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Source: Jack Poché

Excerpts from "Nostalgic Notes on St. James Parish Then and Now"*

By Marie McDowell Pilkington Campbell

Miss Emily Poche, an educator, was the Granddaughter of Captain Simeon Alexandre Poché, a distinguished officer who served throughout the Civil War. He was the husband of Belzire Chapman, daughter of William Chapman, an Englishman, and his wife, Ann Kellet. Over a period of years the Chapmans owned a plantation below St. Cecile Plantation in St. James

Captain Poché and his wife were the parents of four boys and three girls. Alice (1866-1889), who was the first wife of Mr. Ernest Himel; Louise, who was the wife of Wade Bryne; Jeanne, who was married to McCormick Goudeau; Alexander, who first married Miss Duke, and second, Irene Landry; George, who married Regina Landry; William Alexander (Willie), who married first Elizabeth LeBoeuf, and second, Claylia Landry; and Alfred, who married Olpheda Hymel.

In 1883, Alfred purchased, from Jerome Evariste Poche, the plantation in Hymel which is still owned by his descendents. His children were Emily, Clarence, Mabel, Nicholas, Edith, Enide, and Jeanne. Emily, on whose land donation the present-day St. James Church stands, died during the early nineteen thirties. The last members of the family to reside in the plantation home and on ancestral land were Misses Enide and Jeanne Poche and Edith (Mrs. Edward "Eddie" Roussel). Enide, Edith, and Jeanne passed away during the 1970's.

The name Poché is an old one in the Louisiana Colony. As of 1722, we find Jacques Poché (of Artois, France) and his wife, Eliza Champion, as land owners in the Kenner area.

Some Poche information was obtained from the scrapbook of the late Miss Edna L. Himel, daughter of Mr. Ernest Himel and his first wife, Alice Poche, from Mrs. John D. Lambremont, daughter of Mr. Ernest Himel and his second wife, Miss Lelia Boudreaux, from Mrs. David Fitzgerald, daughter of Mr. Ernest Himel and his third wife, Rose Aimee Cantrelle, and from Mrs. John G. Owen, and Misses Jeanne and Enide Poche

* Title: NOSTALGIC NOTES ON ST. JAMES PARISH, LOUISIANA
        THEN AND NOW
Compiled by Marie McDowell Pilkington Campbell
Edited by Lee Etheredge Patrick
Copyrighted 1981
Privately Published - Baton Rouge, La.
Printed by Instant Print Centers, Inc.
    Baton Rouge, La.