NEDERLAND —





NEDERLAND — Wooden shoes of the working class, called “sabots” in France, were stuffed with moss for an accurate fit. The Dutch called the same shoes “klompen,” and stuffed theirs with newspaper.

Boasting both an Acadian house and windmill, Nederland’s Tex Ritter Park on Boston Avenue offers a glimpse of two cultures vital to the city’s development.

At 2 p.m. on Thursday, May 27, the Nederland Chamber of Commerce will host a ribbon cutting for the grand reopening of La Maison Acadienne, The French House Museum. Hurricane Ike tore the roof off the home, dedicated in 1976 to honor the Louisiana workers who migrated to Texas for work in the oil industry.

Bobbie Greene, curator, points out new touches to the restored home, including a water jug that field workers would wrap in wet burlap to keep cool. She’s added arms, that she fashioned from stuffed pantyhose, to the kitchen mannequin preparing to make bread. Another mannequin woman, in a fresh costume, sits at a donated sewing machine in the front room, near a spinning wheel and hearth.

Greene said visitors, who may have never slept on a rope bed, often respond to the kitchen with vivid memories.

“They say they remember that Grandma had a churn like that,” Greene said.

The museum is air conditioned and features glass windows, but Greene reminded that the Acadians, in the 1860s, would have had open windows in the kitchen, and women would have done the dishes by the sill, dumping the water and remnants of cornbread, etc., through the window for the chickens to finish.

The museum was closed for nearly two years after Ike, Greene said, but is now ready for tourists to see how a trapper or fisher family may have lived. She described her sense of loss after seeing the storm’s destruction.

“I was just sick about it. I just thought, I did all that work and now I have to do it again. I didn’t know if I was up to it,” he said.

Greene climbed steeps stairs to show where young men and boys of the family would sleep, up in the “garsonaire.” She’s just purchased a crucifix and rosary to represent the settlers’ Catholic faith. Green mentioned that these upper rooms, with stairs on the outside of the home to avoid an additional tax, were often loaned to passersby who knocked on the doors seeking overnight lodging.

The Acadians would welcome them, Greene said.

“These people were very friend and outgoing and the loved good music,” she said.

ddoiron@panews.com