Samuel A. LeBlanc I

Samuel Albert LeBlanc, I (August 29, 1886–July 8, 1955), was a lawyer from Napoleonville in Assumption Parish, Louisiana, who was a Democratic former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1912 to 1916.^[1]

Career

LeBlanc was born in Paincourtville in Assumption Parish to the former Camille Dugas and Joseph E. LeBlanc. His father was a parish official, a state senator, and a member of the state House of Representatives. In 1908, LeBlanc received his law degree from Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. In 1910, he was appointed for two years to the Louisiana State Board of Education. He practiced law in Napoleonville until 1920, when he began service as judge of the Louisiana 23rd Judicial District Court, which then served Assumption, Ascension, and St. James parishes. In 1929, LeBlanc was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Justice Paul Leche of the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the First Circuit. He was subsequently elected to the position and remained in the office until 1949, when he was elected to the Louisiana Supreme Court to complete the unexpired term of a chief justice. He left the court on December 31, 1954.^[2]

In civic activities, LeBlanc was chairman of his local American Red Cross and a trustee of his alma mater, Tulane University. He was a member of the Roman Catholic men's organization, the Knights of Columbus. Shortly before his death, he was named a Knight of St. Gregory.^[2]

Family

On August 7, 1912, LeBlanc married the former Elmire Lafaye (1889-1972). The couple had five children, Samuel II, Henry, Richard, Elmire, and Cecile.^[2] Samuel II later married the former Marcelle Reese and had two children, Sam A. LeBlanc III, of St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish, and Marcelle L. Hickey (born 1940), who resides in New Orleans. Samuel II was killed during World War II,^[3] and Marcelle married Robert Emmet Couhig Sr. (1916–2014), a businessman from New Orleans and later Baton Rouge by whom she bore three other sons, including Rob Couhig, and a daughter.^[4] Like his grandfather, Sam A. LeBlanc III, is a Tulane Law School graduate^[5] and a Democratic former member of the state House of Representatives, having served two terms from 1972 to 1980 for Jefferson and Orleans parishes.^[1]

Other LeBlanc family members who held public office included his maternal grandfather, Eloi F. X. Dugas, and a brother, Henry LeBlanc, who were both state representatives for Assumption Parish. Another brother, Robert LeBlanc, and a nephew, George Etienne LeBlanc, were members of the Assumption Parish School Board. Another nephew, Henry Arthur Folse, was a mayor of Donaldsonville in Ascension Parish.^[2]

References