I’m busy pulling together information on yellow fever deaths in Louisiana, which brought me to Arthur Aucoin.
Arthur had an interesting life before dying of yellow fever in 1905 at age 32. His family often made the local newspaper in Thibodaux so it’s easy to track them. Hint: People didn’t have social media back in the day. They wrote letters and they wrote to the local newspaper.
The Thibodaux newspaper was full of news about the vault that Arthur’s father, Franklin, built in the Catholic cemetery. It wasn’t built when Arthur’s mother, Leontine, died of pneumonia in 1903. Her death may have been what prompted Franklin to start work on the vault. He moved his wife’s remains there. Soon, it would also hold his son’s body.
Arthur was a blacksmith who owned a shop in downtown Thibodaux. He seemed to be on his way to making it a success but hadn’t quite made a go of it.
His first wife was a Miss Felicie Pierce of Franklin. He married her on her deathbed. Told you Arthur had an interesting life!
Several days before their wedding, Felicie was playing with a young child by a fireplace. Her dress caught on fire and she rushed into the street. A passerby put out the flames with his coat, but Felicie was severely burned and died two weeks later. Arthur married her shortly before she died.
He married again to Virginia Bergeron. They had a son and a daughter. The daughter died young.
I don’t know where Arthur was when he died – likely on the property he bought from Zenon Guillot “up the bayou” for his family. The newspaper reported that his remains were brought by boat to St. Joseph’s Catholic cemetery and placed in that pretty vault his father had built.
louisianagenealogygirl 
It always amazes me how many different (and ghastly) ways of dying young were prevalent not all that long ago. When I romanticize life in the past, I need to remind myself how lucky we are to have 21st century medical care at our disposal. Interesting post!