Stories
How Much Can One Heart Hold
-1865-
The war had ended but, of course, it hadn’t. It would never end. The scar would still be visible a century or more later. The victors would write the history of the conflict trying to be balanced and generous but not succeeding. How could they? They won. We lost. But for Mary Delphine Fayard the loss was more than about battles and political conflict. It was about family.
The Fayards had lived along the Mississippi Louisiana coast since the earliest days of French occupation of this land. Her grandfather Jean Baptiste ‘dit Lalancette’ (the dit meaning ‘known as’) came as a soldier to man a garrison needed to protect the property of the King of France. His marriage to Marie Fancoise LaGarrene Fisseau produced children who would populate the village of New Orleans.
In time the family moved up the coast to Biloxi working no longer as soldiers but as sailors who made their living off the Gulf of Mexico. Mary Delphine’s parents Genevieve Ryan and Ursin Fayard lived nearer to Gautier than to Biloxi and raised their six children: Eleanor, Antoine, Ursule, Joseph, Therese, as well as Mary of our story. Each child chose a spouse from the French community with names such as Richards, Toulme, Holley, Saucier, and Gautier.
Only Mary’s eye strayed afield to a Southerner from the Carolinas. Not a sailor. Not a soldier. A farmer with no farm whom the census records describe as a laboror. Life was hard before the war, but there was always family – both hers and the one she and Stephen Michael Hester brought to the world. Twelve in all with the first daughter Middie Adline born in 1838 and Rufus still a baby when the war began. Still to come would be Alice the last born in 1866 after the move to Texas. They were good children of whom she was proud – tall and handsome young men and lovely slender young women.
Already the first two of her cherished daughters were married to good men providing her with more family to love and fuss over in her French patois, the only language she spoke or knew. Her whole world consisted of family and church – so intertwined that it was hard to separate the two. Baptisms followed births as if a child were not real until recorded in church records.
And now this news of land to be had in Texas – a place spoken of but never seen. A place so far away (500 miles) that once the journey had been made, she knew she’d never return to this world, this land, this family she loved. But Stephen was adamant. The war would destroy Mississippi. What had been a hardship would become an impossible existence. Texas was their future.
She must leave behind her beloved mother Genevieve who herself had found solace and strength in her family after the death long ago of her husband Ursin. Mary must leave behind her darling Mary (the second born daughter) and her three grandchildren – one just a tiny baby born only months ago. The other two children born in Georgia had only just now begun to know her after the young family’s return to Mississippi. She had known that daughters might marry and be taken away by the new husbands, and she had accepted as fate Mary’s departure soon after her marriage. But she’d been so pleased to have her once again near.
As she packed each small memory away to take, she left behind the larger ones. Too many people. Too many needs. Her needs were not the most important. As she worked sorting and separating, she wondered if there would even be a priest in this new home to baptize her grandchildren. How would they raise families and move into the future without that? The strangeness overwhelmed her and made her weep spilling tears down her gown.
Family for Mary Delphine had a greater significance than terms such as aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Born in 1820 only a few years after the great battle of New Orleans, the French and Spanish influence was still strong. By the time she was ten the population of New Orleans had doubled. Its influence as a major port providing access to the both the Mississippi River and the huge gulf which opened to the ocean beyond giving the city power and importance. By the time she was twenty, New Orleans was the fourth largest city in the growing nation.
But that had not always been the case. In the early days when her parents and grandparents were just beginning to explore their world, the population was small. New Orleans and Louisiana were handed back and forth between France and Spain much like juggler’s balls. Even those living in Biloxi felt the impact of these changes, but the French community bonded forming a protective barrier against the political changes. And fish didn’t care which country owned them.
The population struggled to survive. In 1830 there were only 258 families in the entire county in which Mary Delphine lived far fewer when her parents were young. Yellow fever decimated families. Hurricanes swept away their lives and livelihood and homes. And the sea swallowed loved ones. Children who reached the age of marriage had few choices. As a result they wove families together by marrying sons from one family to the daughters of another family. The offspring from such unions had aunts and uncles who were related entirely by “blood.” These same children chose first cousins from these families as partners further conjoining the family lines. Later generations would call this incest but it was merely necessity.
This was the case for the Fayards. Jean Baptiste Fayard (Mary Delphine’s great grandfather) was the child of Francisca Fisseau. Jean married Marie Francoise LaGarrene Fisseau the daughter of Nicholas Fisseau (brother to Francisca). The result: Jean and Marie were first cousins.
From that union came Mary Delphine’s grandfather Louis Lalanzette who married Martha Gargaret. From that union came three boys: Jacques, Alexis, and Ursin (Mary Delphine’s father). Martha Gargaret’s sister Marie Ann married Jean Ryan. From that union came three daughters: Gertrude, Martha, and Genevieve (Mary Delphine’s mother).
Each of the three Fayard sons married each of the three Ryan daughters. Jacques married Gertrude; Alexis married Martha; and Ursin married Genevieve.
The genetic result was that each of these three marriages were between first cousins including Mary Delphine’s parents. This created a dangerously shallow gene pool, but that is only genetics. To those living these lives, it meant that relations were convoluted and close. Cousins were close enough to be siblings and were nearly that genetically. Everyone was connected through generations of intermarriage. For Mary Delphine, leaving this behind would be shattering bonds forged a hundred or more years ago.
It would also mean that her daughters (and sons) who moved with them to this new land would not have the comfort of marrying into families long familiar. They would be marrying strangers – perhaps better genetically but a hard reality. The French culture and language and religion would be lost as daughters entered these new strange lives. It was not an idea that gave Mary Delphine any comfort. At 45 years of age, she had anticipated spending the rest of her years surrounded by the familiarity of family and place. Instead she would have to find a new place for herself and build a new life for her children.
The tears had dried and only sadness poured from her eyes now. At this moment she didn’t know that baby Alice born into this new world, the joy of her later life, would be the first to be buried in the Hester Cemetery in Cherokee County – a cemetery established by the family as a place for them all to finally come to rest. Mary Delphine and Stephen Michael would not join her for many years, but in time it would be populated with many Hesters.