Hon Gilbert Louis Dupre, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

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Hon. Gilbert Louis Dupre, who was admitted to the Louisiana Bar in 1880,
has practiced law with distinction in St. Landry Parish, has been on the
district bench, and has a career of unusual attainment to his credit.

He is of Acadian and French descent, his paternal ancestors having settled
in the Carencro locality on coming from Acadia.  This ancestor was Dr.
Borda, a French surgeon.  Jacques Dupre, a great-grand father of the judge,
was governor of Louisiana.  In the maternal line his grandfather was Benoit
Vanhille, who came to Louisiana from France direct, and married in St.
Landry Parish, Miss Caroline Fontenot, a daughter of Grand Louis Fontenot.

Judge Dupre was born near Opelousas, September 20, 1858, son of Lucius J.
and Caroline (Vanhille) Dupre.  His father graduated in law from the
University; of Virginia, July 4, 1842, and was an able lawyer, judge, a
private soldier with the Eighteenth Louisiana Regiment in the Confederate
army, and for four years a member of the Confederate Congress, having been
a member of the Secession Convention of 1861.

Gilbert L. Dupre was deprived of opportunities to secure an education in
any university beyond that of experience.  For about five years he attended
parochial schools, was in the public school at Opelousas for about fifteen
months, and by private study qualified himself for admission to the bar.
He was admitted at Opelousas, July 10, 1880.  For about four or five years
before that he had been employed in the clerk's office, and he engaged in a
law practice that put him on one side or the other in a large number of
important cases in his district.  He was elected to the Legislature,
serving a two year term, 1888-1890.  In 1896 he was elected district judge,
serving four years.  in 1914 the Legislature chose him to fill an unexpired
term on the bench, and he has been kept in the judicial office continuously
by reelection in 1916, 1920 and 1924.  Judge Dupre was a member of the
constitutional convention of 1921.  Many years ago he was a member of a
cavalry company of state militia and in 1887 was on active duty a few days
around Morgan City just after the Patterson riot.  He is affiliated with
Opelousas Lodge No. 1048, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

In politics and in religion, Judge Dupre has chosen the difficult part of
thinking for himself,, though he has not kept apart from human affairs,
with cynical indifference, but has worked both with tolerance for the
opinions of others and with enthusiasm for definite causes.  He has always
been classed with the reformers, though in many cases the regulars have
supported his candidate.  In religion he was reared a Catholic, but in
religion as well as in politics, he has found it necessary to solve his own
philosophy of conduct.  Not long ago, he said:  "I have played the game
forty-eight years.  I never intend to quit. When called upon to solve the
great adventure, I shall carry with me the belief that I did my duty as I
saw it in behalf of the common good, regardless of self."

Commenting on this philosophy, the editor of the New Orleans Item said in
part:

"There was a statesman in Tennessee who attributed his popularity to the
fact that he had never voted for a tax, or against an appropriation.  We
might almost say of Judge Dupre that we do not recall his ever having voted
for a tax increase, salary increase, or for an increased appropriation.
The position of the twelfth man in opposition to eleven stubborn jurors is
one which the Judge is not afraid to take in a world which loves to have
unanimous action, and where kickers are generally made uncomfortable."

We trust many years will pass before the Judge is called on to solve the
Great Adventure and that he will continue in the meantime to actively aid
us in the solution of the multitudinous problems which continue to vex us
here below.  Most men, as they grow older, must find some philosophy to
sustain them.  They must render an accounting with themselves for the
things that they have done, and for the things they have heft undone.  In
spite of the criticism which each of us can eagerly pass aim the lives and
deeds of others, there are a good many who will carry with them the belief
that they have done their duty as they saw it, and as the lives and
achievements of these men are measured up by the oncoming generation, there
can be no doubt that the greatest legacy they can leave will be that of
good deeds done rather than of material accumulation."

Judge Dupre married at Opelousas, June 1, 1881, Julia B. Estilette, only
child of the late Judge E. D. Estilette.  Her father was a graduate of Yale
College with the class of 1857, and was speaker of the Louisiana House of
Representatives in 1876.  Her mother was a Connecticut Yankee.  Mrs. Dupre
was born in New Haven, Connecticut, May 12, 1860.  Her aunt married
Professor Eugene L. Richards of Yale College, and her first cousin, E. L.
Richards, is a distinguished lawyer of New York City. Judge and Mrs. Dupre
had four children: Marie Lucille, who died November 21, 1910, and Gilbert
F., Dupre, Jr.. who died September 29, 1913.  The living children are
Fannie Estilettte Dupre, wife of Dr. F. 0. Pavy; Ethel May, wife of Isaac
Litten.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 378-379, by Henry E. Chambers.
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York,
1925.