ERATH — Catherine Brookshire Blanchet was a teacher and music supervisor in Vermilion Parish.
She taught when the French language was frowned upon in schools.
But from 1960s to the 1980s, she spread French traditions through songs and dance.
Blanchet's transcriptions and recordings are now archived at UL's Center or Louisiana Studies.
One student of Blanchet spoke with KATC, he said, "What we're doing today is we're trying to preserve the way it was when were kids in school. Most of us don't mind going back in time, we don't mind going back in our lives when we were young; we remember the good things, that was a happy time. That was a fun thing that we had these, old songs, and then, we learn some dances that went with these old songs, and Cajuns loved to dance, its just one of the things that we enjoyed. Catherine was a fun class, you see, because everybody wanted to get in on the singing and she was; this lady was remarkable. She always had a tune, you know, on her tongue. Always humming or singing, that was her whole life."
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