Laura locoul gore biography of donald

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Details the daily life and major events of the inhabitants, both free and slave of her plantation.

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I bought the book after touring the Laura plantation. I don't think the book stands alone, but it does complement the tour. The tour provides much more information on the lives of the enslaved on the plantation, but the book provides the historical timeline for the generations of Laura's family, from the Revolutionary War (where her great-grandfather fought with the French and Spanish), to the Louisiana Purchase, to the Civil War, to the sale of the plantation. The book also paints a clearer picture of how money was mismanaged in her parents' generation. Laura grew up in the lap of luxury, staying months at resorts or at the best hotels in New York City, dancing at balls, etc., and died in near-poverty surrounded by mementoes of her show more childhood.

This book also enlightened me as to the amount of work that goes into presenting a tour of a historical site. The story of how Laura's manuscript was found is an less

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Genres
Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, Travel
DDC/MDS
— History & geography History of North America South central United States Louisiana
LCC
FS G67 — Local History of the United States, Canada and Latin America United States local history Louisiana

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  • An interesting fact we

    • Laura Plantation – Portrait of a Creole family (Day out New Orleans)

    By Alexandra Redisch in Vacherie, Louisiana

    At the earnest insistence of my three children, Lollie, Daisie and Charlie Jr., I write the memories of my childhood days on the old plantation in Louisiana for them. I have concluded to do so, before my memory begins to fail me, for I realise that I am the last one of my generation left who could tell them of life in the South as I knew it, and of the old plantation home where I first saw the light of day.

    These are the words of Laura Locoul Gore, the last head of what was to be known as the Laura Plantation. Creole women, you see, ran businesses and owned property. Already in the early s, the smartest child (regardless of gender) would inherit the family business.

    Creole tradition also dictated that the eldest daughters are responsible for saving family history, so Laura wrote down everything she knew at the age of Though she would go on to lead a life outside the plantation and the creole world (and become years old), she felt strongly about her family&#;s history and traditions.

    Laura&#;s story tells of the breakdown &#; slowly but surely &#; of an old Louisiana family empire, and the fading Creole way of life.


    Generation I: The story begins&#;

    &#; with General Guillaume Duparc, a very violent French man who arrives in the South to fight LaFayette after killing a man in a duel in France. As a thank you, after Louisiana becomes part of the USA, Duparc is given land on the west bank of the Mississippi River to build a plantation. In , just four years later, Guillaume dies, and his wife Nanette is noted as the first president of the plantation.

    In , Nanette wishes to retire to a separate house on the estate, the Maison de Reprise. Her daughter Elisabeth takes over as plantation president, but Nanette is still involved, receiving an annual $75k for consulting services. At 94, Nanette is killed when a bomb hits the Maison de

    A tour of Laura Plantation, located at Highway 18 in Vacherie, LA, is different from all the other tours in two main ways. 1) This doesn&#;t LOOK like the stereotypical plantation mansion with its Creole colors of yellows, blues, reds and greens, rather than the typical white paint and columns found on most of the others.  And 2) the tour itself focuses on the PEOPLE and their stories, rather than on the furnishings and the architecture.

    A view from the upper porch.

    Sign at the entrance to the Laura Plantatio

    Laura Locoul Gore &#; the plantation&#;s namesake &#; has provided most of the narrative for the tour personally in the memoirs she compiled and wrote out by hand for her grandchildren &#; &#;Memories of the Old Plantation Home,&#; along with &#;A Creole Family Album&#; with Commentary by Norman and Sand Marmillion, who purchased Laura in

    The bulk of the Laura story tells of 4 generations of strong successful women, starting with Laura&#;s great-grandmother, Nanette Prud&#;Homme widow of Guillaume Duparc, then to her grandmother Elizabeth and on to Laura.  Interwoven with the history of plantation owners are stories of several notable slaves.

    A wall of portraits mostly feature Laura Locoul Gore.

    An interesting fact we learned is that Laura Locoul Gore was born when Abraham Lincoln was president and died when John F. Kennedy was president.  One day when she was a child she was playing at the well when one of the slaves named Felippe came to get water for the mules.  She noticed some letters on his cheeks and learned that he had been branded for running away when he was much younger.  That made an indelible impression on Laura. Add that to the fact that she lived between the times of two presidents who both emphasized Civil Rights, and you get a person with definite feelings about the rights of slaves and how they should be treated.

    Lonely Planet Travel has called the tour of Laura &#;Best history tour in the USA!&#; Much credit for that goes

  • Laura Gore formerly Locoul

    • Tours are based largely on the memoirs of fourth-generation plantation owner Laura Locoul Gore (), after whom the plantation was named. Her "Memories of the Old Plantation Home" gives a detailed account of plantation life that was strictly regimented and isolating. These tales are alternately humorous, tragic, inspiring and chilling, but they are always entertaining thanks to Marmillion's riveting storytelling style.

    One heart-wrenching tale is that of a young slave girl, Anna, who was Laura's servant until she married. The story goes that one day as Laura's mother, Desiree, was rocking Laura to sleep, she heard Anna's desperate cries and ran to see what the source of her anguish was. Laura's grandmother, Elisabeth, who was the long-reigning mistress of the plantation, was bargaining with a slave trader, attempting to sell Anna and keep her child. Desiree was incensed by her mother-in-law's callousness and begged her husband, Emile, to intervene. He did — saving Anna but incurring the wrath of his iron-fisted mother.

    The principal house at Laura Plantation is not the typical white, Greek Revival-style mansion so often associated with antebellum-era plantations. Built in by slave labor, the cypress board house is painted bright ochre, red and green, making it as colorful as the characters who once lived there. It was raised as protection against the unleveed Mississippi River. In spite of its size, (17, square feet, including the above-ground basement and attic) the Creole-style architecture makes the home appear quite modest. A defining feature of many Creole houses, including Laura, is the gender-specific parlors. The women's parlor was on the upriver side of the house, and the men's parlor was on the downriver side.

    In keeping with Creole plantation custom, the house is furnished in a relatively simple style. The family did most of their entertaining at their home in New Orleans during the social season (January to March) where furnishings were more elaborat