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JULIENNE VICTORIA GALLIANO BOLLINGER 1861 - 1898 "The Lady Laid to Rest in my Backyard" by Velton P. Guidry on 15 August 1998

Let me tell you what I know about this lady Julienne Victoria Galliano, who died at a very young age and was buried in the place of her choice, from oral history from my my father and of my own experience.

She was the wife of James Bollinger and the mother of

James Bollinger and his wife Julienne Victoria Galliano, daughter of Salvadore Galliano and Louise Duet lived just to the north of what is now West 158th Street in Galliano, Louisiana. That is the street on which Galliano Elementary School is now located. On the south side, was his neighbor Augustin Jean Baptiste Schouest and his family who lived there in those days and who was my grandfather on my mother's side.

It was said that James Bollinger migrated to Louisiana from Missouri. The time of arrival in Louisiana is unknown to me. It is also said that he was a merchant of somewhat , in those days known as a peddler of merchandise, who would travel to sell his merchandise.

The reason Julienne Victoria Galliano Bollinger is buried at the present location was of her own choice.  She asked to be buried on that certain spot which is now in the corner of my back yard.

In those days, Bayou Lafourche at times of high water would overflow the its' banks and flood the land. On that spot where Julienne was laid to rest, the water wouldn't flood, because there were a couple of pecan trees there.  The people plowing field couldn't plow to close to the pecan tree which in turn left the ground much higher where the pecan trees was.

I remember when we were young, me and my brother would go in the field (at that time it was planted with corn).  We each had a little bit of salt wrapped up in a piece of brown paper, and we would sneak into the corn field and break some of those young ears of corn, dip them into the salt and eat it.  In those days that was a treat. In those days the children didn't have the glory of having what they wanted like the children of today who can stuff themselves with cookies, ice cream, candy, and whatever.  You ate what was available, and that was it, dla nick {like we say in French} with cookies, ice cream, and candy, that was only wishful thinking and very seldom seen.

Well to continue about when we were outlawing, enjoying ourselves with the young corn in the corn field, we came up on the tomb.  At that time the tomb had a nice concrete slab which Leufroy Cheramie had built over the dirt mound tomb they had before.  I remember when Mr. Cheramie built the tomb over the existing mound tomb.  He came in the afternoon and finished about sundown, he and his crew.  If I remember right, it was in the summer time but it wasn't very hot.

Well back again to when we arrived at the tomb, when we came upon the tomb, we could see freshly dug up dirt.  As we came right beside the tomb, we could see it was man made digging, the dirt was well stacked up all on one side.

I looked in the hole and could see the well preserved coffin, it was a very dark brown in color. Being young kids (don't know about what age I was at that time), we got scared and off we went with the our heels hitting the backs of our butts.

I found out years latter that the person who had dug up the tomb was a Landa.  Maybe his heels touched the back of his butt also, because the job was not completed.

I remember year later when Mr. Gisclair cut down the pecan tree, they were quite huge in size, he and his sons with a pass-pa-tou cut it in a certain length.  When they had finished, Mr. Gisclair hitched his horse Jack to the piece of the cut section to bring to his home for fire wood. The ground was soft from an earlier rain and Jack's hoofs would slip in the ground.  Mr. Gisclair would snap his whip and holler ça mop, Jack and finally the horse got the stump to move. That was the last of those pecan trees.  They went up in smoke.

Julienne Victoria Galliano Bollinger and her husband James Bollinger are the progenitors of the well known Bollinger families of Lockport, La.  I met some of those people and to me they are some of the very nicest people you can talk with.