Donner Reunion, 1978

This collection covers 21 linear feet and spans 1900-2023 with the bulk of the materials dating 1974-1999. The collection contains files and items related to research for Ms. Plessala’s two books on the Sawmill community of Donner Louisiana as well as files related to the Donner reunions which she helped to organize after her mother Birdie’s death in 1989. The collection also includes files on Educational reforms and research on Charter Schools and Collective Bargaining. These files include correspondence to legislators and other politicians regarding these reforms in addition to correspondence regarding the Terrebonne parish teachers strike in 1989. Other files document events held at the Donner Post Office by her mother, Birdie B. Gosselin, who served as Postmaster and the Conrad Albrizio mosaic mural originally located in the Citizen’s National Bank and Trust in Houma. Photographs and scrapbooks in the collection document the history of Donner as well as the Donner reunions including photographs used in her two books. Also included, are scrapbooks from the Sun Retirees Club of South Louisiana for former employees of the Sun Oil Company based in Lafayette. Plessala’s husband Carl was a retiree of Sun. Newspaper clippings in the collection document the community of Donner, Donner Reunions as well as the 1989 teacher’s strike. Artifacts and paintings in the collection are mostly related to Donner and were part of a small museum Ms. Plessala established in an outbuilding on her property. Of note in the collection is a Louisiana State Flag which was partially redesigned due to the efforts of Ms. Plessala’s grandson, D. Joseph Louviere while in the 8th grade in 2006.