By Rita Shirley LeBleu

Nancy Joyce Precht Nunez, the late Herman Thomas “Budgie” Precht, Jr., Pat Precht Faulk, Debbie Precht Howerton and Phil Precht grew up in a home where faith was integral and the food served up hot for a sit-down meal three times a day.

It wasn’t always served at the dinner table. Pat remembers delivering meat and rice and gravy along with jars of iced tea to family and other men working in the field. “Those were the best,” she said, giving a nod to how eating in the great outdoors made great food taste even better. All of the Precht siblings know their way around the kitchen, and the sisters have produced a cookbook, “Ma Maw’s Favorites w/License, Her 3 Girls.”

Despite their difference in ages, birthdates span 20 years, the siblings make time for each other to laugh – Debbie says she, Nancy and Pat have been nicknamed “the cacklers” – and enjoy a good meal that begins with prayer, a tradition passed down from their parents and their parents before them.

The prayer is in the “Ma Maw’s Favorites” cookbook, a prayer of peace, love, forgiveness, loyalty … a call to extend help if another is troubled and for all to embrace Jesus as Savior. Their grandparents prayed for each child, each grandchild.

When Debbie asks everyone to join hands for prayer before eating, her brother jokes to “get ready for a long one.” The girls are accustomed to the antics of the baby in the family who likes to quip that he was not a mistake, but an opportunity.

“You weren’t an opportunity for me,” Debbie, the youngest sister retorts.

Their weekly luncheon is a spin off of the “Cousin’s Luncheon” introduced in 1993 by a cousin who didn’t want funerals to be the only time the families saw each other. In 2004 the Precht siblings lost their brother Herman “Budgie” Precht, Jr. The nickname Budgie stuck when Nancy Joyce couldn’t quite pronounce “brother.”

Nancy Joyce is the genealogy expert, according to Debbie.

“I was born in my grandparents’ home on my grandfather’s birthday and named after my grandmother,” she said.

Her grandparents are William Henry and Nancy Hebert Precht (1887-1960). His family came from Hanover, Germany in the 1800s. The Heberts have been traced back to the Acadians who came to Louisiana in 1766. The Hebert family came to Cameron Parish around 1799 according to the Hebert/Precht genealogy.

Nancy Joyce’s number one daughter – because she was taught better than to say “oldest,” is also named Nancy.

In the family’s genealogy, Carolyn Precht Marks writes that Nancy Hebert “was known for her good housekeeping and her love of people … She loved to watch guests enjoy her cooking.”

She had a little tea cart that always had baked things on it, according to Pat.

Nancy added that her grandmother always wanted to look her best. If someone came to visit, she would run and powder her nose before she answered the door. There was a joke among them that she may not have even wanted to answer the phone without that dab of Coty. What other reason could there be for her taking so long to answer.

Their grandparents’ home is the place where the extended family gathered. The siblings remember Christmases there. Someone always went on the roof to make reindeer sounds and they always read the Bible Christmas story, Pat said.

Henry William Precht was 23 and Nancy Hebert was 16 when they met.

“When a fellow wants to see a gal bad enough that he’ll drive a horse and buggy 60 miles over rough unkept roads and then take a long boat trip to her home…,” is one of the stories about their courtship in the Hebert/Precht genealogy book. They married in 1910 .

Henry William is described in the book as a quiet, patient man. He and Nancy Hebert Precht had five children, Charles Henry, Herman Thomas, Arlo Velma, William Warren and Calvin Edward.

When their son Herman Thomas (1913-1983) wanted to see his gal back in the day, the ride was a Harley-Davidson. Motorcycles weren’t as popular then as they are now. An AI overview from Google suggests that there were only 100,000 to 150,000 total motorcycles registered in the United States at this time, Harleys and Indians. Today, 9.3 million motorcycles are registered in the United States.

Phil said his father purchased it at the Harley-Davidson shop in Lake Charles, which was on Broad St. in the 1930s – and still is.

Herman Thomas Precht’s “gal” was Willery Leona Herrington (1921-1996). Originally from Kountze,Texas, Willery’s mother died when she was young and Willery lived with her uncle in a Jennings boarding house when the two met. The uncle had moved there for oil field work. Willery’s mother, Annie Phillips, was half Indian, possibly Choctaw.

Herman Thomas and Willery Herrington Precht

Herman Thomas and Willery Herrington Precht married in 1938. She was 16, but a mature 16. She had to grow up quickly because she had been on her own for quite some time, Debbie said. She didn’t graduate high school but she was very intelligent, self taught, and very artistic too.

Nancy Joyce said when her mother married, she didn’t know how to cook, but the Hebert/Prechts welcomed her with open arms.

The sisters-in-law became the close-knit family she never had. It was no time before they brought her up to speed with cooking and sewing. She made the children’s clothes. Debbie said she exceeded her sisters-in-law when it came to her cooking.

When the Precht siblings are asked who the best cook is in their family, they point to Nancy Joyce.

There is no information about when their parents met for the first time or if the spacing of the children so far apart was intentional. This was a time when such things were not considered polite conversation. When Nancy married, her mother was three months pregnant with Phil and apprehensive about being a part of the wedding in her state, even though she was a tall woman and didn’t even “show”, Nancy Joyce said.

All the girls remember how proud their father was of Phil. When someone would ask if Phil was his grandson, he would say, “That’s my boy,” with emphasis on the “my.”

Willery was the disciplinarian. Nancy Joyce recalled a time in her childhood, her father chasing her, slapping the belt to his leg rather than giving her the whipping she likely deserved.

“I never got a spanking from him,” she said.

The place he loved being most was outside in the fields.

To read the rest of this story, please see page two of the print edition of The Cameron Parish Pilot.