Gayle Breaux Smith

Gayle Breaux Smith grew up along the Irish Bend Road which follows the Bayou Teche near Franklin, Louisiana. Although they never owned the land, her family farmed sugar cane there for several generations. Her grandfather Armand Breaux was one of nine brothers, and several of them lived in the area; thus she was always surrounded by lots of cousins. At one point she lived next door to her paternal grandparents Armand and Claudia Dugas Breaux, and her mother’s parents Edward Faustin and Marguerite Boudreaux Morvant lived with Gayle’s family; all of the adults spoke French. However, as was the case for many in her generation, Gayle was not spoken to in French, and thus the “Cajun” French she knows and understands is what she remembers from living among so many French-speaking relatives.

Gayle attended Iberia Parish Trade School and worked primarily for 12 years at J&L Engineering Company in Jeanerette Louisiana. She married John Rogers Smith in 1976, and they lived in New Orleans three different times. During those years in New Orleans, besides becoming a mother to Katy Rogers Smith, Gayle was involved with volunteering with the Friends of the Cabildo and performed many duties including being a volunteer, licensed tour guide focusing on the French Quarter and the 1850 House. While living in Baton Rouge where John completed graduate degrees and taught Petroleum Engineering at LSU, Gayle volunteered as a docent at Rural Life Museum, giving open hearth cooking demonstrations at museums in south Louisiana, and at Earl K Long pediatric clinic supporting Reach Out and Read and early child development in general. When Gayle and John traveled, she also visited open hearth cooking programs in Canada and along the East Coast and took open hearth cooking classes at Landis Valley Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina.

Her love for history and genealogy evolved again during her years of travel, especially in the Maritime Provinces of Canada and in France. While visiting Neguac, New Brunswick in 2006, she met Richard Breau (dec.) who was Mayor, and learned that his Jean Breau family was not deported during the Grand Derangement of 1755; they hid inland! John made Gayle promise to return to New Brunswick for the Congres Mondial Acadiens in 2009 [CMA2009] to be held on the Acadian Peninsula. As a prelude to CMA2009, in 2008 John and Gayle traveled to France and visited areas of Acadian significance including Loudun, Archigny, LaRochelle, and Nantes. In 2013, Gayle travelled to France on an Acadian Heritage Tour where she had the opportunity to once again visit areas of Acadian significance, and, in addition, meet Acadians still in the area after being deported almost 240 years ago. They attended CMA2014 where Gayle organized the Breaux/Breau Reunion in Edmundston, New Brunswick and also attended CMA2019 in Cocagne, New Brunswick. At CMA2019, she felt honored to represent the Breau family at Riverside-Albert, New Brunswick at the Unveiling of the Chipoudie Monument.

Gayle wrote “Breaux Family Traditions & Cookbook” in 2007 to collect Acadian history, family genealogy, traditions and recipes with stories so that her daughter and future Breaux generations would know and appreciate our history. With the help of three first cousins, in 2021 the Cookbook was updated with more stories and lots of pictures from our grandfathers’ large family.

The Acadian Memorial Festival in St. Martinville honored Breaux and Guidry families in 2010. For that festival Gayle put together a power point presentation based mainly on “A Breau Genealogy” by Robert Brault of Laval, Quebec, and Clarence Breaux (dec.) of Metairie, Louisiana, as well as pictures of her travels to the Maritime Provinces of Canada and France. Since that time she has returned to Canada several times and France collecting more pictures and tweaking stories. She has made her “Footsteps in Time” presentation over 40 times in Louisiana and in Canada.

Gayle began collecting pictures and books about the aboiteau after a privately escorted trip in 2016 to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. That trip included the opportunity to walk on land once farmed by the Vincent Brault family and also, on land once owned by the Antoine Breaux family. Since 2018 she has made several power point presentations titled “Les Aboiteaux: How Acadians turned Salt Marshes into Fertile Farmland”.

Gayle has been the Breaux du Monde president since 2011. As such, she has published the La Famille Breaux du Monde Association newsletter and helped organize Breaux gatherings for the Great Acadian Awakening [Grand Reveil Acadien or GRA] in 2011, 2015, and 2022]. In addition, she has teamed with Guidry and Hebert family presidents to hold yearly – with the exception of Covid years – joint family gatherings on both sides of the Atchafalaya Basin. As noted earlier, she also organized the Breaux family reunion for the 2014 CMA in Edmunston, New Brunswick for over 100 participants. She has enjoyed corresponding and meeting with descendants of all five of Vincent Brault’s sons, i.e., Antoine, Pierre, Francois, Jean, and Rene. Her objective as president is to maintain those connections for everyone.

A few years ago Gayle became a board member of the Louisiane-Acadie organization with the goal of disseminating information about upcoming happenings of importance to Acadians. In this regard, she is now chairing the recently formed Acadian Families Committee and is set to meet with one or two lead members of about 15 Acadian families for a “meet and greet” to re-establish Acadian inter-family communications. Gayle hopes this is the beginning of a renewed effort to have good contacts with as many Acadian/Cajun families as possible to help spread the word of upcoming events.

Gayle and her husband, John, who retired in 2014, now reside in Lafayette, LA.

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