We met Stephanie in the Clerk of Court's office and she turned out to be a great help. I told her I was looking for marriage records dating back to 1813 and 1820. Some of the records have been digitized and she printed off the 1820 marriage record. She said the digital copy of the 1813 record wasn't that good and she would go upstairs and make me a better copy!
In the meantime, she directed me to the land records and other court records for the parish and I started going through the books. I found Silas Fletcher in a deed index and took a photo with my phone.
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| From Opelousas, LA |
I also took photos of the deeds with my phone. We have so little documentation on Silas and his family in the 1800-1820's that it was great to see all of this. Stephanie was a great help and was very patient when I had to ask her for some help (which I tried to keep to a minimum). By 11:00 it was time for us to leave, so I paid the $6 for the marriage records and we left the courthouse.
We decided to drive around a little before leaving Opelousas and found some beautiful old homes in just the few blocks we visited.
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| From Opelousas, LA |
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| From Opelousas, LA |
We spent about 20 minutes driving around before we headed back out to I-49 and south to I-12 where we stopped at a RaceTrac at 1:30 to get gas ($3.159 a gal) before going on to I-10.
We had made reservations at the Econo Lodge on US-331 in DeFuniak Springs for tonight and decided to go up to WalMart Supercenter and buy a few things before checking in to the motel. As we drove by the Waffle House on our way to WalMart we saw a lot of emergency vehicles and fire trucks and figured that it was a fire a the Waffle House.
After shopping at WalMart (it's now 6:30) we went back south on US-331 to go to our motel which is behind the Waffle House, there was a police officer stopping traffic from going that way. There was a Lowe's next to the Waffle House and we drove into their parking lot trying to find another way to our motel.
Big Surprise!! The fire isn't at the Waffle House, it's at the Econo Lodge!!
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| From Opelousas, LA to DeFuniak Springs, FL |
We parked the car and talked with some other bystanders who also had reservations at the motel and tried to find out more information. It's now 7:00 and it's apparent that we need to find someplace else to stay. I turned on my hotspot on my phone and used my iPad to try and find another motel we could stay at that would take pets. There was a Super 8 about a 1/3 of mile up the hill from us and I called and got us a room for the night.
I tried calling the Econo Lodge's local number and couldn't get through (no surprise) and the called their 800 reservations number. Of course, now it's 7:30 and well past the 6 p.m. time for cancellations. I told the reservations clerk that the reason we were cancelling was because there was a fire at the motel. She had me repeat it and then put me on hold and then came back on the line and said there was no problem in cancelling our reservation (I guess they may have called someone to check on the motel).
We had to leave our car at the Lowe's parking lot, since the police weren't letting any cars on the street by the motel, so we grabbed what we needed and walked up to the Super 8. After checking in and going to our room, Mike called the dispatcher at the police department and explained how we had had to leave our car down the hill and was there anyway we could be notified when he could walk back down and retrieve our car.
Once we settled ourselves in the motel room, we realized that we had forgotten to bring Tinker's bag with his dog food and bowls! Fortunately it wasn't too much later (8:00) that the police dispatcher called Mike and said the road was clear so he could drive our car up to our motel.
Tinker is finally happy that he's had his dinner even if it was 3 hours late and we are just happy to have a bed to sleep in tonight!
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