My cousin, Beyonce

 It's really hard to impress high school students.

Tell them you spent 30-plus years as a sportswriter for a major metro daily newspaper -- meh. You interviewed the likes of Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Ed Reed, Justin Jefferson and Jarvis Landry -- eh. Tell them you were just inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame -- crickets.

But tell them you're related to Beyonce and they sit up and take notice!

"Really? Nuh uh. Have you been to her house? Can you call her?"

Ha! Now I've got their attention!

I really am (probably) related to Beyonce Knowles, but I don't think we'll be doing any line dances at family weddings together or going to any family reunions anytime soon. There are a lot of degrees of separation between her and me and one of them is kind of iffy, but hey! A thread is a thread.

Follow along.

Beyonce is the sixth great-granddaughter of Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, the legendary leader of the Acadian people who fought against the British in King George's War and the Seven Years War. The Acadians eventually lost, the British took over and began what came to be called Le Grand Derangement, during which many of our ancestors and their families were cast out of their lands and set adrift. Families were separated and sent on different ships to different shores, never to be reunited. Remember the story of Evangeline and Gabriel? 

Joseph Broussard eventually led a group of displaced Acadians to Louisiana, which was Spanish-owned at the time but French-friendly, and needed all the settlers it could get. The Acadians quickly acclimated to the bayou country and made it their new home. Then they had lots of baby Broussards. One of those, Armand Broussard,  eventually led to Beyonce. 

I am not a direct descendant of the legendary Beausoleil but probably of his brother, the lesser-known but just as ornery Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil. who hid in the Acadia woods for three years in resistance to the British with Joseph. He had 11 children before leaving Acadia with his wife, Marguerite Thibodeau, but did eventually make his way, first to Haiti, then to New Orleans, then to Pointe Coupee, and on to St. Martinville. Sadly, he and his wife died of the Plague shortly after their arrival in Louisiana in 1765. (It is believed they were exposed in Haiti.) 

My sixth great-grandmother was Marguerite Broussard, who was born in 1727 in Acadia. Some sources show her to be the daughter of Alexandre and Marguerite. The WikiTree, which is an open-source family tree, does not show her to be their daughter but has no parents listed. She definitely was a Broussard, though, and connected to Beausoleil's parents somehow. She married Helio (or Julien) Viaud around 1747. They both eventually made their way to Louisiana and are listed on the Wall of Names in St. Martinville, which lists more than 3,000 Acadian refugees.

They had one known child, Catherine, on Jan 1, 1752 in Acadia. Catherine somehow ended up in France, where she married Jean Cecile Bourg in 1784. She and her husband arrived in Louisiana in 1785 and they both are on the list of names in St. Martinville.

Catherine and Jean Bourg had six children, including my fourth great-grandfather, Jean Similen Bourg, born Feb. 28, 1792, in Plattenville, Louisiana. He married Rosalie Eleonore Lirette on October 1, 1809, in Plattenville. The Terrebonne Parish census of 1850 lists Jean Bourg, 68, and his wife, Rosalie, 55, living in the Bayou Terrebonne area. Neither of them could read or write. Living with them was an 11-year-old boy named Zenon Rodrigues. All said their parents were born in Louisiana. They lived one door away from their daughter Eulalie and her family.

Eulalie Clementine Bourg was married to Francois Naquin. Her brother Jean Similien Bourg Jr., my great-great-great-grandfather, was married to Marie Celeste Naquin. 

Their daughter Melina Bourg, my great-great-great-grandmother, was born in 1840 in Thibodaux, Louisiana. She married Simeon Theodule Dupre in 1864. 

Their son Germain Dupre, was my great-grandfather, who married Marie Louise Thibodeaux.

Their daughter, Pauline Dupre, was my father's mother. 

Am I absolutely certain about all of this? No. But a lot of people with a lot more time than I have did a lot of research and put this all out there for the rest of us to find. Genealogy is a big, giant jigsaw puzzle like that except you have to FIND the pieces before you can put them together. Either way, Beyonce and I are (perhaps) cousins many, many, many times removed. So are Prince Charles and I. And Elvis. 

They could do a lot worse than me, a semi-retired Hall of Fame sportswriter-turned-teacher. And I'll happily do the Electric Slide with any of them.

Nectar, the food of the gods and the flavor of New Orleans

Written for The Lyon's Tales, the newsletter for the Lyon(s) Family Association

In Greek mythology, nectar is the food of the gods. But in New Orleans, nectar is one of just about everyone’s favorite flavor of snowballs (that’s a snow cone to you folks up north).  

Hot pink and super sweet, it is on the menu of every corner snowball stand in southeast Louisiana – and there are many of those. But back in my mama’s day, back when every drug store had a soda counter inside, nectar also used to be a flavor you could order in your soda or milkshake. A Nectar Soda used to be one of my favorites when I was little as well. But now that drug store soda counters have gone the way of full-service gas stations, the nectar soda has all but disappeared and is pretty much just a snowball flavor. ‘Tis a pity, too.

So imagine my joy and surprise to learn that the famous (to us) New Orleans nectar was, in fact, created by a man named Lyons!

Isaac L. Lyons was born in Columbia, South Carolina, but moved to New Orleans just before the start of the Civil War. He enlisted in the Confederate Army as a private but eventually achieved the rank of captain. After the war, he opened a wholesale pharmaceutical supply company under the name Tucker & Lyons. That eventually changed to Ball & Lyons and, finally, to I.L. Lyons, Ltd.

Of course, Lyons’ drugstore storefront had a soda fountain inside and one day he mixed up a delicious pink concoction he called “nectar,” and which soon became ubiquitous at New Orleans soda fountains.

You still can buy nectar if you know where to look and don’t confuse it for hummingbird nectar. All the snowball stands have it, of course, so any snowball supply company has nectar. There are some specialty shops in New Orleans that sell it, along with pure cane syrup (that’s another story for another day). Even Walmart has a version of it.

If you get your hands on some, here is the recipe for an old-fashioned New Orleans nectar soda: Put about an inch of nectar syrup in the bottom of your fancy ice cream soda glass, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, then pour soda water/seltzer over the ice cream. The nectar will fizz to the top. Add whipped cream and a cherry. Nectar is also good in vanilla milkshakes or just poured over vanilla ice cream, but take heed – it’s very, very sweet. 

I have no idea if Isaac was a relative or not. He does not show up in my particular family tree and I can’t connect him to the first of my lot to come to Louisiana, but that is not to say that he was not a cousin of ours. In fact, it was one of my own cousins who led me to this discovery during a recent visit to the Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge. There, she discovered a couple of bottles stamped with “I.L. Lyons & Co.” She texted me to ask if he was a relative. I had to look him up and found this amazing story.

Even if he’s not a direct relative, we both will claim him. 

My Grandfather, Mr. Banjo

 This was originally posted on my other, personal blog The Lyons Din.

 

His parents named him Martin Behrman French, in honor of the one-time mayor of New Orleans who counted his father, former Louisiana State Representative Henry David French, as one of his dear friends. Oddly, his family would forgo the simpler, more usual name of Martin, calling him Behrman (pronounced Ber - man) instead. 

His wife called him Behrman too, but with a distinct west bank of New Orleans roil that turned it into "Boy-man." Only a handful of people ever called him Martin and he was never, ever a Marty. 

I just called him Grandpa.

Born in 1904, Behrman French was the fifth of six children born to Henry and Matilda Louise Sutherland French of Algiers, he of Irish descent, she of Dutch.  Three sisters came before him and a brother who was "sickly" and died at the age of 11. Two years younger, Behrman used to wheel his brother, Henry Jr. or "Bud" around in a little cart. His death in 1913 profoundly moved Behrman, who idolized his big brother. Likewise, the tragic death of little sister Lillian Irene, age 2, who, according to family legend, choked on a chicken bone at the dining room table, haunted him all of his days.

Behrman grew up in Algiers on the west bank of New Orleans, in a traditional camelback shotgun double at 813 Pacific Avenue. His mom was a big fan of ginger beer (a precursor to ginger ale) back in the day, and used the ceramic tan bottles to line the garden. There were hundreds.

When he was about 6 years old, he was playing with friends in his neighborhood when one of them, carrying a BB gun, tripped. The weapon fired and hit Behrman in his left eye, permanently blinding him on one side.

But that didn't stop Behrman from playing football or baseball. He matriculated at Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, every day riding the ferry across the Mississippi River, then taking a streetcar down Canal Street. Behrman was a member of the Eagles baseball team and later played on a few of the semipro teams in and around New Orleans. He loved to boast that he played with the great Mel Ott.

                                             Martin Behrman French, back row, third player.

In 1926 Behrman married a girl who lived in the neighborhood, Evelyn Himel Cross, who had broken up with the Mothe boy because she didn't want to marry the undertaker's son. (The Mothes later opened one of the largest funeral homes in the city.) 

Around that time, Behrman went to work for Bell Telephone Company. His first job was in an office, but when he got laid off, he offered to go to work as a pole digger. He did that for several years until he was able to work his way back to a desk and a position as office manager. His job took him from New Orleans to Patterson, where his only child, Lettie Lee, was born, to Baton Rouge and, finally, to Houma. He would retire in 1969 after 45 years with the company. The Houma Courier did a story on his retirement.

To this day I can't help but think of Edith and Archie Bunker when I think of my grandparents. He was a cantankerous old coot for much of my lifetime, a "get off my lawn" kind of guy who nearly had a stroke anytime anyone of the male persuasion dared to pull into our driveway to visit me. She was the sweetest soul you'd ever meet, who put up with his ire and anger for more than 60 years. Somehow, they made it work.

Grandpa loved to fish, too. But just a few days after his boss retired, Grandpa took him out on his boat fishing. The man suffered a heart attack and died on the trip and, shortly thereafter, Grandpa put his boat up for sale.

But he also doted on us grandkids, teaching my brother, Rhett, the proper way to throw a baseball and trying to turn my nephew, Lee, into a mini-Archie Manning back in the day. I wasn't into the sports thing, but we did share a love of music. 

Paw Paw may have spent 45 years working for the telephone company, but in his heart, he was an entertainer. I don't know when he first picked up an instrument, or how, but I know he loved music -- playing it, writing it, performing it. He played the guitar, the banjo, the ukulele and the organ.

But the banjo was his jam. And I'm guessing, if he had a say in the matter, he would have preferred to be called "Mr. Banjo." It was the title of one of the many tunes he played.

Most of my early childhood memories of my grandfather are of him with a banjo across his lap. He played it often on the breezeway of his home in Houma and he had frequent jam sessions with his musical pals, Gene Dusenberry and Sonny Thibodeaux. (And one of my greatest regrets is that I never asked Mr. Sonny to teach me how to play the Hawaiian/slide guitar.) 

He also played at the annual Telephone Pioneers picnics, before downtown Mardi Gras parades and at any other public event that called for musical entertainment. But Grandpa and Grannie were most known for their frequent gigs at the local nursing homes in Houma where they -- great-grandparents, mind you -- would perform for the "old folks."

Behrman and Evelyn French, performing at one of the long term care facilities in Houma.

The two of them had compiled a large repertoire of really silly songs from the early 19th Century, including such novelty tunes "Once There was a Little Pig" (in which the baby pig died and the mother pig cried herself to death), "The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia," (in which a cow was loitering on a railroad track and got run over), and "The Burglar Beau," about a burglar who happened to choose the home of a one-eyed, toothless woman for his victim. And we all learned to spell Mis - sis - sippi by singing it every time we crossed a bridge. 

But Gramps also wrote a few ditties himself. When his adopted home of Houma in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1972, Grampa wrote a lovely song called "This is the Place."

"This is the place where I was born.
This is the place I'll carry on.
This is the place I toot my horn.
Houma in Terrebonne."

He really hoped the town would adopt it as its official song, but, sadly, nothing ever came of it.

He also went to his grave bitterly convinced that his greatest story had been stolen from him. Back in the 1970s, Grandpa wrote a song about a Cajun Santa who delivered toys up and down the bayous of Louisiana in a pirogue with a red nose. He called it "La Christine" and it predated the immensely popular "Cajun Night Before Christmas." But no one ever seemed interested. 

But there were victories. 

In 1925, just a year before he got married, Berhman French recorded two records with the Norman Brownlee Orchestra. Brownlee also was from Algiers and was married to Grandpa's sister, Irma Lee French. 

I grew up knowing that Gramps had played on two records with some famous jazz musician in New Orleans, but that's really all I knew. After a visit to a recently opened museum to local jazz great Kid Ory, I was spurred to find out more about those recordings. Thanks to the modern marvel that is the internet, I was easily able to find the recording -- nearly 100 years after the fact.

This is my grandfather playing banjo. Norman Brownlee Orchestra - "Dirty Rag"/"Peculiar" 

(Note: He is not in the photographs of the orchestra but his name is in the notes.) 

I was moved to tears listening to this old recording and inspired to write this blog post. His dreams of fame may not have come true during his lifetime, but perhaps I can keep his name and a little piece of his music alive.

Rest well, Grandpa, and keep on playin'!

Pilgrims' Progress

The Mayflower replica recreated the original voyage in 2020.

 Here is a joke for you:

If April showers bring May flowers,

What do May flowers bring?

Pilgrims!

As nearly every elementary school student knows, The Mayflower was the ship that brought the Pilgrims to the New World in 1620. The story goes that once here, they met some friendly Indians who helped them survive the first winter by giving them turkey, pumpkin pie, and corn and they all started the tradition of Thanksgiving. 

Of course we all know that's not quite how it happened...

For one thing, we know they were not the first settlers of the New World. Those who settled at Roanoke and Jamestown came first. But, for whatever reasons, they didn't make it.

The Plymouth Rock Stars did, though, those dreamers who piled their hopes and prayers and whatever they could carry on to a rickety little boat and set sail from Plymouth, England in September of 1620.  A lot of people may not know that there was another boat that was supposed to sail with the Mayflower, The Speedwell, but she sprung a leak and had to stay behind for repairs. 

It's no surprise that only about half of the original 102 survived the cruise from hell that lasted 66 days -- the waves, the storms, the disease that swept through the ship -- and ended up in the wrong place. Only 53 survived that and the first winter spent still on the ship. One fell overboard and drowned.

One of those survivors was Isaac Allerton, my 10th great-grandfather. Another was his wife, Mary Norris. And their daughter, Mary Allerton, my 9th great-grandmother. Mary's future husband was Thomas Cushman, one of the Pilgrims who was stuck on The Speedwell back in England.

I may also be a descendant of Degory Priest, but I have not made that definitive connection just yet. 

Isaac Allerton was born about 1587 in England and was elected the assistant to Governor Bradford in 1621, a position he held until the 1630s when his fellows found out he was double-dealing and putting the colony in debt. 

Mary Norris was Isaac's first wife. She was about 30 when she boarded The Mayflower with Isaac and her three children Bartholomew, Remember and May. She left behind the grave of an unnamed child in Holland, where the group grouped before securing the means to set sail, and gave birth to a stillborn son while still aboard The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor.

Mary Allerton was about 4 years old when she boarded The Mayflower and, somehow, survived the two months at sea and the ensuing year. She not only survived, she procreated and would be the last of the original comers to survive. Mary married Thomas Cushman, who came to Plymouth with his father, Robert, who skipped The Speedwell and arrived on the ship Fortune in November of 1621. Robert then left little Thomas, alone, in Plymouth. Mary and Thomas had eight children and more than 50 grandchildren. Both lived to the age of 83. 

One of their children was Eleazer Cushman, born February 20, 1656 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Coombs, who was born in Boston in 1662. They had 10 children, including Moses Cushman, who was born in 1693 in Plymouth. They had 11 children, including Abner Cushman. 

The Cushman Memorial, Plymouth Burial Hill.

Abner married Mary Frances Tillson of Plymouth and they had seven children. Two of their daughters would marry Lyons boys.

Fear Cushman, born August 6, 1749 in Halifax, Plymouth, Massachusetts, married Asahel Lyon of Plympton on October 10, 1776 in Halifax. (This Asahel is NOT the Asahel Lyon who was  killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.) Sister Lydia Cushman married Asahel's brother, Obadiah Lyon on October 27, 1773.

Fear and Asahel, my 5th great-grandparents, had only three children -- Jessie, Eunice, and Mary (1780). 

Jessie, my fourth great grandfather, is an anomaly. My original information was that his father died young and his mother remarried and perhaps the family moved to Canada. Many genealogies for his wife Sarah Dimock (or Dimick) do not even include Jessie as a spouse. But they had at least four children: Asahel Dimock Lyon, George, Issac David, and John A. And, allegedly, Jessie lived for more than 100 years. 

Asahel, my great great great grandfather, served in the War of 1812 as a Corporal in the 11th Regiment of the U.S. Infantry under Captain V.R. Goodrich. After the war, he was given a land grant of 160 acres in DeKalb County, Illinois. He moved his family, including his wife Adeline Woodruff, from Westport, New York to Illinois in 1850.

Only one son did not make the move. My great grandfather Joseph Lucius Cincinatus Pitt Lyon chose instead to join his cousin, George Newell, to Louisiana, where he became an overseer on the Semple Plantation. 

Lucius married four times leaving three sons. John Futch Lyon, my great grandfather, married Emily LaBruyere and had 10 children, including my grandfather Druis Lyons (who somehow added the S). He married Pauline Dupre and had five children, including my father, Lionel Lyons.

And that roughly sums up the 400 years since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and now.

For people like me who spend their late night hours and rainy afternoons doing genealogy, finding a Mayflower connection is like finding the Holy Grail. Some spend years and thousands of dollars digging up dead relatives with documentation so they can apply to The Mayflower Society and receive a lovely certificate suitable for framing. Having only found my connection a few years ago, I'm still thinking about finding the time to do the paperwork. 

For now, I'm content to just let my fellow Lyon/Lyons descendants know that we are, indeed, Mayflower descendants. Do with it what you will. 

Just in case anyone was wondering, here is my latest DNA update. No surprises. The Lyons are Scotish/English and all my Cajun peeps are French. I honestly have no idea where the Native American comes from.