Eysus

Patricia Moore

How does someone with a name like Patricia Moore, a second generation Californian, claim to have Béarnais blood, one quarter Béarnais blood at that? My maternal grandfather who came to Los Angeles from Eysus in 1888 is full blooded Béarnais. When I started my research for my book entitled Restored To Life about my maternal grandmother, I had no idea what I would find, not only about her ancestors but those of her husband as well.

My first connection to Eysus goes all the way back to the year 1959 at the end of my Junior Year Abroad in Paris. In June of that year when I went back to Biarritz from Paris to say goodbye to my host family, they took me to Eysus to see what we could find about my grandfather. I remember three of us went in a 2 chevaux camionette. We were shown a house purported to have been lived in by a Domecq family and we also visited the church where the curé copied out my grandfather’s baptismal certificate along with his sister Madeleine’s and their parents’ wedding registration. Reading what he wrote was the first time I had ever heard the name Sarrail Lacarrieu (Lacarriu). Lire la suite →