A Father's Day Tale

He was born in Sulphur Louisiana, approximately 17 miles from Lake Charles, LA between 1825 and 1830. The attached photo depicts the kind of slave (Quarters) home that he lived and grew up in. He and his wife along with their 10 children were Slave Cotton and Tobacco Sharecroppers. After being freed he was able to obtain about 13 acres of land for him and his Family to live off of. However around 1874 he was told by the local Klu Klux Klan chapter that the land he owned was really not his, although he had certified proof of ownership. He and his family were harassed both physically and verbally for many years in order to scare him into giving up the land that he acquired during Reconstruction after the Civil War. On one occasion he and his oldest son went into town to buy feed for their chickens, but was threatened and soon thereafter attacked by the locals, leaving the area injured and without their needed chicken feed. When they finally arrived back to their home, his wife told him while they were away that a large group of Ku Klux Klan men and women were there with handguns, rifles and shotguns, outside taunting and threatening them to leave or be killed. Soon after, they left without further incident. At this point the man told his three oldest sons to go to the shed out back and get their rifles to protect themselves. The night came and went without any further incident. The next day however he and his son were headed back to the feed store when they were intercepted about a mile from home by two men who begin to shout them down. When finally one of them opened fire with a handgun and wounded his son in the shoulder. As he began to turn his wagon around to get away another shot was fired and he too was hit by a bullet in his buttocks. It was then that he reached down found his rifle (in the small front well of the wagon) and fired back in stance of self defense. Though neither of the men were hit, they immediately turned and ran down the road and disappeared around a sharp bend. When he and his son (both wounded and bleeding) arrived back home he told his wife and other children that they had to hurry up and get a few belongings, hitch up their other horse and wagon and they all high tailed it out of there! Which they accomplished in less than 30 minutes. They made their escape with hardly any clothes and/or food.

They were fortunate (or even luckily) able to make it to a neighbor’s home some 4 miles (or so) away where he and his wife bandaged up he and his son, hid the wagons, horses and his family in an old abandoned mine near the neighbors home. They hid out for approximately 4 days and when they thought it safe they traveled (mostly) by dark of night and eventually safely made it to Port Arthur Texas where he had relatives living there. After being there for a couple of months he got word that there was a local posse looking for him and his son for attempted murder of the men who had attacked (shot) him and his son earlier. So he decided that he and his son would leave the family in the safety of friends and other family members there and they took off (on foot) for Houston Texas. It took them approximately 5 and a half days to travel the almost 90 miles north. Because of the ongoing danger to their lives they decided (out of fear) that they would change their identities by changing their surname in order to save both their lives. Eventually his two younger sons also changed their surname to match their Father’s new identity. As luck (and/or fate) would have it, he was able to allude his would be killers for another 40 years or so and finally died from liver cancer. His oldest son who was shot in the shoulder had to eventually have his arm amputated. He sometime later traveled back to Lake Charles Louisiana with his new identity. Although there is a lot more to this story, this (closely) accurate account was told to me by my (now) deceased Father when I was 19 years old. And that the man who literally ran for his life for all those years was (in fact), his Great Grandfather. And my Great Great Grandfather. He further told me that the surname that my Great Great Grandfather and his son took on came from a distant cousin of theirs which was….Yep, you guessed it…...McZeal. The Oldest Son that was shot in the shoulder was my Father’s Grandfather. The twist of this tale is if the incidents described above would have never happened, my last name would not be 'McZeal,' but 'Francois' instead. My Great Great Grandfather (who also spoke fluent Louisiana Creole), full birth name was ‘Gerald James Francois.’ Ironically the surname “Francois” comes from an original French word that means…..’Free Man!’ With that, I say thanks for reading. And if my (Deceased) Father and his Paternal ancestry were alive today they would join with me in bidding all you Father’s out there (Bònn Fèt dè Pè) Happy Father’s Day!