History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana, Interim Report, Volume II: Bayou Lafourche – An Oral History of the Development of the Oil and Gas Industry

McGuire, Tom

Born in Golden Meadow in 1923, Chester Cheramie was one of seven siblings in a trapping and fishing family. He graduated from high school, spent three and a half years in the Navy, then returned to Golden Meadow and worked as a roustabout for several years. His father-in-law gave him a barroom, which Chester operated for fifteen years before going to work for Cheramie Brothers’ boat company. He then worked in the office, doing mainly personnel, purchasing, and promotional work, for Nolte Theriot’s boat company. After 26 years at that job, he retired at age 74. One of his sons has a Ph.D. and directs the CODOFIL program (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana) out of Lafayette. CODOFIL was created by the Louisiana State Legislature in 1968 at the behest of several Lafayette-based cultural activists, and has worked to preserve and revive Cajun traditions and reintroduce French teaching in the public schools of south Louisiana. Chester and many other residents of south Lafourche carry painful memories of their school days where they were punished for speaking French. The state’s Board of Education banned the use of that language in public classrooms in 1916, and the Constitution of 1921 ratified the prohibition. I met Chester at the Fête de cochon in Cut Off in March, 2002. This boucherie (hog slaughtering) is held annually, reproducing a pattern whereby, prior to refrigeration, families would periodically butcher a pig and prepare the meat and internal organs for consumption by extended families and neighbors. At this fête, an Americorps student from up the bayou had the honor of dispatching the pig. The occasion is hosted and prepared by a group of men from south Lafourche, each allowed to invite their families and two guests. When I returned to the fête in March of 2003, Chester Cheramie had passed away. His widow was given a plaque commemorating Chester’s activities with the group.