The citizens of Vacherie had been praying for rain. And around 3 p.m. on August 24, 1924, it appeared their prayers had been answered.
“It had been a drought for like three months or longer,” said David Hubbell, a descendent of those in Vacherie that day. “All of a sudden, the clouds came out … but then it started getting really bad. Bad wind and rain.”
That day became one of the town’s most horrific. As residents sheltered in the newly built St. Philip Catholic Church and the former church beside it, a tornado ripped through and destroyed the old building. Seven people died and two others later succumbed to their injuries.
“[Rev. Father Fontaine] was told that his window was open in the rectory … and he ran out to close it,” Hubbell said. “And when he turned around, he saw a whirlwind tornado come down and strike the old church, and it lifted the roof and collapsed it. And so, it buried like 30 to 40 people underneath it immediately.”
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the tragedy last Saturday, Hubbell organized a memorial for community members and descendants of the nine killed. The event, attended by more than 200 people, included a blessing of the graves, Requiem Mass at St. Philip Catholic Church and dinner.
Hubbell’s great-grandfather, Arthur James Hubbell, died alongside Virginia Marie Hubbell, Florence Mary Fernandez, Lucille Marie Troxclaire, Stephen Louis Haydel, Belfort Pierre Haydel, Stephen Ambroise Haydel and Elia Marie Waguespack Haydel. Fernandez and Troxclaire were both 5 years old at the time.
“It was very devastating. The next day they had a Mass for all seven … of the nine,” Hubbell said. “All seven of the coffins were down the main aisle here [in St. Philip]. They had 5000 people in attendance.”
National news
At the time the storm rolled in, residents were preparing for a church fair later in the day. The news made it to the New York Times front page, and an Associated Press report described the scene the following day.
“Big tubs of ice-cream and stacks of sandwiches stand untouched near the ruins, mute reminders of the gayeties that had been planned,” it stated. “A hundred feet away is the new church recently completed which was to have benefitted by the afternoon and evening festivities. In this building several hundred took refuge and escaped unharmed.”
It added that Waguespack’s father, Lionel Waguespack, assisted with the injured despite his son’s death.
“Let us let the dead alone and do what we can for the living,” the paper quoted him as saying.
One of the people seriously injured was Mary Haydel. Her granddaughter, Betty Rogers, attended the ceremony last week and said Haydel taught her about the tragedy.
“We grew up here. This is our church,” she said. “… Grandma would take us at All Saints, All Souls Day, and she would point out all the August 24th, 1924, people.”
‘We are facing our human condition’
Opening his sermon, Rev. Vincent Dufresne addressed the deeper questions posed by such tragedies.
“We are not merely commemorating something that happened 100 years ago. But we are facing our human condition that we live in a world where tragedy, sadness, is a part of life,” he said. “And where every one of us is time and again faced with that interior emotional conflict: ‘Why? How could God?’”
In discussing the Vacherie destruction during his sermon, Dufresne offered that such events underscore life’s importance through its fragility.
“The scriptures address us in a way that challenges that question,” he said. “… We cannot judge life by the number of days, weeks or years an individual has, but rather we must judge our lives by what we do with the time we have.”
In his preparation, Hubbell left no stone unturned. Some of the passages read at the Requiem Mass were those read at the morning Mass a century before, and after the service he announced that a historical marker to commemorate the spot had been approved by the state.
But to Rogers and some other attendees, the commemoration was most significant because of the family homecoming.
“Father Vincent did a beautiful job of reminding us why we’re all together and family is important,” she said. “It’s a reunion because many of these [people] are the great-grandchildren or the great-great-grandchildren, and we haven’t seen each other, so we’re all coming back together.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-30 22:00:00
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