parish, Louisiana

My mother, Lottie, remembers that Celestineâs second born daughter, Dora (known as Nonanne), spoke beautiful French and could read may well have been the genesis of Mums daughter, Marie Aliceâs, insatiable appetite for learning which led her to become St. Jamesâ leading educator and the founder of the first school for blacks in the community. Aunt Alice was the first in a long line of Allen educators -- many who began with the simple requirements of ãa high school diploma and two yearsâ Teachers Normalä has evolved to many with advanced degrees and at least one Board of Regents Chairman, Dr. George L. Allen of Texas Southern University; a contemporary and friend of Justice Thurgood Marshall.

But I digress . . .

Celestine and Edouardâs firstborn, Leontine, arrived in February of 1846. Dora was born two years later (birth date could not be confirmed). Their third child, already mentioned, followed when Mamma was about 17-years-old. Makes one wonder by what method these children were spaced. Why were there not many children? Could there have been others about whom we know nothing?

Celestineâs relationship with and dedication to Eduoard endured over the span of twenty years. Their love seems to have ended only at his death.

Sometime after Edouard dropped out of her life, Celestine (married?) Mr. Orthaire Jean Baptiste for whom she bore Gloria (Tante Glau) Celine (Tante Celine) and a third daughter, Georgeanne, who died as a young woman without having produced a child. Tante Glau (as Mrs. Commanîe) gave birth to four children; l daughter, Viny, and 3 sons; Marcel, Sherman and Trasimon.

Leontine (ÎMammaâ)

Remembered affectionately as our ãMammaä, Marie Leontine is our most recent connecting link, genetically, and the person who is still actively remembered by presently-living family members. She is still dearly loved and influential within the family structure.

According to church records, Mamma was born on February 7, 1846, and was christened in October of that same year. These dates are important since they contradict later entries. We have chosen to accept the church records as valid since other dates are more subject to human error and depend upon memory. The dates given in census documents vary by five years in some cases. Since she lived from 1846 to 1948, she was l02 at the time of her death.

It has been said that Mamma was ãfive-years-old on the Day of Emancipationä. However, if we are to accept the church records as authority, she would have been nineteen on that day.

This also means that where the census record of 1870 gives her age as twenty-one, she would actually have been twenty-five.

This means that she spent all of her adolescent years As a child of a slave parent in the time of slavery, but seems not to have lived the life of a slave. A paradox? This also means that her parents, Celestine and Edouard married at the point when freedom was awarded and that she knew and loved her father as a functioning parent.

In a lovely bit of oral history handed down through the years we learn that she met the man she was to later marry, George Allen, when she was sitting high in a pecan tree watching the Federal (Union) soldiers marching down the road in St. James. It is said that he lifted her from the tree and marched with her perched upon his shoulders!

The young couple married and settled down in the little farmhouse many of us still remember. They lived there along the banks of the Mississippi with another young couple, the Carrs. According to the census data of 1870, George was at that time working as a cook and Mamma is listed as ãkeeper of the houseä. Thomas Carr was employed as a coachman while his wife, Lucy, like Leontine, was also listed as a housekeeper. It is probably safe to assume that the two young women were primarily responsible for the farming while the husbands worked away from home. This, then, would be where Mamma became the expert farmer who was able to support her extended family in later years after Georgeâs death.

The two young couples apparently shared these living arrangements until their children began to arrive.

Together, George and Leontine produced a family of 13 living children. Though George died a fairly early death (by todayâs standards), Mamma managed to rear all of her own family and at least 20 others during her long lifetime. She fed, clothed and educated them to the best of her ability -- and -- on an army widowâs pension of $90 per month.

Vivian speaks with wonder of how she organized that crew of children of all ages to work the farm, harvest the crops, prepare the meals, clean the little house, etc., etc., etc. In addition it is known that she was the village midwife and ãreliefä physician as well. She delivered a host of children in her small community. She seems to have delivered many of her grandchildren as well.

One of my own favorite stores about Mamma and her life in St. James has to do with this aspect of her life: Despite her inability to read or write, she acted as an ãinternä to the physician who serviced St. James Parish. It seems that he was a kind of ãcircuit riderä who covered about twelve miles each day. According to custom, each household having someone needing medical attention would place a white towel on the gate as a sign of medical distress.

Despite her inability to read or write; her expertise in matters of medicine and healing was such that Dr. Hymel (white) stopped in to see her on his rounds and briefed her on the cases in her village. It was she who acted as his Nurse Practioner and was the person he referred patients to in his absence. Incredible!

Leontine is said to have been a tiny lady with waist-length dark hair and an even disposition. She also is said to have been relatively easy-going but ãsassyä and well able to hold her own when the occasion demanded. She spoke only French, the language of St. James and her times and place. Though her children became bilingual and spoke both ãcreoleä (a patois of French) and English.

My mother tells of a time when she was a little girl and (apparently) stole
an apple from the local fruit vendor. When he descended upon the family in rage, Mamma faced him with eyes flashing, hands on hips and in absolute defense of the guilty child shouted, ã...when she sh--s the money, Iâll pay for the fruitä!

English must have come with the advent of soldiers from the northern states and was probably to be attributed to Georgeâs appearance into the life of St. James. Wish our generation had not lost the ability to speak in creole; the language disappeared with our parental generation.

ãMamma Storiesä are endless, fascinating and contradictory. Vivian remembers that she always walked barefoot (except for church) while Lottie recalls her gaiters (low black slip on shoes with elastic inserts at the sides).

Lottie remembers how Mamma saved up enough money to buy a buggy from the Sears and Roebucks Catalog and how radically this changed the familyâs social life by making it possible for folks to ride to church in style and to visit surrounding townspeople from time to time. Until that time visiting was done on horseback and was limited by the numbers of potential visitors and the scarcity of steeds.

In a conversation with Vivian recently, she mentioned the 7 large pecan trees that surrounded the little house. She said that it was the job of the children to gather the pecans each season, sack them for payment for the annual property tax assessment.

She also remembers with a smile how Mamma would send her to the store (in secret) with a nickel to buy just a bit of tobacco --which she would then secret in the pocket of her apron and stash in the andiron of the fireplace for Mamma to bring out later in the evening when everyone was in bed. Her pipe was never smoked in the presence of the children; she never smoked during the day or in public, ãcoarse women to that!ä.

And the excitement when Aunt Camille purchased the player piano for the family! And how they sat around on Sunday evenings when Mamma ãpumpedä the piano while Aunt Alice sang ãAve Mariaä!

Wish we could get all of those tales on tape while we still can. Take the time, cousins, take the time!

Watched Vivianâs face light up the other evening when she got to talking about popcorn balls around the fire, roasting yams in the grate. And ã...the barrel of syrup, sack of rice, sack of sugar when the government check came ...ä.

Having seen that little farmhouse some years ago while on a visit to the South, it is almost impossible to imagine how all of those children -- all those families -- managed to live in that tiny space -- under that little roof in St. James. But one gets the feeling that there was a lot of love spread around and much of it still lingers in the voices of those who still remember.


In the case of my own grandfather, George Allen, III; he married my grandmother, Minétte, when she was a mere fourteen. She lived for a brief period and died when my mother, Lottie, was a tiny seven-month-old baby.

George was Mums oldest son, and when he returned home to deliver his tiny baby, Lottie was added to the family just a little older than her own baby, Camille, who was two and who was shortly followed by her son, Louis, just three years younger than my mother, Lottie.

George shortly entered into marriage with Desiré Fernandes who bore him four sons and a daughter, Vivian. When Vivian was little more than a year and a half, Desiré died and Leontineâs family grew by another five children!

If youâre keeping count, in addition to her own thirteen offspring, she was now the acting mother of eighteen! A number of her own children remained in the household after marriage and the beginnings of their own families -- Uncle Louíe and his wife, Mariá, raised their own brood under the family roof long after the others had moved away to school, to New Orleans, to Detroit, to Texas, to California, etc. If memory serves, Uncle Louíe and his wife, Mariá had ten of their own.

Sometime within the past ten years, the little house which had served as an ãincubatorä for the Allenâs burned to the ground, tragically. With it went much history. (How I would love to have talked with the most recent occupants.)

Upon our own final visit to the site, it was disquieting to note the huge nuclear power plant not too far down the road. It was even more disquieting to be reminded that that stretch of roadway is considered one of the ãhottestä areas in the country -- cancer alley! Havenât taken a recent count, but I do seem to remember that a high percentage of cancer deaths appears in the records of those family women, especially the women -- those beautiful Allen women!

Certificate of Death of Leontine Allen

George Allen

Iâd heard over the years that George Allen was the mulatto son of an English plantation owner and one of his slaves. He seems to rise out of nowhere, though on closer inspection there are hints of high drama, indeed.

If you will look at the map (attached) of Louisiana, you will find a Parish called ãAllenä about one Parish away from the Texas eastern border. It was here that our search naturally began. Turns out that this doesnât yield much except that it was established sometime in 1807. However, there does turn out to be a most interesting story of a Civil War General (Medical Corps) who comes originally from Toronto (English!) and who marries into one of the Southâs grand colonial families, the Robinsons of England.

In a book entitled, Colonial Families of the Southern States of America, pp. 452, we find that the daughter of John Robinson of the New Orleans Robinsons marries George William Allan of Moss Park, Toronto, Canada, on April 16, 1846 (the year of Leontineâs birth). This makes him a contemporary of our Edouard, Sr. and therefore the proper age. Louisa Matilda is the name of the wife of the man we believe to be our Georgeâs slavemaster-father.

What makes for high drama is the fact that the elder George served in the Confederate Army while our George served with the Federal (Union) Army. (For those of our generation who may be a bit uncomfortable with the fact that our forebears of the slave generation may have been house servants, it would serve us well to remember our revolutionary heritage!). How this came about can be easily understood by reading a paragraph from a small booklet from Louisiana Commemorates the Civil War by T. Harris Williams.

ã...In the spring of 1862, a powerful Federal Naval Squadron commanded by Farragut appeared in the Gulf and ran by Forts Phillips and Jackson defending the entrance to the Mississippi river. Defeating a Confederate naval force in a spirited clash, Farragut ran up the river to New Orleans and forced its surrender on May l. The City was almost defenseless because the Confederate Government had expected the attack to come up the river instead of from below. Farragut then proceeded to Baton Rouge, which surrendered on May 9th. For the rest of the war the Federals held the Southern Parishes. Baton Rouge marked the practical northern limit of the occupation. An attempt by the Confederates to recover the Capitol failed (The Battle of Baton Rouge, August 5, 1862); the Federals abandoned the town but returned to it laterä.

This means, then, that the War may well have to George, somewhere in the South. He undoubtedly did not, however, come from St. James Parish or he and Leontine would certainly have met during their childhood or adolescence. He could have grown up on an English-owned plantation in or around New Orleans since that was the home of his fatherâs wife.

We do know that he was with the Union Army since Leontine lived as a pensioned widow and, to our knowledge, few if any non-whites served with the Confederacy. We have sent for his military records but donât expect them until sometime after the completion of this paper. Through those documents we will acquire the time and place of his birth and possibly, the names of his parents as well. At that time we can either confirm much that is speculation at this point.

Army Discharge Certificate of George Allen

October 10, 1863

Pension Declaration of George Allen

February 27, 1893

Indicates U.S. Army Service from July 10, 1863 to October 10, 1863

(Note: the above documents were obtained from the National Archive by Betty Reid Soskin after the Allendom Family History was written. They confirm the information that George Allen served as a Sergeant in Company B of the Seventh Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers of the United States Army during the Civil War.)

We know little else about him except that he was light brown skinned with ãcrinklyä hair, and is remembered as resembling his grandson, Lloyd (son of George Allen III) in physical type.

Lloyd Allen

Those who still remember seemed to see him as ãangry and broodingä, a figure whose photograph hung in the parlor of the farmhouse in St. James. (Does anyone have that picture still?) We know that his death brought little anguish and some measure of relief (if the stories around this are reliable). He seems to have left little of himself but a stream of children. George fades into the background of the remarkable and colorful Leontine.

These facts seems to hold little real truth, though, since there is no accounting for some interesting anomalies: Why did all of the children speak his language as their primary tongue? Would this have meant that his influence was greater than the meager facts would indicate, or, were these such tumultuous times in St. James that the takeover of Northern (English) culture destroyed everything in its way? It is hard to imagine how this family -- without the benefit of later technological advances -- radio, video, greater mobility -- moved from one language to another in a single generation. And, in a family where the dominant parent spoke only French, the language change seems the more dramatic.

We will continue to probe and in time will flesh out more of the truth, Iâm sure.

The recent acquisition of an old map of Louisiana (courtesy of cousin, Donald Therence, son of Annabelle LeBeouf and Vernon Therence, Sr.; daughter of Marie Isabelle Allen LeBeouf Warnie, and -- etc., etc., etc.,) suggests that there is still much to explore.

An entirely new approach opened up with a glance or two at the map (appended) since it is clear that those names of plantation owners in the 1830-50 census microfilms turn up now to be the names of townships of Louisiana. The evolution is evident.

I can also recall visiting St. James as an adolescent. The Greyhound bus driver used Mammáâs house as the destination. All I had to say was that I was going to visit ãMaâam Georgeä and the bus stopped next to the levee and in front of her house. This, then, is the obvious genesis of geographical names and the method by which they become fixed. See how many familiar names you can find on the map.

We do hope that this early attempt at tracing our genealogy will spark an interest in others of us so that the youngest family members will gain a sense of being a part of the continuing family entity which reaches back in time as far as imaginations will take them. And that they can then project themselves into a future that, together, we will shape. What wondrous things we mortals
be!

Ruth and I are intrigued enough to have planned another visit to the Mormon Temple Archives in order to fit even more pieces of this human puzzle together. The Quest for Allendom has only just begun and is in full progress.

An exciting side trip may well be an exploration of the All-Black town of Allentown which was established after the Civil War in Central California. Do you suppose ... ?

There are also some interesting ãside trip connectionsä that need exploration:
a) It is rumored that Andrew Young (yes,that Andrew Young) is a member of the Allen Clan through Aunt ãNoonä and Uncle Sam.

b) ...and we all know about the obvious connection between
Louisianaâs Senator Breaux? And,

c) hearing some of the family history of Debbie Allen and Phyllicia Rashad suggests a strong connection through their father who hails from the same general Area of Louisiana.

This suggests a fertile field of discovery for the next family ãsleuthä to explore.

As for me, Iâve already started work on the Charbonnets whom I discovered in the Census of 1850 as owning a plantation in St. John The Baptist Parish (right next door to St. James), et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, . . . .

Most sincerely

Betty Reid Soskin (nee Charbonnet)
©1990

Originally written for Allen Family Reunion August 7, l990 and revised February 15, 1994.