We’re Créole, not Cajun.
It’s 2012 and my family is saying the same thing as they said from the
beginning. I was looking around for
Milan information when Dad reminded me of a book that came out a few years
back: Southern Heritage: the Clark and Ware Families of Louisiana and
Mississippi by Sue Clark Severson. She
has Hébert connections in her family and included a chapter on our family. She did a lot of research and says the Milan
name was added so people would know they weren’t part of the Acadian Hébert
families living in the same area. They
made a point to say they were from France and they married into the established
Créole families in Pointe Coupee. The
name Milan was used often. People would
say Milan instead of Hébert. That cracks
me up. Like I said, it’s 2012 and we’re
saying the same thing. She also throws out
the idea that the brothers, Francois and Phillipe, were the youngest in the
family. Their older brothers got all the
inheritance so they were left with pas rien, except maybe join the military and
fight in some imperialistic war waged by France. So they had a better idea. They would go to the Louisiana colony, hook
up with some Créole women, make some babies and make some money. And that’s exactly what they did.