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Bayou La Croix, still remain today, along with many private family cemeteries.
When the Space Center came to the county Mittie Maskew Zengarling and Herbert-“Bully” Zengarling were busy raising their five small children in their home not too far from the Bayou La Croix Cemetery. The family was living the country life in a house they had built together. The two had known each other just about all their lives.
When Mittie’s parents Alice Holden Maskew (of Logtown) and Willie Maskew ( of Seminary) moved their service station and store further down Hwy. 43 to the intersection of the newly built Hwy. 90, Willie traded for three acres there and bought another one from Bully’s father Joe.
“They were then our neighbors in the back,” said Miss Mittie.
them, she said.
“I thought he was an old man and I didn’t want him to buy my supper,” she said. But Mittie’s attitude changed. The couple married in 1951. “He was the love of my life,” she said. “He was a wonderful man and everybody loved him.” (After Bully’s dfeath in 1993 Mittie married Glen Smith, who recently passed away.)
Bully supported the family by working in the timber and oil industries and also served as county supervisor and on the Port and Harbor Commission.
Like most people in the area, the family lived a simple life. They kept a milk cow, chickens, ducks, turkeys, goats and sheep, and planted rows and rows of corn and other vegetables. Bully would also hunt coons and give many of those away after storing them overnight in the ice box, Miss Mittie said.
“It was a regular old
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Miss Mittie Maskew Zengarling Smith at her home in Bay St. Louis. The old church bell from Holy Cross Church in Bayou La Croix has a new home in the bell tower in her back yard.
McDonald’s farm” said Miss Mittie. “I went to the grocery store every Thursday at Welmers and traded eggs
for some of the groceries. Mr. Sol Cuevas would stop by the house every day on his way home from work and buy a gallon of milk, it was a good life.”
Mittie remembers her childhood as a good but disciplined time. Her father
Willie was a strict disciplinarian, she said.
“When it was time for bed, he didn’t have to tell us; he just looked over at the clock and we went to bed. Every Friday evening we got a Carter’s Little Liver Pill and in the spring
time we got several drop s of turpentine in water as a treatment for worms,” she said.
Both Alice and Willie were hard workers. Willie came down from Seminary
MITTIE-PAGE 4B
Mittie Maskew Zengarling and her husband Bully with their children: standing left to right are Terry, Herbert Jr. and Joyce; sitting left is Lisa and right is Alice.
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Willie and Alice Zengarling in the family store and service station.


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