Brenda Blanchard
Curator, Miss Louise's Bed and Breakfast
Old Turnerville District
Plaquemine, La.
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| The text on this page is the transcript of an oral interview.
The interview has been edited and transcribed by the interviewer. |
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Life in Old Turnerville
(Page 2 of 4)
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Little Murphy Loupe |
When Marietta was a very young woman, she suffered the loss of her youngest child, Murphy Loupe.
He drowned in the
Plaquemine Locks when he was only seven years old.
She'd sent him to town to buy some embroidery thread, and as he walked across the gate, he tripped
and fell into the murky waters.
She heard a crowd, the hysterical crowd's noise coming from the lock area.
She was in the backyard, tending her merliton crop, and she thought they were celebrating the
Fourth of July, when in actuality the crowd was hysterical because her little son had just drowned.
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Plaquemine Lock
Photograph courtesy of
Iberville Parish Library |
In those days there was no funeral parlour, so she had to wake Murphy in the front room of her home.
And she had to sit by the coffin all night, doing the vigil, and wipe the water which
seeped from his mouth.
And she talked about that forever.
And she was just traumatized, and her heart was broken for many years.
And she told us this story over and over.
She hung Murphy's picture over the mantlepiece in her front room,
and he's dressed in white and he looks like a little angel.
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