BETTY CHARBONNET REID SOSKIN TO KEN JENKINS

October 17 , 2000

To: Ken Jenkins

I’m astounded!

This IS my family, Ken:  My father and his father were both architects and millwrights.  My dad (Dorson Louis Charbonnet) was one of seven brothers and 5 sisters, all of whom are now deceased.  His youngest brother, Melbourne, died about a year ago in Southern California t the age of 92.

We are all of mixed blood.  The Louis Charbonnet (my dad’s second to youngest brother) was an undertaker in New Orleans for many years.  Louis was also a building contractor (it is reported) worked one side of New Orleans while his (white) cousin, Paul, who was also a contractor worked the other.  This, by agreement.

We’ve always known that there was a black and a white line of Charbonnet and somewhere in my greatgrandfather’s time, all attempts at tracing ceases.  I’ve always figured that it was he who crossed the color line and married a mulatto.  My father’s father also gets lost in that he drops from the census in the late eighties and doesn’t reappear until establishes his own household with Victoria Morales and raises his own family.  That certainly means race-mixing has occurred and that -- at the time - this was the greatest of all sins.

I’m at work and can’t take the time to go further, but needless to say --we’ve just started an exciting mutual exploration and you’re given me the greatest of gifts in the information this email contains.  I’ve been frustrated  by the “race curtain” that drops down over the pasta before my grandfather’s time.  You’ve presented more in this one letter than I’ve been able to dig up on my own.

My mother was a Breaux, a  far easier lineage to trace and I’ve been in touch with Breauxs who’ve taken me back to 1631.  But Charbonnet ... .

Give your family my very best, and tell our wife that I look forward to learning more about our “cousin” status.

Sincerely,

Betty