Joseph Alfrede Boudreaux

Joseph Alfrede Boudreaux was born August 28, 1875, in Loreauville, Iberia Parish Louisiana. His parents were Jean Pierre Boudreaux and Marie Rosema Bourg. Joseph Alfrede's family remains in Iberia Parish working in the farming community and nearby Vermilion Parish. He met and married Elizabeth “Elisa” Toups. They were married on January 14, 1895, in Vermilion Parish.

Elisa Toups was born July 16, 1879, in Abbeville, Vermilion Parish Louisiana the daughter of Valerie Toups and Eugenie Desormeaux. From this union eight children are born, of these, seven born in Louisiana and one in Biloxi, Mississippi. These children were Edmar, Elvina, Elizabeth ‘Evie”, Edward “Snookum”, Jean “John”, Louis “Freddie”, Evorise and Leo.

While rural Louisiana's economy was struggling, the seafood industry in Biloxi was booming. By 1910, the Biloxi seafood industry had developed into a successful business and had been importing seasonal laborers from Baltimore, Maryland. In 1914 the Barataria Company decided to send representatives to strawberry picking and trucking sections of Louisiana to recruit laborers. French and Cajun representatives of the Biloxi factories were used to recruit the laborers.

An article in the Biloxi Daily Herald dated July 25, 1914, announced the arrival of laborers from Louisiana. This would be the beginning of the migration of Cajun laborers to work in the seafood industry and the swelling of their number during the early 1900s. Among these were Joseph Alfrede and Elisa Boudreaux who decided to take advantage and move their family to Biloxi. Their oldest son Edmar was 17 years old and their youngest was not quite four years old. The Barataria Shrimp Company was their employer, and they moved into the Barataria Camps. The camps were single or double shotgun houses with two to four rooms. In some cases, the camp was a long building with 10 or more apartments with just two rooms.

The whole family would work as they did in Louisiana. The men and older boys, Joseph Alfrede and Edmar, would work on the factory boats. Elisa and her two daughters and two sons, ages 11 and 9, would work together in the factory. The two youngest were 6 and 3 and were most likely near their mother in the factory. Sometime an older girl was assigned to watch the younger children at the factory camps.

In September 1915, Joseph Alfrede was working in the Louisiana marshes on the shrimping schooner DAUNTLESS, owned by Louis Gorenflo and captained by Rube Holliman. The crew included Bud and Albert Holliman, Mr. Watson, and a Polish man named Joe. Over one hundred schooners were in the marshes when, on September 30^th, a hurricane hit Louisiana. The gale hit Tuesday but continued into Wednesday. The DAUNTLESS was driven up into the marsh in what the crew called Clusky, a small community near Bayou Lamaire, Louisiana.

As the storm intensified, they dropped their anchor and cut both masts down. The wind and water were so severe that the anchor was dragging but finally stopped when the schooner was wedged between numerous trees in a cornfield at Brazier near Bayou Lamaire. Fearing they would drown, they climbed to the top of the trees. The water continues to rise reaching their necks. Finally, the wind began to abate, and the water slowly began to recede. They swam back to the schooner that was floating nearby. They poled and paddled the schooner as best they could. The crew of the DAUNTLESS would rescue five Louisiana families. They provided clothes for the women who were wet and cold, and the crew worked their way to the train station at Shell Beach and finally traveled by train to New Orleans. In New Orleans, the MACK, a large launch, took the crew back to Biloxi. (Credit: Daily Herald Biloxi, October 2, 1915, Worst Experience Yet, page 4).

November 11, 1916, Leo Marian was born to Joseph Alfrede and Elisa Boudreaux in Biloxi. In 1918, two tragedies occurred. On May 23, 1918, Leo Marian dies at one year six months. Then on November 14, 1918, Elizabeth “Elisa” Toups Boudreaux passed away, with both deaths occurring while the family were still living at the Barataria Camps. Joseph Alfrede was married three other times after the death of Elisa. He continued to work on schooners leaving the older children to manage the younger.

After working for years on the shrimp boats, he became a night watchman at Braun Canning Company or Biloxi Back Bay. On the evening of February 13, a bandit attempted to rob the Canning Company. Entering the canning company, the man found Joseph Alfrede shoveling coal into the boiler, pulled his gun and told Joseph Alfrede to hold his hands up. Joseph Alfrede offered him his wallet, but as he was told to turn around, Joseph grabbed his own gun and wheeled around and fired. The suspect was wounded and fled but later was arrested after a doctor called on him at home.

In 1947, Joseph Alfrede was living in the Mavar Camps on First Street between Maple and Pine in Biloxi. On September 2, 1947, the 100-foot building he was living in caught fire. Seven units burn causing five families to be homeless, among them was Joseph Alfrede.

On July 4, 1949, Joseph Alfrede Boudreaux passed away in Biloxi at age 73. He had worked for Biloxi seafood industry for 45 years and, at the time of his death, he was still a member of the Seafood Workers Association.