Ernest Peter Carstens, Caddo Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller Date: 1999-2000 *********************************************************** ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ************ Ernest Peter Carstens. One of the most responsible business men of Shreveport, Ernest Peter Carstens, president of the Retail Merchants' Association, and a member of the Hearne Dry Goods Company of this city, is a member of one of the representative families of this country, and son of one of the men who helped to develop this part of Louisiana. He was born at Shreveport, in 1876, a son of E. J. and Amelia (Kelty) Carstens, and grandson of Peter Matthew Carstens. His maternal grandfather was Henry Kelty, at one time very prominent in the affairs of New Orleans, in which city Mrs. Carstens was born. For several years was appraiser of customs for the port of New Orleans, and he was a son of John Kelty, of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and captain of dragoons in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. E. J. Carstens was born at New Orleans, November 9, 1841, and died at his home, New Iberia, Louisiana, February 17, 1924. His father was a native of Copenhagen, Denmark, and a captain in the Danish merchant marine, and during the latter part of his life he was a ship owner in his own right. On one of his voyages to New Orleans he met and was married to Charlotte Adelaide Reioux, a cultured lady of the French aristocracy, a daughter of Pierre Simon Reioux, who had been governor of under the French regime. When the war broke out between the North and the South the ardent young aristocrat, E. J. Carstens, espoused the cause of the Confederacy, fought manfully for the cause. After it was lost he sought at Shreveport new surroundings and began to make himself felt in the business and political life of this section. For many years he was a merchant, handling china, crockery, glassware and house furnishing goods under the name of E. J. Carstens & Company, Alexander Grouchy being his partner. He was also a licensed auctioneer, a member of the Board of Trade, and connected with every affair of moment which came into being during that period of stress and strife when reconstruction problems confronted the returned soldier on every side. He was one of the outstanding defenders of white supremacy, and suffered injustice because of his fearless stand against that he felt were alien influences against the good d the community. The democratic party had in him one of its most ardent supporters, and time never dimmed his interest in politics. In 1874 E. J. Carstens was married to Amelia Kelly who had been for some years principal of Oak High School of New Orleans, and Shreveport their home until 1879, when they moved to New Iberia, on the banks of the Bayou Teche, the beautiful country of Evangeline. All his life, E. J. Carstens was proud of his military record, for he served during the entire period enlisting at the beginning in Company City Guards, Capt. H. B. Stephens and Col. George Soule being his commanding officers. Until his death he enjoyed meeting with his comrades in grey, and no one who had worn the beloved uniform ever appealed in vain to him for help. Ernest P. Carstens was born over his father's store in quarters fitted up for the family by his mother found the first home, corner of Louisiana and Texas streets, where Dr. W. F. Carstens was born, too lonesome during the long husband put in at his business. Connected, therefore, from birth with business affairs, Ernest Peter Carstens early developed a sagacity that placed him in the foremost ranks of merchants of Shreveport and the parish of Caddo, and like his father, he has won a high reputation for and high ideals. Although born in Shreveport, he was reared at New Iberia, and his connection with the practical side began when he went on the road, in he Hamilton Brown Shoe Company, at he located permanently at Shreveport. For some time he continued to represent this big house on the road, with Shreveport as his headquarters~, but in 1910 severed these connections of many years' standing to enter the Hearne Company, where he has since continued. He is very active in the Rotary Club, of which he is and he is also on the directorate of the Hearne Dry Goods Company. Mr. Carstens belongs Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution. Mr. Carstens married Miss Lizzie Bell Schnack, a daughter of C. A. and Maud (Kennedy) Schnack, of Alexandria, Louisiana. They have one son, Carl Sloan Carstens, who was born in 1902, was graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and is now a student of Harvard University. Mr. Carstens has contributed much to this part of Louisiana, as did also his late father. He possesses, as did the elder man, the progressive spirit that characterizes good Americans, and make them such active factors in civic uplift. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 46-47, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.