The Baton Rouge Advocate ran this article on the memorial/tomb to the family of Joesph Landry. They were among the Acadian who were exiled to Maryland and settled in Ascension Louisiane Any descendants out there? Paul Le Blanc l'Ascension Louisiane ====================================== http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/ascension/90129042.html?sho... Iowan joins effort to restore tomb * By C.J. FUTCH * Advocate Ascension Section writer * Published: Apr 8, 2010 DONALDSONVILLE — Mary Ellen Stinski splits her time between Iowa and Arizona. Her grandmother, who died when she was 4 years old, left behind documents detailing her Landry family ancestry going back six generations. Stinski is, by blood, an Acadian, she discovered, and a direct descendant of Joseph Landry, exiled from his Nova Scotia birthplace in the 1700s. At the end of the documents, Stinski said, her grandmother wrote that she’d gone as far as she could go. Stinski decided to pick up where her grandmother left off, she said, and came to visit Donaldsonville for the first time. One of her stops — the Ascension Catholic Cemetery — gave her a new mission on behalf of her family. The Landry Tomb, final resting place of Joseph Landry and some of his descendants, and one of the most recognizable monuments in the cemetery, is falling apart, she discovered. She got to work, gathering documentation, getting appraisals and advice on how to go about restoring the tomb, built around 1845, and attributed to architect James Dakin, who designed Louisiana’s Old State Capitol and the New Orleans Custom House. She consulted an expert from South Carolina’s Chicora Foundation, a group dedicated to cemetery preservation and restoration, who advised her to start a nonprofit group immediately and elect a board of directors to work on the project, collect funds, and hire a structural engineer to evaluate the building. Stinski, armed with the Landry pedigree, got to work. “I’ve been going around, meeting people,” she said. She called a meeting to discuss the tomb at the Donaldsonville branch of the Ascension Parish Library on Monday, and found an instant, and extensive, extended family. At the meeting of the 20 Landry descendents, and spouses of descendents, Landry descendent Claire Safford stood, walking toward Stinski with a folder of paperwork. Safford’s son, Walter Landry, originally from Louisiana but now a lawyer living in Virginia, had already formed a nonprofit group, founded on April 14, 2008. “And we have a board, too, but it’s just family,” Safford said. “Maybe it’s time to diversify.” “Well,” Stinski said, “we can already check one item off the to-do list.” Safford, executive director of The Joseph Landry Foundation Inc., said she was glad to find new family members working on the tomb’s restoration. “The Landrys are scattered all over,” Safford said, shuffling through a file box filled with the foundation’s paperwork. Establishing the group was a headache, she said, and a lot of paperwork. “But you talk to so many nice people,” she said. The foundation’s bank account has about $700, Safford told Stinski. “But it’s going to take $110,000 to restore,” she said. Still, both women agreed that restoring the tomb will mean volumes to a lot of people. Stinski plans to continue the work through a newsletter, to have more meetings and to collect historical and genealogical information from Landry descendents. Stinski also needs volunteers to help find and hire an engineer, to write grants and to collect information and contacts. For more information on the project to restore the Landry Tomb, e-mail Stinski at mestinski@yahoo.com, or write her at 3590 Point Road, North Liberty, IA, 52317.