Project Journal

A next step on the Mon Louis Island lead

This morning I followed up on the Mon Louis Island material that has been taking shape in the research. I identified the American Archive of Public Broadcasting record for The Alabama Experience: Promised Land and sent a note asking who controls the rights, whether a higher-quality copy exists, and whether short excerpts might be available for Of This Place. I am hoping the program can help me see and hear this part of the island’s history more clearly.

While I was working through that, I checked what the public record actually shows about the 2021 digitization work connected to Louisiana Creole recordings, and I looked for a current professional route to Dr. Margaret Marshall. The research confirms that related recordings were digitized, but it does not confirm that the Mon Louis Island material is online, publicly released, or part of that collection.

I now have a clearer path for continuing the search. The next step is to learn whether these voices survive, who has the right to share them, and whether they can be brought into the film with care. That matters to me because this is not simply about finding an old recording. It is about reconnecting the film with voices and memories that may still be part of this place.

Bringing the Andry interviews into the feature

I’ve begun organizing Lawrence Andry’s and Robert Curtis Andry’s interviews into separate story outlines for Of This Place. Returning to this material reminds me how much a voice carries: the way someone remembers a place, tells a story, or describes what mattered in their life.

Lawrence’s interview opens paths through family work, faith, land, identity, and memories of Creole speech. Robert Curtis’s recordings are being prepared for closer review of his life, wartime experiences, and return home. There is still transcription and careful listening ahead. I want the shape of the feature to grow from their individual voices.

Following family history through land records

The Chastang and Andry research is moving into records of land, inheritance, freedom, and family life. What excites me is the possibility of following a person through the records and seeing how their decisions connect with a place or institution remembered generations later.

I’ve identified specific leads to investigate alongside church and family records. These are connections to test, one person and one record at a time. For the film, this could give family memory a tangible setting without asking a surname alone to tell the whole story.

Researching the Chastang burial places

I’ve assembled separate research dossiers for Chastang Bluff and Chastang-Andry cemeteries. Keeping these places distinct is already helping the investigation become more precise. Comparing cemetery inventories with family and church records is opening questions about how generations remained connected through place and faith.

For Of This Place, I want these landscapes to help us understand the people connected to them. This research has established a trail to follow, but individual burial identities and family connections still need verification. No physical cemetery investigation was completed in this pass.

Voices, land, and memory on Mon Louis Island

The Mon Louis Island research is bringing together some of the things that draw me most strongly to this documentary: voices, family land, church, school, and life along the water. I’ve identified an earlier television program featuring island oral histories, historical boatyard photographs, and further archival leads.

The possibility of connecting a remembered place with an earlier image or recorded account is exciting. It could help audiences see the landscape through the people who knew it. The next work is to view and identify the material carefully and determine what can be used in Of This Place.

Following the traces of Little River Cemetery

Little River Cemetery is a historic burial ground associated with the Bayou La Batre area. What draws me to this investigation is the possibility of learning more about the early families connected to it and the history still held in the landscape. For Of This Place, that makes it more than a question of where a cemetery appears on a map.

I’ve compared cemetery records, historical maps, aerial imagery, and terrain information, and brought the findings together in a research dossier. There are promising leads and conflicting location information to resolve. The physical boundaries remain unconfirmed, and any future fieldwork will require permission and care for the burial ground.

A possible path to hearing Mon Louis Island Creole

One lead I’m especially excited about comes from a study comparing Mon Louis Island Creole with Louisiana Creole. The research drew on language gathered from elderly informants near Mobile. That raises a question with enormous meaning for this documentary: were their voices recorded, and could those recordings still exist?

I’m following that lead to find out whether original recordings or copies survive. I haven’t located or verified them yet, but the possibility of hearing the language spoken by the people who carried it makes this worth pursuing.

For me, this connects directly to the interviews already recorded for Of This Place. When someone remembers hearing Creole spoken in their family, I keep wondering whether we might someday hear those earlier voices, too.

Building the historical foundation

I’ve organized the documentary’s research around family, land, language, faith, work, and identity, and reviewed historical claims in the existing test transcript. This gives me a clearer way to connect the elders’ testimony with records that can deepen its context.

The part that matters most to me is keeping those people at the center. I want the history to help audiences understand their lives and feel the importance of what they shared. This foundation gives the next stage of Of This Place a more focused direction.