Two families reunited in Abbeville after 177 years

(A Demary family reunion took 177 years to occur. It is an interesting story how the reunion came to be.
Here is a submitted story of how two families finally came together after 177 years of being apart. The story explains how brother Eugene Demary was separated from his sister, Leonide, when they were both young in the year 1838. Because of old letters found by Abbeville’s Gene Sellers, that were written, between Eugene and Leonide in the 1860s, the seed was planted to search for his long lost cousins from Leonide’s side. The search was a success. Earlier this month, they met at Gene Sellers camp in Abbeville. Many cousins had never seen each other).

Nicholas Demary and his wife Marie Veriot Demary arrived in New Orleans from Hennemont, France in 1838 with five children, two of whom were Eugene and Leonide.
They apparently had very little money and sought help to care for their children. We now know that one of their older sons was put in the care of a Catholic priest in an orphanage in New Orleans. He died there at the age of 13. Their only daughter, Leonide Demary, was left in the care of the Hermann family.
The Hermann home still stands today in the French Quarter of New Orleans and is now known as the Hermann-Grima/Gallier Historic House.
The Hermanns left for France in 1840 taking Leonide with them and tragically, she was never seen again by her parents. It wasn’t until 1857 that her brother, Eugene, located her in San Francisco, California and began communicating with her through letters. From 1857 to 1861 they wrote letters to each other and then lost touch with each other.
Eugene Demary again started a search for his sister and relocated her in 1892.
They wrote several more letters to each other, with the last known letter dated April 16, 1904, but never saw each other again after their separation as children in 1839.
Leonide Demary Hermann Burling died in Santa Barbara, California on
November 13, 1925 at the age of 91.
It was not until 1970 that Gene Sellers, great grandson of Eugene Demary, came in possession of several shoe boxes full of historical documents, including letters dating back to 1839, written to Nicholas Demary from his mother who remained in France.
It was then that Gene Sellers learned about the journey travelled by Nicholas Demary and Marie Veriot Demary throughout their lives. The letters from Leonide Demary to her brother, Eugene Demary were also in the boxes.
Nicholas arrived in New Orleans in 1838, moved to St. Mary Parish in 1841, and next moved to Vermilion Parish in 1845, one year after Vermilion parish was created in 1844.
Father Megret began selling lots in Abbeville on June 12, 1846. Nicholas bought 6 lots from Fr. Megret on August 12, 1847, and built his house on Lot No. 1.
Part of his house was later the sight of the first post office and he was named the first postmaster of Abbeville. He also served as Justice of the Peace for the Third Ward of Vermilion Parish. As a carpenter, he helped Fr. Megret with the first church and also worked on the first courthouse of Vermilion Parish. Abbeville was established as a town on March 13, 1850 and became the Parish seat on March 3, 1854. Nicholas Demary died on February 19, 1861 at the age of 57. His wife Marie Veriot Demary died in 1852 at the age of 47.
Eugene Demary and his brothers moved to Vermilion Parish with their parents and later in life Eugene became a farmer on property off Guegnon Street that he had acquired from the federal government after serving four years in the Civil War. He was elected Constable of the Third Ward of Vermilion Parish and served as Treasurer for the town of Abbeville. Eugene Demary died on April 8, 1917 at the age of 85. His wife Josephine Boudreaux Demary died on May 4, 1891 at the age of 60.
The letters Eugene Demary received from his sister Leonide that were kept over the years in those shoe boxes are now in the possession Gene Sellers. He had them translated from French to English by his friend Barbara Hebert. However the letters Eugene Demary sent to his sister, Leonide, were not part of the discovery in the shoe boxes.
After a long search by Archivist, Leslie Batson of Fairfield, California, the 4th generation descendants of Leonide ,were finally located in Phoenix, Arizona.
After hearing the news that they had been located, Gene said, “We all thought there was no way that they would have kept the letters written to her by her brother, but we were wrong. Unbelievably, they had also kept the letters”
. In 1850, Leonide, with her belongings in a wooden trunk, traveled from New Orleans to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama, traveling mule back across the Isthmus. It was in this wooden trunk that these letters were found. Now with both sets of letters we were able to connect the dots of missing information from the conversations they had written to one another. After putting the package of letters, pictures and historical documents together, the next step was to have a reunion of the two families after being separated for 177 years.
Both families are extremely grateful to Leslie Batson for countless hours and travel time she has spent in making this happen
Sellers added, Also a special thanks to Barbara Hebert for countless hours of translating many French letters and documents so we could put the pieces of the puzzle together and learn more about our heritage.”