Bonnie Bess Wood is sharing with us a marvelous treasure. Here is her email to me..... As I can, I will forward the letters, one by one. They will be long. If disk space is a problem for you, you have the option of deleting them as they arrive.... and then looking at the archives of Degruy-L [for early November] when/if you need them. Enjoy. Renee From Bonnie: Since these letters are directly related to the deGruy family, if not your particular direct line, I think most would find them of value since they are so precious, a window into that time period. So, yes you can post them. The story of these letters is a long and windy one. They were part of a lawsuit by the Baudier family to secure land on Barataria Island owned by the Boutte family which the deGruy family is related to by marriage. I'll send the Boutte letter and some documentation about the lawsuit along as well. The letters were in the hands of Adelaide Baudier, great granddaughter of Alexandre Baudier, the letter writer. She was a lawyer. The suit was in the courts for decades and each Baudier got part of the settlement. The great part about the lawsuit is that the direct heirs had to be meticulously identified. Interestingly, I only have access to the letters written here in the US [obviously copies of the originals which were posted] and no copies of the letters which came from France. After the lawsuit was settled however, Adelaide Baudier would not let anyone have access to the letters. Finally, Andre Trawick, a federal judge, and a direct descendant of Achille Seuzeneau and Celine deGruy, the couple mentioned in one of the letters that I will also send along to you, forced Adelaide to let him copy the letters before she died and they were lost forever to us all. Unfortunately, that was a long time ago and many generations down the line for the copies that I eventually received. Some were copies of the original letters, but unfortunately some were copies of translations of the original letters. When possible, I had the originals retranslated by a friend of mine in France. He did an incredible job for which I will be eternally grateful. Some of the letters, mostly the ones written by the women, are written phonetically in archaic French. I also have my cousin Helen to thank because she traced the letters down and got the copies for me.