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Note: N857 Grandma Bert, as she liked to be called, was quite an interesting person. A Pennsylvania Yankee who spent most of her adult life in the Deep South, she adapted quite well and became an excellent cook of southern cuisine, and although she occasionally shook her head in wonder at how she had ever “gotten mixed up in this mob of Frenchmen,” she loved her adopted home. She was very fond of animals, and always had a dog and (usually several) cats. She loved music, and enjoyed singing old ballads she’d learned as a child.
After her husband’s untimely death -- she was widowed at age 47 -- she went to work for Father John Kemps, a Dutch emigre who spent thirty years as the parish priest at Sacred Heart Church in Broussard, Louisiana. She kept up two households -- Father Kemps’ personal residence on Morgan Street, and the church rectory. She supervised many of the housekeeping details of the church itself, including counting the collection money, laundering the altar cloths, and making sure that there were always fresh flowers in the entry. In turn, Father Kemps looked upon Bertha’s family -- especially her younger son, Gordon (who was my father) and my mother and myself -- as his own family. We spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas there, and I still remember many happy hours wandering in the huge old house on Morgan Street as a child. Father Kemps was an accomplished linguist and a devoted stamp collector; my first introduction to languages and other cultures was from him.
Grandma Bert outlived Father Kemps by only two years.
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