Fwd: "Generations" newsletter of Les Guédry et Petitpas d'Asteur
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R. Martin Guidry
Feb 27, 2021, 10:41:50 PM2/27/21
to R. Martin Guidry
Subject: "Generations" newsletter of Les Guédry et Petitpas d'Asteur
Bonjour Cousins,
On 24 March 2021 I will be chairing a panel as part of the 2021 Louisiana History Association Annual Meeting entitled "Legacies of the German-Acadian Coast". It will be a zoom panel from 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Central Standard Time. The three superb presenters will be:Andreas Hübner from Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany; Francis Kolb Turnbell of the Tennessee Historical Society (Nashville, TN) and Fernin F. Eaton of St. Francisville, LA. Jay Schexnaydre, assistant manager of Laura Plantation in Vacherie, LA and President of the German-Acadian Coast Historical and Genealogical Society, will offer discerning comments on the presentations. The meeting is free and available to the general public.
The German-Acadian Coast is an area on the Mississippi River in southern Louisiana covering the parishes of St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. James just above New Orleans. Originally settled by the Germans in the 1720s, this area also became home to early Acadian arrivals in the 1760s.
You can learn more about the panel by clicking on the link below. This link will also let you join the zoom meeting on 24 March. Thanks to Fernin Eaton for organizing the panel.
On another note - we are about to have our first astronaut with an Acadian surname. Hayley Arceneaux was recently selected as one of four crew members for the all-civilian SpaceX Inspiration4 mission to lift off near the end of 2021. This three to four day mission will circle the earth every 90 minutes. Hayley will be the crew's Chief Medical Officer on the flight. One goal of Inspiration4 is to raise $200 million for St. Jude Hospital.
Hayley is a bone cancer survivor - beating the disease at age 10 at St. Jude Hospital. During her treatment she had a titanium rod inserted in her left thigh. At age 29 Hayley will be the youngest astronaut, the first Acadian in space and the first American in space with a prosthesis. With childhood dreams of devoting her life to St. Jude Hospital and going to space one day, Hayley became a physician assistant and currently works at St. Jude. This flight will fulfill what seemed to be an impossible dream of a young girl struggling to live.
The daughter of Howard and Colleen Arceneaux, Hayley was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and grew up in the nearby town of St. Francisville, LA. In 2003 Hayley received the Louisiana Young Heroes Award. You can read more about the Hayley and the Inspiration4 flight at the link below: Hayley's father Howard was adopted by Jess Arceneaux as a young boy when Howard's father U. S. Army Captain Howard Eakin Jr. was killed while flying a medevac mission in 1963 in the Vietnam War. Howard's mother Mary Ellen Matteo Eakin remarried to Jess Arceneaux. The extended Arceneaux family took in Howard as a son and he used the Arceneaux surname throughout his life. Jess Arceneaux's heritage traces back to Pierre Arceneaux and Marguerite Dugas, founders of the Acadian Arsenault line. We can certainly take great pride in Hayley - our soon-to-be first astronaut with an Acadian surname.
On a lighter note, Hayley actually follows our first Acadian in space although his flight in the early 1960s has almost been forgotten.
First Acadian on Moon
Unknown to most people, in the late 1950s the Canadians had a top secret space program. Formally called the Canadian Lunar Landing Initiative, its goal was to land a human on the moon. In 1958 Lieutenant Baptiste-Sévère Petitpas, an Acadian of Chezzetcook, Nova Scotia, was selected in the first class of Canadian astronauts. In 1961 Lt. Petitpas blasted into space on his epic journey to the moon. As he orbited the moon prior to his descent to the surface, Lt. Petitpas scribbled a few words on a notepad hoping they would be remembered and make him famous. After a successful descent to the moon's surface, he announced to the world those few epic words ... "Un petit pas pour un homme, un pas énorme pour l'humanité". Ingeniously finding a way to include his surname in his message to Earth, Lt. Petitpas secured his fame - he thought.
Almost a decade later in 1969, the Americans successfully landed their first astronauts on the moon. As American astronaut Neil Armstrong descended to the surface from the lunar lander, he remembered that earlier Acadian pioneer, B-S Petitpas, and translated his short note of 1961: "A small step for man, a giant step for mankind."
And now you know the rest of the story.
Thanks to Archbishop Gérard Pettipas of the Diocese of Alberta, Canada for reminding me of this historic event in Acadian history.
Have a nice Spring and stay safe and healthy,
Marty
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