Our presence can be best gift we give others
November 11, 2014
Dog makes mark with his silence
November 11, 2014
A family man to the core, Jesse Lawrence Pitre loved life.
The Chacahoula native met his true love and favorite dance partner, his wife of 47 years, Marrial Morvant Pitre, at a bank. She was a teller at a Schriever bank and he would come in each week to cash his check.
“He kept asking her out, and she’d say no,” the couple’s eldest daughter, Stacey Leger, recalled. Finally, Marrial agreed and the two connected at a local dance.
After three months of dating, they wed. Jesse and Marrial had been married previously. They opted for a small ceremony in Donner with a local justice of the peace.
The couple settled in Donner and raised five children.
A welding inspector by trade, Jesse loved his family.
“He loved hunting and fishing, so he’d spend time at the camp,” Stacey said. “But even when he was working offshore, he wouldn’t stay gone too long. He loved coming home and being with the family.”
His job landed the family in Scotland for two years. It was there that youngest daughter, Sonya Ohlmeyer, was born.
For three years, Alness, Scotland, served as home. Jesse, a Brown and Root employee, spent his days teaching welding. Afternoons were spent exploring the countryside.
“It was a wonderful place to live,” Stacey said. “Mama didn’t want to come home.”
The Scotland move was something of a reunion for the Pitre family. One of Jesse’s brothers, also a Brown and Root employee, was working there.
“It wasn’t uncommon for [locals] to go to Scotland to work for a few years and then return home,” Stacey said. “There were a lot of us from Louisiana.”
The money the couple earned built their first home in Schriever.
Jesse retired from White Wing Inspection Services near Morgan City upon his 65th birthday. It was then he and Marrial began to pursue their shared love for dancing. They took dance lessons, joined the Les Danseur De Bonne Terre and The Flares dance groups and began competing locally and at the state level in dance competitions.
“They loved to dance,” Stacey said. “They even competed with the Senior Olympics in Baton Rouge and Regionals in Lafourche Parish.”
The team earned silver and gold medals.
It was after retirement that Jesse found time to invest in his second interest: genealogy.
“My dad never met a stranger,” Stacey recalled. “He would always want to know about people – where they were from and who they were related to.”
He joined the Terrebonne Genealogical Society and spent hours tracing his own family’s roots.
“He knew his immediate ancestors were Acadians who came from Canada, but he wanted to know where they began,” Stacey said.
Jesse traced the Pitre roots back to the 1600s, originating in Scotland.
“The Catholics kept good records, but a lot of churches burned down,” Stacey said. “He’s got it all on his computer.”
In addition to his family’s lineage, Jesse Pitre leaves his family with memories of a great sense of humor.
“He was a picker,” Stacey said. “He and his brother could get started on something and wouldn’t let go. One time, they went back and forth all day over whether a plane was leaving or coming down.”
A joker at heart, Stacey said her father could be opinionated.
“When his mind was made up, you couldn’t change it,” she said. “He wasn’t easily swayed.”
Stacey calls her father a “very lucky man.” He had family – 15 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and five step-great-grandchildren – he had hobbies and he had friends.
He was a faithful member of the First United Methodist Church in Thibodaux. He will be remembered by many as Farmer Jesse at the church’s annual pumpkin patch or a helper at Vacation Bible School.
Until he was diagnosed last year with bladder cancer, Jesse also enjoyed good health.
“He did live a very healthy life,” Stacey said. “He was diagnosed with an aggressive, rare bladder cancer. Before that, he was never sick.”
Among the many gifts Jesse leaves, Stacey said the greatest was his life’s credo: Put your family first.
“He told me it didn’t matter how much money he left us with a lot of love,” she said. “And he did.”
