Out of the Shadow of Leprosy: The Carville Letters and Stories of the Landry Family

Chapter 7. Lives Remembered and Restored

145 = Chapter 7 Lives Remembered and Restored “The only thing it is a lonesome place.” Norbert to Edmond, August 8, 1919 My grandfather’s life was always the object of my search. He was the one I wanted to know, but I knew little of him and even less of his siblings. In fact, I had little sense that Norbert and Amelie even existed until the family letters were found in 1977. They, like Edmond, had died before any of my generation was born, and they had been swallowed up in the secrecy that surrounded us. I remember meeting Marie and Albert once or twice when I was a child. Once Marie died in 1962, Albert visited our family more often. He became a participant in our family: always present for graduations, weddings, and funerals until his own death. But silence still inhibited our conversation and euphemism cloaked the truth. We talked about Uncle Albert visiting from Baton Rouge, not Carville. Because my personal interest was always in finding my grandfather, I devoted less time to studying Norbert, Marie, Albert, and Amelie. However, they, too, had stories and their lives deserve the acknowledgment that can be gleaned from information about them. While Norbert is known only through his letters, we have stories about Marie, Albert, and Amelie from their friends in Carville who were still alive when I began my work. These friends had memories and stories about my relatives that added to my knowledge of them. This chapter will use the existing material on Norbert, Amelie, Marie, and Albert to restore their stories that have been silenced for too long. 146 Lives Remembered and Restored Norbert, in the years before leprosy caught up with him. In Carville, he wrote that he had a derby hat, had grown a moustache, and looked like Charlie Chaplin. (Date unknown; family collection; used with permission.) Lives Remembered and Restored 147 Letters from Carville: Norbert Landry to his Brother Edmond “With love to you one and all. I am your Brother JJ.” To Edmond, Sept. 15, 1919 Norbert Landry served in the army in France from October 1918 until his return to the States in April 1919. During that time he contracted meningitis and also showed symptoms of leprosy, a condition he may have had previously but that was exacerbated by the tensions of war. He returned home in April with the intention of working and marrying his fiancée, Louise. By July 30, 1919, he was a resident of the Louisiana Leper Home in Carville, Louisiana, the precursor of the United States Public Health Services Hospital. He remained at Carville from July 30, 1919, until his death in February 1924, eight months before his older brother Edmond was incarcerated there. We have a total of fifty-one letters from Norbert between August 1919 and December 1924; most of them are before 1921 when the Louisiana Home came under the governance of the federal government, but his correspondence indicates that he also wrote letters to his relatives in Lafayette and for a few months to Louise. Of the fifty-one letters to family, thirteen of them were written to his brother Edmond, always with the intention that they would be shared by the family. In his correspondence, Norbert maintains a naïve faith and optimism that prayer and medicine would effect a cure and that he would be released from the Home. His letters project his loneliness but also his trust in God, hygiene, and medicine to cure him; attitudes that are remarkably different from those of Edmond. His letters, more than Edmond’s, give an insight into the day-to-day life in Carville, especially when it was the Louisiana Leper Home. Although most of the letters are to his parents, his first one is written to Edmond who may already have feared that he too would be stricken with leprosy. Certainly Edmond’s isolation at home in 1923 and 1924 gave him ample time to recall and contemplate the letters from his brother. 148 Lives Remembered and Restored In my room after breakfast Aug. 8, 1919 Mr. Ed. Landry New Iberia, La. Dear Brother; I was to write before but I didn’t have any stamps. So I got the Sisters to get me some. Well I am getting along alright but the only thing it is a lonesome place. I take my medicine regular and my bath too. I...