8 i! DES é] THE PATTON COURIER HOPE OF LOUTS ARCENEALX ~ GABRIEL” 8 By ELMO SCOTT WATSON NE of the tenderest love stories in American literature and one of America’s best-loved poets, who made that love story immortal, are to have an enduring memorial in the form of a national park of 1,000 acres, if present plans are carried forward to a successful con- clusion. That story is the story of the quest of Evangeline, the Acadian maiden, for her lover, the poet is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who wrote her epic of love and devotion, and the project is the establishment of a national reserva- tion near St. Martinville, La., to be known as Longfellow-Evangeline National Memorial park. Down in Louisiana the descendants of Evan- geline's people, the Acadians, have formed a Long- fellow-Evangeline National Park association, the purpose of which is stated by its officers as fol- lows: To build a great national memorial to the Acadians; to erect a splendid bronze statue, rep- resenting Longfellow and the heroine of his poem, “Evangeline,” the Acadian malden of Grand Pre: to preserve the Evangeiine Oak, a tree more than four hundred years old, also the ancient trees around St. Martinsville, the scene of the poem; to preserve the ancient brick building which stands near the oak and which was the trading post of the Attakapas Indians, and to build a Youseum in which will be kept the records and antiques used by the early Acadlans and French emigrants into Louisiana, as well as a record of each donor, so that the lives of these people, whom Longfellow immortalized, may be studied by this generation and generations to come. In accordance with this plan the association is enlisting the ald of every citizen of Louisiana to have the first national park in the South located in the Pelican state. It has already secured appropriation of $10,000 by the state legislature which has made possible the purchase of a tract of at least 250 acres and it is asking the federal government for an appropriation of $100,000 in order that more land—as much as 1,000 acres, if possible—may he bought. The project is more than one ‘o foster local pride, since by it the natural beauties of that section may be made more apparent and made accessible to the thousands of tourists from all parts of the country who drive through the Acadian country every year. For that reason the park has a national significance. nificance in that French Canadians will be invited to share in thus honoring the memory of those of their people who, so many years ago, were forced to leave their homes and go into exile. Included in the plans for the park are those for a sculptured group of Longfellow and his two famous characters, Evangeline and Gabriel. This group will be placed as nearly as possible to the spot where tradition says Evangeline kept her tryst with the lover of her youth. Near It will be built a wading pool and about this will stand the sculptured symbolic figures of Youth, Gladness, Love and Despair, &s exemplified In the poem. And over all this artificial Heauty will tower the gray moss-hung oaks and cypress trees which are such a prominent feature of the Loulslana landscape. One of the beauty spots In the park will be an old-fashioned garden in which will be found flowers such as Evangeline tended in her garden by the Basin of Minas and through which will run shaded walks, winding around quiet peo!s —a place of ancient beauty whose only modern touch will be the driveways for motorists, the gates that mark the entrance and the lighting system which will make possible the use of the park at night, Although the park is situated in the Acadian country and will be a memorial to the Acadians, it will be no less a memorial to Longfellow, the poet. It has already won the support of many varying Interests. The trades unions of America will erect there a monument symbolical of Long- fellow's poem, “The Builders.” The Iron-workers of Canada and the United States are uniting to Jt aiso has an international sig- erect a statuary group depleting “The Village Blacksmith.” “Hiawatha” will be immortalized in bronze by contributions from the Indians of the two countries and an effort will be made to interest the school children of America in giving penny contributions which will make possible a statue appropriate to “The Children’s Hour.” Although they were characters of fiction, there once did live a “Gabriel” and an “Evangeline” whose love story inspired Longfellow’s poem. The name of the real “Evangeline” was Emmerline Labiche, the faithless “Gabriel” was Louis Arce- neaux, and their life story is a part of the tragic tale of the simple folk of Acadia who were deported by British soldiery from their homes away back in 1755. The Acadians were French colonists who had settled in what is now Nova Scotia in 1607, and who lived a happy, contented existence in their homes in the New world until caught in the maelstrom of world politics, stirred up by the coutest between England and France to decide which nation was to dominate the North American continent, In the serles of wars between the two countries which began in 1689 Acadia was a pawn on the international chess-board, now held by the French and now by the British. As for the Acadians themselves, they were In the main neutral. In fact they were often referred to in the official papers of the time as the “Neu- tral French.” While the sympathies of most of them no doubt leaned toward their own country- men and some of them supported the French cause, for the most part they wished to be left alone in their peaceful pursuits as farmers and fishermen. The question of thelr allegiance was never definitely settled after any of the treaties of peace, but In 1755, with France and Lngland girding for the final decisive struggle, the Acadians found themselves caught between the upper and nether millstones of British and French demands for their loyalty. In that year the British, who then held Acadla, decided that the Acadians were “an enemy en- camped in the heart of the province” and deter- mined to force a show-down. They reiterated a demand that had been made many years before, but which had never been insisted upon—that the Acadians take an oath of allegiance to the British crown upon pain of forfeiture of their rights and lands. What followed is well-described by George M. Wrong in “The Conquest of New France” in the Yale University Chronicles of America as follows: The thing was done In the summer and autumn of 1755. Colonel Robert Monckton, a regular officer, son of an Irish peer, who always showed an in- effable superiority to provincial officers serving under him, was placed in charge of the work. He ordered the male inhabitants of the neighborhood of Beausejour to meet him there on the tenth of August. Only about one-third of them came-—some four hundred. He told them that the government at Halifax now declared them rebels. Their lands and all thelr goods were forfeited; they them- selves were to be kept in prison. Not yet, how- ever, was made known to them the decision that they were to be treated as traitors of whom the province must be rid. No attempt was made any- where to distinguish loyal from disloyal Acadians. Major Lawrence, British governor at Halifax, gave orders to the military officers to clear the country of all Acadians, to get them by any necessary means on board the transports which would carry them away, and to burn thelr houses and crops so that those not caught might perish or be forced to surrender during the coming winter. At the moment, the harvest had just been reaped or was ripening. When the stern work was done at Grand Pre, at Pisiquid, now Windsor, at Annapolis, there were harrowing scenes. In command of the work at Grand Pre was Colonel Winslow, an officer from Massachusetts—some of whose relatives twenty- five years later were to be driven, because of their loyalty to the British king, from their own homes in Boston to this very land of Acadia. Winslow {ssued a summons in French to all the male in- habitants, down to lads of ten, to come to the church at Grand Pre on Friday, the fifth of Sep- tember, to learn the orders he had to communicate. Those who did pot appear were to forfeit their GRAVE QF “ZB VANGELLIE goods. No doubt many of the Acadians did not understand the summons. Few of them could read, and it hardly mattered to them that on one occa- sion a notice on the church door was posted upside down. Some four hundred anxious peasants ap- peared. Winslow read to them a proclamation to the effect that their houses and lands were for- feited and that they themselves and thelr families were to be deported. Flve vessels from Boston lay at Grand Pre. In time more ships arrived, but chill October had come before Winslow was finally ready. By this time the Acadlans realized what was to happen. The men were joined by their families. As far as possible the people of the same village were kept together. They were forced to march to the transports, a sorrow-laden company, women carrying babes in their arms, old and decrepit people borne in carts, young and strong men drag- ging what belongings they could gather. Winslow's task, as he says, lay heavy on his heart and hands: “It hurts me to hear their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.” By the first of November he had embarked 1,500 unhappy people. His last ship- load he sent off on the thirteenth of December. The suffering from cold must have been terrible. In all from Grand Pre and other places more AUN MEMORIAM | > HR 3 eo The Doughboys Who Never Came Home: American Cemetery at Suresnes, Outside Paris, Where 1,497 Soldlers of the A. E. I. Lie Buried. Always Decorated on Memorial Day. Fields of Honor in Fair France Crosses Row on Row Mark Graves of Our Boys in Honored Rest. ~ Ten years after the declaration of war by the United States against yermany in the year 1917 there remain in Europe few traces of the Amer- ican Expeditionary forces which proved the deciding fac- tors in the con- flict. For the most part, the battle- fields have grown up with weeds, or have been restored to cultivation by ”m the plow. The ho- tels, the barracks, the hospitals we used have been re- than 6,000 Acadians were deported... They werew.l turned long since to peace time duty. scattered in the English colonies from Maine to Georgia and in both France and England. Many died; many, helpless in new surroundings, sank into decrepit pauperism. Some reached people of their own blood in the French colony of Louisiana and Canada. Among those who came to Louisiana was young Louis Arceneaux who had become separated from his sweetheart, Emmerline Labiche, and who set- tled on Bayou Teche, a stream which winds in and out like a snake, hence its name, which is the Indian term for snake. Here, too, ten years later came Emmerline Labiche, who had been mourning the loss of her lover. - And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fireflies, Wandered alone and she cried, “O, Gabriel. O, my beloved! Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee? Ah, how often thy feet have trod this path to the 1 prairie! At last Emmerline found her lover, and tradition says that the meeting took place beneath the his- toric Evangeline Oak on the Bayou Teche, where she learned that her faithless lover had married another, It was the story of Emmerline Labiche and Louls Arceneaux, told to Longfellow when he was an Instructor at Harvard by a student from Louisiana, later Judge Henry Simon, which the poet wove into his famous poem. If you visit St. Martinsville, 1a, today they will point out to you the house where “Gabriel” (Louis Arceneaux) once lived and they will take you to the spot near the left wing of the old St. Martin Catholic chureh, established in 1765 by Father Jean Francois, a Capuchin missionary, where sleeps “Evangeline” (Emmerline Labiche). It is not strictly true, as Longfellow has written it, that Side by side In their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping. Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard, In the heart of the city, they lle, unknown and unnoticed. Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing be- side them. But if you go there you will still hear the soft accents of the Acadian tongue and you may learn that upon occasion Maidens still wear their Norman caps and thelr kirtles of homespun, And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story For the descendants of the exiled Acadians are proud of thelr ancestry with its heritage of sorrow and in this country of primitive beauty they live simply, yet extending always a hospitality to the stranger that warms the heart. It is in honor of these simple, kindly people who “have left their forceful personwmlity, the ‘gray granite’ virtues o honesty and uprightness, piety and political power in the civil records throughout the United States the country they have done so much to develop.” that the Longfellow-Evangeline National Memo rial park is to be established for th& enjoyment of all Americans, A few unofficial monuments mark cer- tain battle scenes, but the official bat- tle monuments are yet in the prelim- inary stages. The American Legion- naires who return to Europe for their convention at Paris next September will miss a great many sights which were familiar in 1917 and 1918. But there are eight permanent, plain and prominent mementoes of the Legionnaires of ten years ago—the eight American military cemeteries overseas, These cemeteries, the final resting places of more than 30,000 of those who followed Pershing overseas, are now handsome, well-kept, solemn flelds of honor. At dawn the flag is raised over each of them. Each sunset it is lowered. In each the crosses stand in steady rows, white against a back- ground of green sod, and a first bud- ding of young trees gives promise of greater beauty asthe years roll by. Here are the lasting records of the A BF Six Mark Battlefields. Six of the American cemeteries are on the battlefields, on ground taken from the enemy by the power of American arms, on ground restored to France and to Belgium by our deliver- ing sword. The other two are near the great cities of London and Paris. Here is the list of them and the num- ber of those who lie therein: Number Official Name Location Near Graves Flanders field, Waereghem, Bel- BUM Liv ie iia, 365 Somme cemetery, Bony, France .. 1,826 Meuse - Argonne cemetery Ro- magne-sous-Montfaucon ....... 14,107 St. Mihiel cemetery, Thiaucourt .. 4,141 Olse-Aisne cemetery, Fere-en- Tar@eNols ...........onisnsenss 5,946 Aisne-Marne cemetery, Belleau .. 2,212 Brookwood cemetery, London, BNE, covrvrstrrsiannernveiseesins 437 Suresnes cemetery, Paris, France 1,606 More than half of our soldier dead overseas were brought home to the States for burial. Of the dead not brought back to America, those which were in 1919 al- ready resting at Suresnes or Brook- wood, or at the sites selected for the “battlefield cemeteries, remained undis- turbed. The others, from scattering, temporary battlefield cemeteries, were reverently moved to their permanent resting places. This task, carefully and thoroughly performed by the graves registration service of the army, resulted in an almost complete identification of our soldier dead. " Monument Problem, The cemeteries remain in charge of the graves registration service, which maintains rest houses at each, has caretakers in charge, keeps complete records for the use of visitors and maintains the grounds, landscape gar- dening and improvements. Further beautifying of the cemeteries has been placed in charge of the American Bat- tle Monuments commission, a body created by congress to take charge of the whole plan and problem of Amer- ican memorials in Europe. This monument question is no sim- ple one, as anyone who ever visited the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pa., will bear witness. States, cities, divi- sions, brigades, companies, and private citizens, not to mention memorial as- sociations and societies, are already vying for the privilege of placing a monument at this point, a memorial at that. The government commission must decide where there shall be mon- uments and who shall raise them. In a similar way the cemeteries have offered a problem. Should individuals be allowed to place special headstones or monuments for their loved ones? Shall churches or societies be al- lowed to erect chapels at the ceme- teries? And so forth. The chairman of the Battle Monu- ments commission is Gen. John J. Pershing. Its membership, appointed by President Coolidge and serving without salary, includes Robert G. Woodside, of Pittsburgh, vice chair- man ; Senator David A. Reed, of Penn- sylvania; Representative John Philip Hill ;}«Representative Finis J. Garrett; Col. D. John Markey of Maryland, and Mrs. Frederic W. Bentley. Maj. X. H. Price, a regular army officer on duty at Washington, is secretary. After careful studies, this commis- slon outlined a complete plan for offl- cial battle monuments in the zones occupied by American forces in offen- sive operations, and a corresponding plan for the improvement of American Beautiful spot in Arlington National cemetery, forever dedicated to the heroic dead. cemeteries. The most expensive phase of the cemetery work to be done is the erec- tion of chapels. These will be sult- able for sacred purposes, but nonsec- tarifan. The larger ones will prob- ably have a room that will be some- thing of a museum of battle relics, as well as the chapel room. Another matter now well in hand is complet- Ing masonry walls around the ceme- terfes, a work only delayed in places OUR BOYS IN FRANCE After the grewsome sound has died Of the last shrieking shell, We pause and ponder, dewy-eyed, Over the ona# who fell. They sleep. The world goes marche ing on. x The world must halt today Thinking of those but lately gone Resting so far away. Solemn yet grand the hero's fate Soft let the requiem be Whilst tender fingers decorate Those graves across the sea. —Louisville Courier-Journal. while waiting for the determination of definite plans for the chapels, as these in many cemeteries will have an effect on the location of the walls, How Graves Are Marked. In so far as personal monuments in the cemeteries are concerned, the com- mission adopted an iron-clad, final rule that there will be no especial per- sonal monuments. Over each grave will be a headstone, and there will be the same for officers and privates, rich and poor, young and old. The name, rank, organization and home state will be engraved on each stone, And they will lie side by side, as they fell, equal in glory and sacrifice. The plans for battle monuments are another and even larger task of the commission. They are well under way, and form a project which should be completed in about two years. The first of the American ceme- teries to be so designated, and to re- ceive American dead, was that hillside tract on Mont Valerian, overlooking Paris and the Seine valley, and called Suresnes. Everyone from America goes to Suresnes, both in tribute to our honored dead; and because there is no finer view of the city of Paris from any nearby hilltops. Suresnes is three miles from the city limits, on the right of the Seine below the city. The cem- etery stands well up on the highest of several hills, and from fits gates the panorama is uninterrupted for many miles. At Suresnes are buried many who dled in Paris hospitals from wounds sustained in battle, and others who fell victims of disease and accidents, It is most complete of all the Ameri- can cemeteries in France, in so far as time has completed it hy growing the trees larger, the shrubbery thick- er and finer. Suresnes already be- longs to the ages, a fit resting place for heroes, far up above the towers of Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomph, commanding forever what is perhaps the loveliest of the famous valleys of the world. Ours to Keep the Faith Memorial day is best celebrated by that deep appreciation of the loyalty. Gevotion and heroism which made this a united nation-and which should im: press us with our own responsibility for keeping it united for generations that are to follow us.—Grit. TR (DADDY EVEN) FAIRY T Mary Gal COPYRIGHT OY WESTERN NEN ——————————— SF There was a | Spot. He was a | A Great Traveler. he did a great deal He would go fro other, One time he stru nate neighborhood. From outward a most delightful. Al not know that the dog. This dog had the Ing very fond of ch Spot felt quite c¢ picked out a place no dogs for miles there was one less a mile away. “It didn’t take th out that Spot had n borhood. The next morning the dog was up. H up still earlier, He had climbed ti where he had seer clover sprouting ab Suddenly Spot say to run up the hill. a muddy mound. He rushed for it, ¢ had time to get up t a long steep, one, Spot had bur rowed into the mud and patted the part over with his paw, where he had got through it, and there he was safe and sound inside the mud ball. When the dog got to the top of the hill he could see no sign of the rabbit. He looked ev- erywhere. Of | course, it was slightly hot inside the mud ball, but the rabbit had one v And he felt safe, t The dog thought | thing like a bunny mound, but he saw rabbit. The little Spot, w so much, was too cle and after the dog wal gusted and disappoi got out of his hidin which even the dog him, and laughed har But that night Spo a new home, as he run any risks. - CONUND What bird is rude bird. * 8 What jam can a | door jamb. . “* What three letters P. N.Y. (Peony). ® ® What animal has points? A porcupine. . * When is an omnibt When it is a one-step * . Why is a ship nes cause it always has & * - | When did Washing carriage? When he | the cherry tree. » ® 1 When may a man b fast before he gets takes a “roll” in bed. * * i Why are cripples an lar to shepherds and cause they live by hoo * - 4 What is the differ blind man and a disabl can't see to go and the to sea (see). Nelly Was Bon and his playm birthdays but a few da came first. One morning Nelly « his birthday gift, a we the proper day, and sh Don, who liked surj appdinted and said, *. yuh showin’ it to me n “So you'll know. in ft somethin’,” declared N
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers