Columns

Even the New York Times took notice of the “literary birthday” at the end of October 1967 of Emmeline Labiche, “heroine who made her name … in real life and then gained immortality in the lines of a poem.” Some people claim she and her sweetheart Louis Arceneaux were the real-life models of Longfellow’s Evangeline and Gabriel, but the Times did it right in making it a literary birthday, not a real one.

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain as he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought and could be.” --Goethe

Several weeks ago, I reported the oft-told story that the Mowata community in Acadia Parish got its name because nobody could find a board long enough to print the original name of Morewater.
I have long suspected that the story was suspect, but had never heard anything to contradict it. Erich and Kathryn Loewer have heard another version, and it seems a lot more likely.