Native pens memoir about island community.

Grand Isle is almost unrecognizable from the way some residents remember it over half a century ago. But one of its former inhabitants has released a memoir about his time on the barrier island.

Elson Trahan Jr., who now lives in Cut Off, released his memoir, “Remembering Grand Isle,” as a homage to his hometown.

“There’s not much written about everyday life in Grand Isle,” Trahan said after years of research and reflection on the subject.

“It’s a unique place,” he said. “It’s so different than anything else.”

Trahan lived on the island from the time he was born in 1940 until he was 19. Since then, periodic reunions with friends from the island town have resulted in endless hours of swapping stories.

“My wife would hear us talking about the fun things we did and the way the island was, so she suggested I write down my memories for our grandchildren,” Trahan said.

At 77, Trahan said he’s attending more funerals than weddings and saw the need to preserve Grand Isle’s history before it was lost.

“Between my wife and how that history was going away, I decided to write the book,” he said.

For almost six years, Trahan wrote his memories on yellow legal pads. Once he was finished, he had someone type it up — preferring to stay away from computers himself.

Another suggestion from his wife led him to the publishing company, Portier Gorman Publications, who helped him organize the stories in a chronological order, with the help of timeline research at the local library.

The memoir focuses on Trahan’s young life and the grandparents that helped raise him.

The stories are about the way they lived and what they did as young people in a slowly changing part of the country.

With no running water, cucumber fields plowed by horses and wagon and electricity introduced in the ‘50s, there was a slower pace to the isle, Trahan said.

Each chapter of the book is a new month, beginning with Trahan’s grandfather planting the fields in January. As the weather grew warmer, the family began to sell the products, then in the summer it was time to find something else to do.

In the simplest way, Trahan said, he hopes the book will help people understand how beautiful Grand Isle was.

“It was just a beautiful island that had a lot of tranquility, a lot of beauty, beautiful activity and a quiet peaceful life,” he said.

The house Trahan grew up in still stands, he said, withstanding Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Copies of “Remembering Grand Isle” can be purchased by writing the Trahans at P.O. Box 326, Cut Off, LA 70345, or by calling 632-3023.

-- Staff Writer Julia Arenstam can be reached at 448-7636 or julia.arenstam@houmatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @gingerale214.