Snow day February 1958. Pictured is Myrna Hymel, Gail Hymel and Elsie Matherne. Monsanto pictures courtesy of Gail Bosco.
Offshore fishing trip in Biloxi in the late 1950s. Florence Orgeron, Dot Cayard, Laura White, Myrna Hymel, Gail Bosco, Lorraine Champagne, Elsie Matherne, Louise Worrell and Dot Woulfe. Monsanto pictures courtesy of Gail Bosco.
Elsie Matherne, Gail Hymel, Lorraine Champagne, Mary Ann Gassen, Marian Boudoin/Nesanovitch. Monsanto pictures courtesy of Gail Bosco.
The happy young ladies above are Monsanto employees from the Luling, Louisiana plant. The girls visited Pensacola during the weekend and following a tour of the plant Saturday morning, July 21, they enjoyed a dip in the Gulf at Pensacola beach. Accompanying the group on the trip were John Wood, Luling personnel superintendent, right rear, and Charles Bell, personnel assistant, second from left. L.L. Copenhaver, extreme left, was host to the group.
Lorraine Foret, Bill East, Janet Culver, Mr. Easley, Lorraine Champagne, Ann Brasher, Sam Allen, Jenella Brady, Ann Estess, Marian Baudoin, Louise Worrall, Laura White, Mr. Payton Plant Manager, Ava Swilley, Myrna Hymel, unknown, Dot Cayard, Elsie Matherne, Fred Elliot, Gail Hymel, Delores Hymel and Aline Gassen. Monsanto pictures courtesy of Gail Bosco.
Monsanto plant manager, Lonnie Patton, left, and Jim Tilley, far right, during an awards presentation. The two men in the center are unknown. Photo courtesy of Melissa Landry.
Hershel Burleigh at the circulator to make ammonia at Monsanto. Photo courtesy Hershel Burleigh.
Hershel Burleigh, one of Lion Oil/Monsanto’s oldest employees. Photo courtesy Hershel Burleigh.
In 1862, Thomas J. Sellers (middle, back row) joined the Confederacy to serve with Ogden’s Calvary Regiment and returned to the German Coast after the war. The Sellers family moved to New Orleans around 1882 and returned to the West Bank of the German Coast to the Lone Star Plantation in 1889. The Davis Crevasse forced another move to Alice Plantation (named after his daughter) in Ama in 1893. “Colonel” Sellers died in 1915 and was buried in the family plot at St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery in Destrehan. (Photo courtesy of St. Charles Herald)
Ellington Plantation was also called Witherspoon. Francis Mayronne commissioned Charles Gallier to design the Classical Revival house, which was built in the late 1850s in present-day Luling at the River Road Monsanto Park site. Florenz Albrect Luling, for whom the town of Luling was named, (formerly known as St. Denis, named by a Civil War railroad owner; when the Acadians arrived in the area it became popularly known as “Cajun Town”), purchased the plantation on August 6, 1868. Luling sold Ellington Plantation on May 1, 1882, and a succession of owners followed. It was purchased in 1952 by the Lion Oil Company, which later became Monsanto. The main house was demolished in the early 1960s. Some of the smaller houses from the plantation were moved from the site to Sugarhouse Road and remain in place today. Top photo shows the front elevation with the bottom photo showing the back of the plantation house. (Photo courtesy of JoAnn and Kearney Mongrue)