Photo from the Past
Carola Lillie Hartley
Publisher and Contributing Writer
Today’s Photo from the Past is this one of Rev. Carmen George Chachere (1909-1939), the first African American Catholic Priest from Opelousas.
The son of Ernest Chachere and Arthemise Mary Donatto, Carmen Chachere was born in Opelousas on January 31, 1909. He was baptized at St. Landry Catholic Church in Opelousas, and received his First Communion there on Thursday, June 19, 1919. Carmen Chachere attended St. Joseph School that later became Holy Ghost school in Opelousas. He entered the St. Augustine Seminary of the Society of the Divine Word in Bay St. Louis, Ms where he received the last Minor Orders on December 10, 1937. He completed his studies at the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. He was ordained at Rome on January 22, 1939.
After several months in Europe, Father Carmen Chachere returned to Opelousas, where he celebrated his first Solemn High Mass at Holy Ghost Catholic Church on August 6, 1939. Just a few days later, Father Chachere died suddenly of heart failure at the home of his parents in Opelousas on August 15, 1939. He is buried in St. Landry Catholic Church Cemetery in Opelousas.
Father Carmen Chachere’s younger brother Rev. Earl Lawrence Chachere (1911-1993) was ordained in 1945, celebrating his first Solemn High Mass at Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Opelousas on February 11 of that year.
During the 1940s, the Catholic War Veterans of Father Carmen Chachere, Post 698 in Opelousas was formed and named in his honor. In 1947 that war veterans’ group sponsored the first African American Boy Scout Troop in Opelousas.
Do you have a “photo from the past” from Opelousas or St. Landry Parish that you would like to share with our readers? If so, you can send it to us at info@stlandrynow.com.
