"Very early in my life, when I was before the age of episodic memories, my parents moved from New Orleans, the city of my birth, and traveled to where my dad had been hired for his first job after his graduation from Tulane University."

Both of Tommy′s parents descended from French ancestry, and both parents and their parents have been living within eyesight of the Mississippi River for several centuries. In fact, his ancestors arrived due to one major event in the history of the French in the New World, that of the Great Disposittion.

Arriving by ship from France, his mother′s ancestors were among the original seventy-nine colonist to move to the first French colony in the new world. Three years before the first English settlement at Jamestown in Virginia and four years before Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec, these colonist, aboard the vessels of Pierre Du Gua, Sieur de Monts ¹ and sailed into Baie Française, (Bay of Fundy) during June of 1604 and settled Île Sainte-Croix (Saint Croix Island). ²

Their encampment on the island rather than on the mainland was chosen because there, on the nearby shore, the west bank of the Saint Croix River, was an fishing settlement from the tribe of the Passamaquoddy indigenous people. Knowing not their language nor how the natives would respond to the French landing party, these colonist feared the natives. So the decision was made for the colonist to make their camp on the island just offshore of the mainland because of its ease of defence against attack and once there build both a town and a fort to protect them in the event of an invasion by the natives or even the hated English who were also seeking a permanent North American settlement.

However, that first winter proved this island to be uninhabitable for this French encampment because winter conditions on the island were so severe that thirty-five colonists lost their lives to the deprivation of food and warmth. Those of the colonist lost included some of the ancestors of Michel′s mother.

The next spring, when warming weather allows canoes to cross to the island, some Passamaquoddy natives living on the mainland came bearing food, water and firewood. This kindness saved many who were near death from joining those already buried. To this day, gravestones still mark the graves on this island, located in the middle of the Saint Croix River, four miles up the west arm of Passamaquoddy Bay.

Shaken, but undeterred, the colonists moved in June of 1605, across to the southern shore of the Baie Française to establish a new colony calling it Port Royal, which became the first permanent French settlement in North America.

Here, the settlers could farm, fish and gather from the abundant sources of water and wood. These people prospered in the new world, spreading out along the coastal areas of what they called L′Acadie. (Present day Nova Scotia) ³

This prosperity lasted until the Great Expulsion began in 1755, which was the forced removal by the British of ten (to eighteen) thousand Acadien people from their homes in L′Acadie. Thousands died of typhoid, smallpox, yellow fever or starvation in the squalid conditions on board the British ships, others from drowning, deprivation, and mistreatment after being dumped ashore in the English colonies with a final casualty count of, as many believe, over fifty percent. Although thousands died, many survived the Great Expulsion, and some subsequently moved their families south to settle along the lower Mississippi River because they had heard that the French still raised it′s fleur de lis in Louisiana.

The family of Tommy′s mother made it through the Great Expulsion and settled in the lower Mississippi River delta where one is never far from water. Many of his family felt that this water environment reminded them of how Venice, Italy would have looked and soon, their village bore the name of Venice, New France.

Although the climate was very different from L′Acadie, these stout Frenchmen took up farming and fishing much like was done in L′Acadie and soon, prosperity followed in their new homes. One particular catch in these new waters was quite a surprise to them but they soon found ways to use every bit of the alligators that they caught, from the meat and skin to the teeth which was used as ornaments.

Tommy′s father′s family were descendants of Pierre Michel who crossed the Atlantic on the ship know as the Saint-Remi, one of the seven ships during 1785 which brought several thousand Acadian refugees from France to Louisiana.

Pierre Michel, age 46 took passage on the ship called the Saint-Remi, together with his son Joseph age 25, his daughter Gertrude age 19, and daughter Marie age 5 desiring to go to the New France settlement in Louisiana. This ship was a three masted square-rigged ship with a cargo capacity of 400 ton and was commanded by Captain Baudin.

This ship left Nantes, France on Thursday, 27 June 1785 with 325 Acadians and 16 stowaways. The Saint-Remi arrived in New Orleans on 10 September 1785 after 75 days at sea. There were fifteen passengers who died en route. Upon arriving in Louisiana, Pierre Michel settled along the banks of the Bayou Lafourche.

Many years later, both of his parents families move to New Orleans and it was not long after that when Tommy′s parents, Aubrey and Maybelle were to meet there, fall in love and begin their Story together.