Burg explained how they would give a grocery list to the engineer on the train which ran through the area. The engineer would drop the list off in New Orleans and on a return trip would deliver groceries back to the people of these towns. Burg also tells of dances each week in the homes of the residents, of a Catholic nun who would occasionally come from New Orleans to hold classes, and of land selling for twenty-five cents per acre. All of this was before the hurricane.

“We had no cars, no roads and we knew of LaPlace but a five or ten mile walk through the swamp to get there was too much… We had no doctors and all babies were delivered by a midwife… We had no electricity and our drinking water came from a cistern”, said Burg.

“The wind was blowing so hard it just whistled through the large cypress house and would make the oil lamps flicker,” Burg said of the night her idyllic life would change. She ended up in a train car with water two feet deep.  “Everyone kneeled down in the train in the water and prayed for hours. We knew a lot of our people were still out there somewhere in the storm.”  She continued, “About fifty people had crowded into the train station at Ruddock and were on their knees praying when the building blew away and its occupants hurled into the water.”

Burg tells the story of “an old black lady that everyone called Aunt Julie Brown... She always sat on her porch and played a guitar and sang a song that she had made up. The words of the song said that one day she would die and everyone would die with her. Well, the day before the storm came, Aunt Julie died.” There was a wake being held for her when the hurricane hit. “Her corpse was found the next day out in the swamp.”

“The storm continued through the night and, before daylight, everything got quiet. The next morning, the weather was beautiful. The water went down and the lake was as smooth as glass. The sun came up big, red and warm. It was one of the most beautiful days I had ever seen,” observed Burg. The hurricane of 1915 had brought a tidal surge to the area of twenty to twenty-five feet and washed away almost everything. “Out of all the towns, houses and sheds, there was only one structure left standing,” said Burg.

It would be several days before a relief party from New Orleans would arrive by boat with doctors, nurses and supplies. But the towns would not survive the devastation from the hurricane or the encroachment from Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas. All that is left today are markings on old maps that tell of towns which were once thriving Louisiana communities, memories, and a few precious artifacts that keep their memory alive in the small private Louisiana Treasures Museum.

Details. Details. Details.

Louisiana Treasures Museum
10290 Highway 22 West
Springfield, La
(225) 294-2863
Saturdays:  10 am–4 pm
Sundays:  Noon–4 pm
Admission fee is $3 per person

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