First, you ought not die alone. Second, if the newspaper does a story about your passing, the least it can do is try to get the facts straight.
SADLY, a broadcasting professor from my days at the Louisiana State journalism school -- now the Manship School of Mass Communication -- came up empty on both counts when he left this world Thursday.
That someone would have no close family left is awful, but largely uncontrollable. But for someone as accomplished as Jules d'Hemecourt -- he was a professor, a past print and television newsman, and a lawyer, too -- that the local paper couldn't get some basic facts straight seems somehow fundamentally unjust.
When reading his obit from The Advocate in Baton Rouge, note that the name of the novelty record he made as "Tee Jules" really is "The Cajun 12 Days of Christmas." Note also that d'Hemecourt was a TV news director in Alexandria and Baton Rouge, not just an anchorman.
IF I CAN REMEMBER THAT, surely someone at the Baton Rouge paper could have:
Jules d’Hemecourt IV, a retired LSU journalism professor and the voice behind “The 12 Cajun Days of Christmas,” has died, friends confirmed Monday. He was 64.
Jim Engster, general manager of Louisiana Network and d’Hemecourt’s co-worker for several years, said d’Hemecourt died Thursday, one day after being hospitalized from a brief illness.
Engster said funeral arrangements were pending for d’Hemecourt, a native of New Orleans who had no immediate family members.
Engster said doctors summoned him to the hospital shortly before d’Hemecourt passed away.
“It was somewhat ironic that a man who influenced thousands of students through the years … had very few family members, and no one really knew he was deathly ill,” Engster said.
D’Hemecourt was a decorated journalist whose career spanned TV, print and radio news, as well as law.
According to biographical information provided by LSU, d’Hemecourt served as news director of WJBO-AM before working in the early 1970s as a TV news anchor for KALB in Alexandria and WRBT, now WVLA, in Baton Rouge.
They also got the fact wrong about Jules not having any living family. I am Julia d'Hemecourt, daughter of John d'Hemecourt. Jules was our cousin. My family (my parents, brothers and sister) reconnected with him when my siblings and cousins (also d'Hemecourt's and Jules's relatives) started taking his classes at LSU. He was a part of our holiday celebrations, and we visited him every time we went up to Baton Rouge. He would call a few times a month and tell my mom, who he loved, jokes (usually Boudreaux and Thibodeaux ones). We loved him, and we miss him.