Caroline Beadle Smith
Caroline Smith
Wife of Frederick G. Schmidt
Caroline Matilda Beadle Smith: 5 Generation photo
LAGenWeb
Cameron Parish (French: Paroisse de Cameron) is the parish with the most land area in the state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Cameron and as of 2000, the population was 9,991. It is part of the Lake Charles Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Organized in 1870, the Parish is named for Simon Cameron, a Pennsylvanian who was President Abraham Lincoln's first secretary of war. Cameron was carved from portions of Calcasieu and Vermilion parishes.
Cameron Parish was devastated by Hurricane Audrey on June 27, 1957, causing over 390 deaths, and then again by Hurricane Rita on September 24, 2005. Three years after Rita, Hurricane Ike came ashore and brought a 22-foot (6.7 m) storm surge, which was far worse than Rita's 10-foot (3.0 m) surge. Nearly every square inch of the coastline in that area was flooded heavily, with surge and floodwaters reaching 60 miles inland, as far north as Lake Charles. In Cameron Parish the communities of Cameron, Holly Beach, Hackberry, Creole, and Grand Chenier were essentially destroyed. Hundreds of people had to be rescued from atop rooftops, including 363 people who were rescued by Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Search and Rescue teams in conjunction with the Louisiana National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard.
We are the
chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors.
To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family
story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is
not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who
have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have
one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone
before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow
find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have
lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful
family; you would be proud of us.". How many times have I walked up to a
grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes
beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things
I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and
indifference and saying - I can't let this happen.
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Upper: Emilia Bonsall, Sarah Jane Hickok Sweeney
Middle: Lizzie Sweeney Bonsall Vaughn
holding Luther Vaughn and Lloyd Vaugn
Caroline Mathilda Beadle Smith wife of Frederick G. Schmidt, Johnsons Bayou
Frederick George Schmidt (1806-1877)
Photo ca 1870, Johnson's Bayou, Cameron Parish
John G. Sweeney, Jr., first sheriff of Cameron Parish
Photo with his family.
Caroline Matilda Beadle Smith: 5 Generation photo
Bonsall Family of Grand Chenier - 1878
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