St Landry County Louisiana Archives Obituaries.....Pavy, Alfred Henry June 21, 1908
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Mary K Creamer marykcreamer@yahoo.com October 17, 2014, 3:45 pm

St. Landry Clarion (Opelousas, La.) June 27, 1908, pg. 4
Alfred Pavy.
Died, at his residence, in Opelousas, on Sunday morning, June 21, 1908, at 9:40 
o'clock, Alfred Pavy, aged 67 years, 5 months and 3 days. Interment in Catholic 
cemetery, after solemnization of funeral rites in Catholic Church, at 10 o'clock 
Monday, June 22.
In the death of Mr. Pavy the country loses a useful citizen, and his family a 
loving and devoted husband and father. His life was one chain of charitable 
deeds wherever his limited fortune permitted, and many times he has gone beyond 
his means to render needed service. His heart was the impulse to his actions, 
and where it guided him he would do his utmost to follow.
The sense of righteousness was one of the well-defined cardinal virtues with 
him. Where there was a right and wrong side of a situation, he would invariably 
align himself with the side which he considered right. He was fair in his 
business dealings with his fellowmen, and would rather make concessions than to 
be considered avaricious; avarice found no place in his heart - it was too big 
for that.
Coupled with his qualities of heart and mind, deceased was the beneficiary of 
excellent training and a classical education, making him a citizen most valuable 
to a community.
His varied career, from riches to poverty and then again to comfortable worldly 
circumstances, had not disturbed his poise. He adapted himself to the changing 
circumstances with the philosophy born of a true man. When basking in the 
sunshine of wealth, he traveled and enjoyed himself and made sad hearts happy. 
When the night of poverty overshadowed him, he toiled and struggled to maintain 
himself and family and light the darkness as much as possible for them. When he 
descended the ladder of worldly comfort, from a rich commission merchant to a 
yardman for the Jesuits at Grand Coteau, he complained not, and among his most 
cherished mementoes is a picture taken of him sitting in a wheelbarrow in the 
St. Charles College yard. When, after many years of toil, fortune again smiled 
on him, and he became a power among men in this parish, he was the same Alfred 
Pavy in his relations to his fellowmen that some time before rolled a 
wheelbarrow and spaded the gardens and groomed the horses of the priests.
Indeed, if the world were possessed of more characters like the deceased, it 
would be better off; there would be less tears, less heartburns, less 
complaining. The sun shined ever for  him, and he tried to throw its beams on 
others.
Alfred Pavy was born in New Orleans January 18, 1841. His father had accumulated 
a considerable fortune in the Crescent City, and when our subject was but nine 
years of age, the family moved to Paris, France, where Pavy senior spared no 
pains or expense in educating his three children. Alfred graduated from the 
Lvcee de Napoleon, Paris, at the age of 21, with high honors. He was then sent 
to Germany to complete his education. He travelled extensively in Europe, and 
gained a store of information that made him an authority on things European.
The family returned to New Orleans at the close of the civil war, where Pavy 
pere and his son Alfred engaged in the commercial business as cotton factors and 
commission merchants. Their fortune had diminished considerably when they 
returned to America, and the firm failed in 1873.
Alfred Pavy, armed only with the education which he had received during the 
times of plenty, moved to St. Landry, where three years previous he had married 
a cultured and beautiful young lady from this parish, Miss Paperle Guidry, a 
daughter of the late Dr. Alexis O. Guidry and Palmyre Dupre.
His struggles during his first years in St. Landry have been alluded to above. 
Having lost his fortune, he faced the world bravely, and those who remember him 
in those trying times say that instead of complaining of his lot, he prided in 
the fact that there was always an avenue of making a living where one was 
willing to work, and would say that honest work was honorable.
In 1884 he was elected Justice-of-the-Peace of the Grand Coteau ward, receiving 
every vote but ten.
He moved to Opelousas in 1888, to accept a position as Recorder under the late 
C. M. Thompson. His amiability of disposition and official qualifications soon 
marked him as a possibility for Clerk of Court, and when his employer decided to 
not to stand for re-election in 1896, Mr. Pavy made the race for the office and 
was elected.
He has been connected with the Clerk's office in various capacities ever since, 
his thorough acquaintance with the records of the parish making him particularly 
valuable as a recorder. For some time past he has been in feeble health, and 
some months ago was compelled to give up the discharge of active duties. 
Whenever a new lease of health would permit, however, he would come to the 
courthouse, and there was always a desk there for him. His health of late 
utterly failed him, and he continued to sink gradually until the end came.
He was a brother of the late Dr. F. O. Pavy, who perished under tragic 
circumstances with the Greely Arctic Expedition. It is believed that the  
famished members of the lost expedition in their desperate straits drew lot as 
to the one to myrtar himself to appease the hunger and save the lives of the 
other comrades, and that Dr. Pavy was one of the unfortunates who gave up his 
life in this way.
Deceased leaves a widow and nine children, four girls and five boys, to mourn 
his death, and the heartfelt condolences of the Clarion go out to them.

Additional Comments:
Alfred Henry Pavy is buried at the St. Landry Catholic Church cemetery in 
Opelousas, St. Landry Parish, LA. He is buried in section 3.

He was the son of Pierre Joseph Pavy and Caroline Renthorpe.

His www.findagrave.com memorial number is 102465779

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/stlandry/obits/p/pavy5351gob.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/lafiles/

File size: 6.4 Kb