Writing his own history

Every family has its own unique history that sets them apart from the rest of the world. While most of this history is not recorded in written form, it is passed down from one generation to the next through the customs of oral history.
The history of one of these families dates back to Spanish colonial days of Louisiana and continues to this day along the bayous in the prairie of Point Blue.
“The Perrons weren’t Cajuns,” said Doctor Roderick Perron. “They came from France to Canada then from Canada to here. The Perrons settled right there in Point Blue and had that whole 640 acre area. The Spanish were in charge of the area and gave them a big parcel of land.”
Dr. Perron continued, “There were four Perrons who came from Canada. One stayed in Point Blue, one went to Mamou, one went to Basile, and one went to Lake Charles.”
The Perrons in Point Blue were among those drafted by the Confederate army during the Civil War and sent to Vicksburg, Miss. One of them was a family member of Dr. Perron.
“We used to call all the old people ‘noncs,’” he said. “One of them was a farmer, and I would pick his cotton. He would sit and talk to me about his time in the army and how brave he was. He showed me his scars and said how he had got cut when they were fighting with bayonets. His story to me was that he killed all kinds of northerners, and I thought he was the greatest man in the world.”
Dr. Perron’s ideas changed when he found out the truth to the story after his dad, Eddie, was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives.
“My dad was given a set of books about Louisiana soldiers in the Civil War after he was elected, so I went and looked if I could see my old ‘nonc,’” Dr. Perron stated. “I found him in the book, and it said he deserted two weeks after he went to Vicksburg. They put him in an encampment, and he ran away. He went through a barb wire fence to get out, and that’s how he got all torn up. He got back to Point Blue with the other five or six who deserted, and they hid in some caves they dug off Bayou des Cannes.”
Dr. Perron then began adding his own chapters to the Perron family history when he joined the air force in 1955 after medical school. “I got my second lieutenant ranks when I got out of LSU ROTC,” he said. “I did my internship in Hawaii at the army hospital over there. I married my wife in Hawaii. She was a navy nurse, and I was an air force doctor in an army hospital.”
After his internship, Dr. Perron served in Europe, Libya, and California before deciding to get out of the service and return to Point Blue. Along the way, he was stationed at the same air base as Buzz Aldrin.
Upon his return home, Dr. Perron started a practice in Ville Platte but was asked to work in Mamou following the death of Dr. Frank Savoy. “I spent most of the rest of my career in Mamou,” he said.
Years later, Dr. Perron made a Cursillo (retreat) in Prairie Rhonde which led to him being ordained a deacon in the Catholic church.
“I started working with the Cursillo right away after I had made it,” said Dr. Perron. “When Fr. Joseph Brennan came to start Queen of All Saints, he and I became big buddies. He became director of the Cursillo while he was trying to start the church.”
“He told the bishop he was too busy, and the bishop said they were starting a deacon school,” Dr. Perron continued. “And the bishop said one of Fr. Brennan’s deacons could be his assistant. So, that’s when I became a deacon. I was ordained 40 years ago, and I did all of my deaconate mostly right there at the Cursillo Center.”
Along the way, Dr. Perron also decided to get involved in local politics. He was elected to the state’s democratic state central committee and was then elected to the Evangeline Parish School Board in 1964.
“When I was running for school board, I had nobody in the political arena who was for me,” Dr. Perron commented. “They were all against me because I was running against a man from Mamou who had been on the school board for 50 years. Edwin Edwards also came twice to Evangeline Parish to politic against me.
He continued, “When I ran for school board, I got 85-percent of the vote. I went to my house after I got the returns, and Edwin Edwards walked in. He came right up to my wife, knelt down, and kissed her hand. He said he wanted to kiss the hand of the wife of a man who had everybody in the parish running against him but still got 85-percent of the vote.”
After serving as school board member, Dr. Perron was elected as coroner. “Dr. Savoy, who started the hospital in Mamou, assumed the job of coroner,” he said. “Anybody who worked at the hospital was automatically assistant coroner. I was mostly the assistant coroner because nobody wanted to do that work.”
He continued, “Then Charles Fontenot spent 17 years as coroner, and he quit. I said I would run for it, and nobody ran against me.”
Dr. Perron as coroner went about with the idea of, as he said, “doing good examinations of causes of death especially with forensic medicine.”
He added, “Rudy Guillory told me to go to St. Louis and go through the course because there was more to being a coroner than what was happening over here. So, I got certified as a member of forensic medicine.”
After one term, Dr. Perron decided not to seek re-election for coroner.
Following his retirement after all his years of service, Dr. Perron, in his humility, does not “want to look like anything special.” He concluded, “I’d like to be known as a doctor and a coroner who really wanted to have a first class coroner’s office over here. And, I did.”