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JEANERETTE, La.--- The Jeanerette Museum is pleased to present "Out of the Shadow," a talk led by local author Claire Manes, Ph. D, who is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. This event is set for 6 p.m. on Wed., Aug. 26 at the museum located at 500 E. Main St.in Jeanerette.
Manes' talk will focus on the site of the United States Public Health Hospital for the treatment of leprosy in Carville, La., which has been a part of her journey of discovery for much of her life. Manes, a native of New Iberia and a resident of Lafayette, is the granddaughter of Edmond Gilbert Landry who was a patient in the hospital from 1924 until his death there in 1932. All four of his siblings were also leprosy patients in Carville between 1919 and 1977.
Although Manes did not personally know her grandfather, she did know that he had been in Carville and that family talk about him was taboo. Because of the silence surrounding her grandfather, Manes had a lifelong interest in learning about him. After letters from her grandfather to his family were discovered, she began a study of his writings and life at the Carville hospital.
Her research led to her doctoral studies and 2007 dissertation, Letters from Carville: Narrating the Unspoken Story of the Landry Family, and also to her book Out of the Shadow of Leprosy: the Carville Letters and Stories of the Landry Family published in 2013. The latter and the history of the Carville Leprosarium will be the basis of Manes' presentation at the Jeanerette Museum.
Manes, a teacher for most of her life, has degrees from Loyola University in New Orleans, St. Mary University in San Antonio and her doctorate from UL Lafayette. She has taught primarily at the technical college level.
For more information on this free program open to adults, contact the Jeanerette Museum at 337-276-4408, visit JeaneretteMuseum.com, email [email protected] or find the museum on Facebook.
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