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Want to know the simple secret to long life?
Allen LaCoste of Houma has the answer.
“Lots of friends, you see them all here today, church and peanut butter and crackers,” LaCoste said amid the 200-plus family and friends who had gathered at the St. Bernadette Knights of Columbus Hall in Houma to celebrate his 100th birthday on Sunday. “I’ve got my faith, and I’ve got my memory. I enjoy people. That is my life – friends. I wanted to invite more people, but this place wasn’t big enough.”
LaCoste hopes that his formula for life will get him at least six more years down the road.
“My grandpa made it to 105 and I want to beat him,” LaCoste said, laughing. “I don’t feel old at all, not with all these people here visiting.”
The party, complete with jambalaya and at least three cakes – one decorated with a one and the other two with each a zero, was technically a few days after LaCoste’s Sept. 5 birthday, a fact that did not seem to bother the dapper-suited birthday boy.
“There hasn’t been just one great thing in my life because I’ve been through a lot in the years,” LaCoste said. “I started working when I was 10. I’ve had a lot of good things in my life. My wife and I were married for 72 years.”
LaCoste was born in 1912 to Manuel LaCoste Jr. and Josephine Aucoin LaCoste of Bayou Dularge.
“Paw-Paw built boats with his father when he lived in Bayou Dularge,” said grandson Allen Bergeron of Houma. “They also shrimped and trapped there and in Morgan City.”
Bergeron’s mother, Carmelite “Tutty” Chandler, is the only daughter of LaCoste and his wife, Vivian Voison LaCoste, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 88. Bergeron is one of LaCoste’s three grandchildren, which also includes his sisters Gina Bergeron and Shanna Authement. LaCoste also has eight great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren, with one more on the way.
LaCoste married Voison in 1931, and the pair lived on a houseboat in Bayou Dularge for several years as LaCoste continued to trawl and trap before taking a job with GSI Survey Company in 1932. LaCoste also stayed true to his roots and used his knowledge of the area to guide hunting trips for local doctors and lawyers.
“Paw-Paw was one of the first people down the bayou to have a car,” Bergeron said. “He had that money from trapping and the fur business and the car cost $800.”
Around 1938, Vivian fell ill, and the young couple moved up the bayou to Houma where LaCoste took a job doing carpentry work for several years before going to work for Autin’s Packing Company in 1945.
“After the war, he started his own contracting company to build houses,” Bergeron said. “He actually still has the same phone number from when he opened the company around 1950. He built lots of spec homes and Federal Housing Administration homes in the area, and he would build pirogues at home after work. He retired in 1977, but he still helped people do work on their homes.”
Shortly before his retirement, LaCoste also joined the Knights of Columbus and continues to be active in the organization more than 40 years later.
“I watched him do carpentry work when I was a kid,” Bergeron said. “If he’d drop a scrap of wood on the floor, I’d pick it up and start nailing it. He let me use his hacksaw, too, because he wasn’t going to give me his good saws. I can do carpentry work now because of him.”
Bergeron, who lived with his grandparents for several years when they moved back to Bayou Dularge in the 1980s, credits his grandparents for helping him get to know all of his extended family, something he is thrilled that his sons also get to experience.
“We are making history with our five generations,” Bergeron said. “I think that it is incredible that my sons, who are both men now, got to grow up knowing their great-grandfather. My youngest son Bryan even did a timeline on him for school. Paw-Paw and Maw-Maw visited a lot, and I know lots of my cousins because of them. I know my family, even nephews and nieces on my grandma’s side. Uncle Allen was their favorite uncle. Lots of them from grandma’s side of the family are here today.”
“He’s no humbug,” Bergeron added. “He knows a lot of people in town, too, and a lot of people know him. He always went to church and helped people, whatever they needed him to do.”
As it would turn out, Bergeron’s inherited skills came in quite useful when he had to make some repairs to his grandfather’s home.
“I guess you could say we fixed his roof for his birthday because what can you possibly get for someone who has made it to such an extraordinary age?” Bergeron asked, laughing. “He was even trying to get on the ladder to help us!”
LaCoste, who stopped driving at 96, currently has a “roommate” helping him around the house.
“He lives with Tutty, or she lives with him as he likes to say,” said niece Enid Theriot of Houma, laughing. “Longevity runs in the family. My mom, his sister Roseilia, lived to be 95, and Aunt Grazilia lived to be 94. He has always loved to be outside, and he has a good outlook on life, no matter the situation. He worked hard and has always been a people person.”
“He had taken care of my mom since 1987 and now I take care of him,” Chandler said. “He helped me every time I moved when I was younger and told me to just leave my boxes on wheels. Like he says, he’s a people person. We were here decorating at 9:30 a.m. this morning, and he just had to be here even though the party wasn’t until 1 p.m.”
Maybe those few extra hours with friends and family will help get LaCoste to 106 years of age.
Proving that you can lick the icing off your cake no matter your age, Allen LaCoste of Houma steals a bit of sugar during his 100th birthday party at the St. Bernadette Knights of Columbus Hall. More than 200 friends and family members gathered at the event.
