When I heard from Allan Wolf by email that he had been invited to the Louisiana Book Festival, I grabbed at the chance to have him come to our Bayou Teche home.
Allan started coming to South Louisiana in 2007, performing at schools and libraries and leading teacher workshops at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. I became a fan. The first time he visited Jefferson Island and saw a chimney in the lake, he became intrigued by the disaster in Lake Peigneur of 1980.
A brief summary of that disaster: An exploratory drilling rig from Texaco accidentally punctured a salt mine and set off a harrowing series of events. The miraculous thing is all the miners, fishermen, and tug boats escaped and there was no loss of human life. The lake turned into a whirlpool and the Delcambre Canal flowed backward.
This historical disaster happened 45 years ago in my home town of New Iberia, Louisiana. Allan wrote two books based on the event, and no one in my town knew about these books. I set out to change that.
It became my mission to get him here and to organize a book talk at our local Bayou Teche Museum. With the way news media works these days, I advertised mostly by word of mouth (The “Teche Telegraph”) and by email and social media. Allan and I were hopeful that 20 people would show up, even though I ordered 50 chairs.
Allan was hoping people who had been there that fateful day (Nov. 20, 1980) would come and share their stories.
We had an overflowing crowd of 65 people. Allan paid tribute to the tug boat captain, Ores Menard (age 95), who sat on the front row with his wife and daughter. Allan had interviewed Mr. Menard for hours.
A woman walked in early and shared that she was one of two women in the mine. Allan brightened up. “I knew there had to be women in the mine. I knew about one, but I didn’t know about you!”
Myrna brought him her typed story and showed him the jumpsuit that she wore. Allan told her on one of his last interviews, he discovered there was a woman, so he had the artist place her into the graphic novel.
The thing about research that Allan has learned (and I have as well with my biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet) is it’s never finished. Once a story is told, it becomes a living document.
In his presentation, Allan explained that some of the characters in his book are composite characters, more than one person rolled into one. Three dogs became one. Two boats became one. However, the gist of truth is there.
If you are interested in learning more, here is a YouTube video. (https://youtu.be/PcWRO2pyLA8?si=DYMq3TLaaniAeTMg)
You can order Allan’s books in the usual way, but if you would like a signed copy, call Books Along the Teche at 337-367-6721.
Reflections on the Teche 