CALLEGARI, Serge, Cottonport, Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Randy DeCuir




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S. Callegari is a highly prosperous merchant of Cottonport, La., and here has
resided from his birth, which occurred October 7, 1840, his parents being J.
and Ellen (Scallan) Callegari, the former of whom was born near Rome, Italy.
He attained manhood in his native country, and was educated in Venice,
receiving a most thorough classical education, his expenses being
defrayed by an uncle who was fitting him for a priest. His inclinations were
not at all that way, and he was never ordained. When about thirty years of age
he came to America and settled in Avoyelles Parish, La. where he was for many
years engaged in teaching school in Mansura and Cottonport, being a planter in
connection with his teaching. He was for a time superintendent of the public
schools of the parish. He was a man of remarkable intellectual powers, and at
the time of his death, which occurred at the age of eighty-five years, in
1887, he showed but little the ravages of time so far as his intellectual
powers were concerned. His marriage, which occurred in Avoyelles Parish in
1834, was always a remarkably happy one, the parents having the utmost
confidence in, and affection for, each other. The immediate subject of this
sketch was reared in this parish, and was given the advantages of the common
schools. In 1862 he enlisted in Company F, Eighteenth Louisiana Regiment of
Infantry, was in the Trans-Mississippi Department, and took part in a number
of hotly contested engagements, being at one time captured and kept a prisoner
for a short time. After the war he was engaged as a planter for some three
years, or until 1869, but since that time his attention has been devoted to
merchandising at Cottonport, where, by his business tact and ability, he has
built up a large paying trade. He was married in 1875, to Miss Irine Richi, a
daughter of Elphege Richi, a native of this State and a planter. To them three
sons and four daughters have been born.