I have written about Father Gergaud before. He is considered one of the hero martyrs of the Shreveport Yellow Fever epidemic. While looking around on the internet for info about him, I stumbled across this podcast about him by the Rector of St. John Bachman’s Catholic Church in Shreveport.
https://shreveport1873.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/episode-4-fr-louis-gergaud-october-1-1873/
There are other podcasts on this site that talk about the other priests and St. John Bachman has produced videos on Youtube Showing their burial sites. It is a fascinating listen and watch!
If you are Catholic, the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans in Shreveport is offering a set of five holy cards of the priests for just a self addressed stamped envelope. They are asking for believing Catholics to go to the Priests gravesites and ask for intersession, especially during the pandemic. A letter has been sent to the Congregation of the Saints to have the Priests declared “Servants of God”. This is the first step in having them declared saints! We may have a saint buried in Monroe!
And an FYI: We have one of his books from his personal library in our Special Collections department and ULM’s Special Collections has his diary.
Ouachita Parish History Tidbits 