North Louisiana Catholic History Trivia
1. What was the salary for an assistant priest in north Louisiana in 1883?
On instruction of the bishop, an assistant priest was paid 33-1/3 cents per day plus board, laundry and stabling/feed for a horse.
2. What was travel like in north Louisiana in 1873?
A trip by stage line between Monroe and Shreveport took 36 hours; by horseback, Shreveport to Natchitoches, requires 4 days according to a priest’s diary.
3. What was the weather like in Shreveport over 100 years ago?
Father Joseph Gentille, second pastor of Holy Trinity Church, reports in his diary: “1885 January 16th at 8 o’clock A.M. snow began falling… three or four inches thick ..January 22 and 23 sleet, cold wind …streets too dangerous for any one to venture out.”
4. Which priest of northeast Louisiana was elected to the police jury and later founded a financial institution?
Father Ludovic Enaut, pastor at Monroe and Bastrop, resigned from the parish in 1895 after election to the police jury. He declined the offer to become president of a local bank In 1904 he founded and served as president of People’s Homestead Building and Loan Association of Monroe.
Father Ludovic Enaut
Father Gergauds’ friend and assistant, the Rev. Ludovic Enaut, succeeded him as pastor of St. Matthew’s Church in 1874. Father Ludovic Enaut was born on May 24, 1845, in Virtre, Brittany, France. Records are scarce, but what we do have tell us that Father Enaut was born to a family of eleven and received his education from the university located in his native town. Father Enaut then entered the Rennes Seminary where he studied for the priesthood. The young seminarian terminated his studies and traveled to America. He arrived in Natchitoches, Louisiana in 1868 and was later ordained a priest by Bishop Martin on June 2nd of the same year. Bishop Martin sent Father Enaut to be the assistant priest to Father Gergaud; he arrived in Monroe at St Matthew’s on June 28, 1868. Under the guidance and instruction of Father Gergaud, Fr. Enaut became a valuable assistant. A short time later, he was sent to Bastrop, Louisiana, (probably 1871) where along with the area Catholics, he built a small Catholic Church, later to be named St Joseph’s. Father Gergaud purchased the lot for $500.00 using his personal funds. In 1873, Father Enaut was appointed pastor at St Joseph’s in Bastrop, and he remained there until the death of Father Gergaud in October of the same year. At that time Bishop Martin dispatched Father Enaut back to St Matthew’s to assume the duties left vacant by Fr. Gergaud.
St. Joseph Church, Bastrop, LA 1940
5. What church property was mortgaged to pave a street?
In 1928 it was decided that Harrington street which runs alongside St. Joseph Church in Bastrop would be paved. The small Catholic community found it difficult to meet the assessed costs and took out a mortgage. In 1937 when foreclosure was threatened, the bishop paid off the mortgage. He was repaid in 1944.
6. Which pastor designed a new church for his parish?
In 1957, Father Robert C. Friend, a designer and builder, provided the specifications for construction of St. Joseph Church in Zwolle. Father Friend served as pastor from 1944 to 1975, and also built or renovated the rectory, school and convent.
7. What was the name of the first Catholic chapel at Grambling, Louisiana?
Reports show Blessed Martin de Porres Chapel located at Grambling in 1947. By 1960 the student center chapel was called St. Benedict the Moor.
8. What convent building, much earlier in its history, had been visited by Ulysses S. Grant?
As a young captain in the Mexican War (1846-48) U.S. Grant dined in a tavern located on the highway he was resurveying between Natchitoches and San Antonio. That building, located in Many, Louisiana, became the residence of the Sisters of Divine Providence in 1898 when they arrived at St. John the Baptist Church to staff a school.
9. What church was built with used lumber from a hospital ward?
In 1939 the hospital ward for African-Americans at Monroe’s St. Francis Sanitarium (now St. Francis Medical Center) was torn down and replaced by a new building. The Franciscan sisters donated the used lumber to help in construction of Little Flower of Jesus Church dedicated in February 1940.
Little Flower of Jesus Catholic Church
10. How did Carmel, Louisiana, get its name?
Father Anastasius Peters, a Carmelite priest serving the Church at Bayou Pierre (DeSoto Parish), accepted a U.S. government appointment as postmaster for the area in 1889. The name of Bayou Pierre was changed to Carmel in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel to whom the Carmelite Order is dedicated.
11. What was the original name of St. Lucy Church in Hodge?
The first Catholic church in Hodge was consecrated in 1929 as St. Henry at the request of an unnamed benefactor working through the Catholic Church Extension Society. The present church was constructed in 1962, and the parish was renamed in honor of St. Lucy.
12. Which church in northeast Louisiana was burned during the Civil War?
The first St. Patrick Church in Lake Providence was built at the start of the Civil War. When the Union army occupied the town in 1863, everyone fled. The vacant church burned in 1865 apparently from carelessness.