Years active 1963-2009 Spouse(s) Never married | Name Marietta LeBreton Role Historian | |
Born March 26, 1936 ( 1936-03-26 ) New Orleans
Orleans Parish
Louisiana, USA Residence Natchitoches, Louisiana Alma mater Louisiana State University Occupation Historian
Professor at Northwestern State University, Parent(s) Edmond Jules and Barbara Martin Logan LeBreton Died March 5, 2009, Shreveport, Louisiana, United States Education Louisiana State University | ||
Marietta Marie LeBreton (March 26, 1936 – March 5, 2009) was an historian of Louisiana affiliated for forty-five years with Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.
Career
LeBreton received her Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, and Ph.D. in history from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She joined the NSU faculty at the age of twenty-seven in 1963 as an instructor of social science. She was promoted to assistant professor of history in 1965, associate professor in 1970, and full professor in 1973. In 1980, she was named to succeed Donald Rawson as chairman of the NSU Department of History after president Rene Bienvenu tapped Rawson as the Dean of the Graduate School. LeBreton left the chairmanship in 1983, when the department was renamed Social Sciences. She returned to teaching and was still on the history faculty in the spring of 2009 when she was stricken with a brief but fatal illness. She died three weeks short of her 73rd birthday in a Shreveport hospital.
LeBreton authored Northwestern State University: A History 1884-1984, which was published in 1985 by the NSU Press for the university centennial.
NSU President Randall J. Webb noted that LeBreton's longevity was one of the most enduring in NSU history. She was a faculty member for more than a third of the existence of the institution.
A native of New Orleans, LeBreton authored "The Acadians" chapter of Stephan Thernstrom's Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. She also wrote a geographic and historical article about Dorcheat Bayou in southwestern Arkansas and Webster Parish, Louisiana, in the book Rivers and Bayous of Louisiana. She wrote "The Burr Conspiracy", a chapter of the Readings in Louisiana History, of which she was also the associate editor.
In 1974, LeBreton wrote a position paper on Article III of the Louisiana Constitution of 1812 entitled "Edwin W. Edwards: The Role of the Governor in Louisiana Politics: An Historical Analysis", which was then published in the periodical, Louisiana History.
LeBreton died three weeks before her 73rd birthday. Services were held on March 11, 2009, at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Natchitoches, with the Reverend Jason Gootee officiating, and on March 12 at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home Chapel in New Orleans, where she was thereafter interred. The daughter of the late Edmond Jules and Barbara Martin Logan LeBreton, she was survived by two brothers, including Arthur LeBreton, and nine nieces and nephews.