♂Pierre Anatole Serrett Sr.

Pierre Anatole Serrett (14 March 1853 – 18 February 1926), known in later records as Anatole Serrette, was a fisherman of St. Martin Parish, Louisiana, whose younger brother Emile killed their elder brother Alfonse in the swamps of the parish in 1887. He was the grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his daughter Ida Serrette (1903–1990).

Early life

Pierre was born on 14 March 1853 in West Baton Rouge Parish, on the west bank of the Mississippi, a son of Firmin Serrette and Euphemie Dupuis. He was baptized simply Pierre on 20 June 1854 at the church of St. John the Baptist at Brusly, with Arcole Serret and Aurore Serret as godparents. He was one of the younger children of a large family; two and a half years before his birth, in August 1850, his parents had lost two of their children within four days. His father, Firmin, enlisted in March 1862 in Company D of the 27th Louisiana Infantry Regiment^W on the same day as Pierre’s eldest brother, Battezaer; Firmin rose to corporal and was among the garrison paroled after the surrender of Vicksburg^W in July 1863, when Pierre was ten. The census of 1870 lists him in his parents’ household in West Baton Rouge Parish.

Marriage and family

By the 1880s he had moved west to St. Martin Parish, where he probably married Alida Theriot on 4 May 1880. As Anatole Serrette, he married Amelia Pennison Daigle (1869–1906) on 12 June 1884. The couple had eight children, born between 1884 and 1903, the eldest a daughter, Euphemie, who bore his mother’s name.

On Monday 5 September 1887, at Butte-a-la-Rose in the swamps of St. Martin Parish, his younger brother Emile killed their elder brother Alfonse. A New Orleans paper reported that Emile surrendered to the sheriff after the coroner had gone to the scene; a local paper reported that the killing appeared to have been in self-defense. A St. Martinville paper of 24 September reported that the grand jury had found no true bill against Emile on the Saturday before, 17 September, and he was released.

The census of 1900 finds Anatole as head of his household in Police Jury Ward 2 of St. Martin Parish, working as a fisherman. Amelia died in 1906, leaving him a widower with children ranging from their early twenties down to Ida, then two. The 1910 census index lists seven-year-old Ida in the house of her widowed uncle Emile in the same ward, and is taken to show Anatole himself living alone there, though this is not confirmed by a record. Where he lived in 1920 is not known.

Death

The Louisiana death index and a Find a Grave memorial give Anatole’s death as 18 February 1926 at Cecilia, St. Martin Parish, and his burial there; the date agrees with his gravestone. His death certificate named his parents as “Phirmain Serret” and Euphemie Dupuis; the informant is named as “Mrs. Benjamin Benoit”. His daughter Victoria’s husband was Sebastian Benoit, so the name may be hers with the husband’s given name miswritten, but the certificate does not say so. He and Amelia share a modern granite double stone, which names him “Anatole, Sr.”

Notes

The gravestone gives his birth year as 1851, and the 1870 census gives his age as twelve, implying about 1858. The baptism register gives 14 March 1853. His eldest daughter’s birth is recorded in March 1884, three months before the marriage date in the parish marriage index; the records do not explain the difference.

The 1880 marriage

Louisiana, Parish Marriages, 1787–1958 (FamilySearch index) gives a marriage at St. Martin on 4 May 1880 between “Nat Serret” and Alida Theriot. The index writes the groom’s name as Nat, not Anatole, and it is the only source given for this marriage. The date and parish come from that index entry alone.