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On June 27, 1957, Hurricane Audrey
struck Cameron Parish
early in the morning killing over 500 residents.
Interestingly, some of the bodies re-interred had
been victims of that hurricane nearly fifty years
earlier. Two bodies that disappeared during
Hurricane Audrey were found in the clean-up for
Hurricane Rita.
When Keith Gallagher was asked what
the most difficult part of the recovery process was.
Was it… Digging thru debris searching for bodies?
Working in marshlands? The size of the area that
had to be searched? The number of cemeteries that
had to be cleaned up? Having to deal with
alligators, snakes and other natural predators?
Or, serving the grieving families? His answer was,
“all of the above.”
Keith Gallagher said his most
memorable moment was probably after helping retrieve
a casket for the marshes, when Zeb Johnson said to
him, “I could see you were a little nervous about
the nearby alligators but you didn’t seem worried
about the water moccasin that was hanging on the
other end of the casket.” Gallagher said, “The only
reason I wasn’t worried was I hadn’t seen it.
Believe me, I was a lot more attentive from then
on.”
Here are examples of five of the many
area folks that are real local heroes:
Two of the hardest working members of
the re-interment team were mother and daughter,
Matilda LaBove and Matilda Ann Bertrand. They were
both funeral directors at the Cameron Parish Hixson
Funeral Home in Creole, Louisiana that was
destroyed. Both women saved the records of 90% of
the burials in Cameron Parish but lost their homes
and all their belongings. And, two of the graves
that where uprooted by Hurricane Rita, belonged to
members of their family. Despite all this, they
were on the job every day. The two Matildas are now
working at the Hixson facility in Lake Charles.
Funeral Directors Glenn Richard,
Charles Hunter and Troy Courville sacrificed their
time in a very personal way to make the re-interment
happen. Throughout the entire operation, they each
wore two hats; one as an employee of Johnson Funeral
Home and the other an investigator for the Calcasieu
Parish Forensic Center. The re-interment in Cameron
Parish also put a strain on the other employees at
both the Johnson Funeral Home and the Calcasieu
Coroner’s office who were also doing double duty.
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