Some family ties announce themselves like a brass band at Mardi Gras—loud, joyful, unforgettable. Others? They slip away quietly, like a story nobody ever bothered to write down. That’s how it was with my great-great-grandfather, Norbert Jacquot. He was my mom’s great-grandfather. Lived to be 99 years old. He was alive when she was born. Alive until she was nearly 14. And yet… she only knew of him through stories others told her. Not really from memory.
She only knew what other people told her. Stories passed around like cornbread at Sunday dinner—soft around the edges and always a little different depending on who was talking.
But I’m not built for mystery. I don’t do well with “we’ll never know.” So I did what any nosy descendant with a Wi-Fi connection and a mild obsession would do—I opened an Ancestry account and went digging. And that’s how I met Norbert, one census typo at a time.
Born in 1871 in Charenton, Louisiana, Norbert entered the world just six years after the end of the Civil War, in a town so steeped in history you could probably hear it breathing. Charenton was hot, swampy, and swarming with sugarcane, mosquitoes, and mixed languages—Creole French, Chitimacha, and just enough English to confuse everyone. It smelled like smoke, syrup, and whatever somebody’s granny was cooking with a wooden spoon and no recipe. If humidity had a zip code, it would’ve been Charenton.
In the 1880 census, nine-year-old Norbert appears as Norbert Pierre, the fourth of seven kids in a busy house led by Jaco and Maria Pierre. No birth certificate, no baby pictures—just that census record and the mental image I now have of a barefoot boy swatting flies and ducking chores. He did go to school—enough to finish the fourth grade—which back then was plenty to survive and thrive in rural Louisiana. But I imagine he still walked through sugarcane fields to get there, dodging snakes and gossip on the way.
By 1900, Norbert was married to Laura with three little ones under five, working as a farm laborer on their home farm—and yes, the census proudly notes he owned his home. He was a master of the school of hard knocks, learning lessons from sunup to sundown in the sugarcane fields.
By 1910, he’d leveled up to farmer, with a full house of seven kids, plus a couple more people living with them who probably had roles somewhere between family, hired help, and “you get dinner.” The house was noisy and busy, like a full jambalaya pot—always bubbling, sometimes spicy, and never quite the same twice.
In 1920 and 1930, census records list him as a laborer on a general farm, still owning his home through all those decades of toil. This steady work wasn’t just a paycheck—it was the backbone of the family’s survival and strength, the rhythm behind those noisy, crowded houses filled with kids and stories. It’s that same work ethic my great-grandfather Wilson inherited — except he added a little Vaseline and style to the mix.
Among those kids was Wilson Jacquot—my great-grandfather. And him, I knew.
I got nine good years with that man. He was always fixing something—patching the house, tinkering with whatever creaked or squeaked. He kept a jar of Vaseline nearby like it was a sacred relic and used it liberally on my face until I shined. He called me “Bébé” in that sweet Creole French lilt, soft and warm like gumbo steam on a cold day.
He was calm. Gentle. Always present. A deacon at his church. The kind of man who didn’t need to talk much because his actions already told you who he was. He matched our outfits for every occasion—church, the post office, you name it—like it was the Met Gala. And when he hugged you, you felt it—in your heart and on your freshly greased face.
Wilson didn’t say “No. And no discussion.” That line? That belonged to his father, Norbert. It’s the only quote my mom ever heard about him. He said it so often, it became legend—“No. And no discussion.” A phrase passed down, not through blood, but by sheer volume and certainty. The kids in the neighborhood called him Papa, and they knew exactly what that meant: don’t ask twice.
But my mom? She didn’t inherit that line. She was the “let’s talk it through” one. The “maybe we can figure something out” one. And thank goodness for that, because had she been a “no-discussion” kind of parent, I might not be here writing this. I’d probably still be waiting for a response from 1996.
As I traced Norbert through decades of census records, I saw not just the evolution of his household, but the de-evolution of his name. One year he’s Jacquot. Then Jacco. Then Jacquote. Sometimes “Negro,” sometimes “mulatto,” once possibly “Jacks.” Whoever the census taker was, they clearly didn’t believe in consistency. But through all the misspellings and missing pieces, one thing was clear—Norbert was always at the center. Holding down the house. Raising children and grandchildren. Living through decades of change—wars, plagues, prohibition, Civil Rights, and bell bottoms. The man lived through everything except a good photo, apparently.
His wife Laura disappears from the records before him. When we finally found his headstone, it read: Beloved Father and Grandfather. That’s it. No “husband.” No “with eternal love.” Not even a “Gone Fishing.” Just simple. Stoic. Like the man himself.
Maybe they grew apart. Maybe she passed. Maybe the person in charge of the engraving just ran out of space. Another family mystery that’ll remain unsolved unless the headstone starts talking.
Even though my mom never really knew him, and I certainly didn’t, there’s something about Norbert that lingers. Maybe it’s in Wilson’s steady hands. Maybe it’s in the way our family keeps moving forward—quietly, humbly, with grease on our faces and tools in our hands. Maybe it’s in how we keep saying yes, even when life throws us all the reasons to say no.
And while Norbert didn’t leave us stories or recipes or journals with gold-trimmed wisdom, he left us something else: roots. Thick, tangled, beautiful roots buried deep in Charenton soil—the kind you can’t always see, but you feel them every time you stand strong. Every time you fix something instead of throwing it away. Every time you quietly let go of what no longer serves you and make space to grow.
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