The Pope’s Story Available In New Annex
BOBBY ARDOIN
St. Landry Parish.com Editor
While St. Landry Parish archivist Larry Caillier, Jr. has questions about the way national media outlets have handled the complete genealogical history of Pope Leo XIV, similar family stories are available from abundant Courthouse records.
Caillier told the Opelousas Noon Rotary Club on Tuesday that a new parish Clerk of Court research annex building is being completed in order to better facilitate genealogical research for descendants eager to recount stories similar to those of Pope Leo..
That genealogical tourism effort that is being promoted through the Clerk of Court Caillier said, is primarily aimed at attracting individuals interested in combing through the extensive information about early St.Landry, whose boundaries once extended westward through several current parishes.
“There is a massive depository of records and those records we think will bring people into the parish as they research their families. St. Landry was one of the largest colonized areas in America and the amount of records here in the Courthouse is unbelievable,” Caillier said.
Caillier added that the opening of the annex located on West Landry Street in Opelousas next to the Dairy Queen, was delayed due to architectural compliance issues.
However recent additions which include a sprinkler system and more handicapped access have been approved by the State Fire Marshal, Caillier noted.
Areas inside the annex are designed to be research friendly, said Caillier.
“The annex building will have an historial family tree museum, which will contain an index of family trees in alphabetical order. It’s there that you can obtain a firsthand account and a library of family records,” said Caillier.
Tracking Pope Leo
Caillier said the four generations of St. Landry archival records connected to the Pope should only deepen the interest of genealogy experts who want to explore other families that have early connections to the parish.
What has concerned Caillier however is a May 18 New York Times story which says the “Pope descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans,”
Although it is accurate that the Pope’s grandparents once lived in New Orleans and then moved to Chicago probably sometime during the early 20th century, Caillier said the New York Times account is also incomplete, since it ignores the Pope’s earliest roots.
Marriage and other records available from the Courthouse archives show that the Pope is originally descended from free people of color who lived in the Washington area during the mid-18th century, according to Caillier and other researchers who have explored the Pope’s family records.
Most of the Pope’s parish descendants, said Caillier, are associated with the Lemelle family who were literate, socially elevated, wealthy landowners who owned slaves.
Conveyance records indicate the Lemelle’s owned extensive property along Bayou Courtableau and probably used the current Steamboat warehouse area as a place to load their produce onto boats for sale elsewhere, Caillier said.
Caillier displayed for the Rotarians a copy of a land transaction with the signature of Narcisse Lemelle, the brother of Francois Lemelle, the paternal fourth great grandparent of the Pope.
For the past month, Caillier said he has attempted to contact major news media outlets hoping to make them aware of the full genealogical story of the Pope.
So far there has been no response, Caillier added.
“The full reality of (the Pope’s history) is contained in the first hand documents which are available here in the Clerk of Court. We haven’t had anyone (from the New York Times) or other major news organizations contact the Clerk’s Office, although we have tried to reach out to them,” said Caillier.
