Blanche Morton-Aphecetche Papers of Louis Aphecetche

Blanche Morton – Aphecetche (1925-2017) was an American woman that wrote several books about her genealogy. She also wrote the biography of her second husband, Louis Aphecetche (1926-2006), a Basque migrant born in Arnegi, Lower Navarre.

Louis Aphecetche was one of the four sons of Dominique and Gracianne Etchepare-Aphecetche. His father, Dominique, worked for fifteen years in Montana as a shepherd to earn money for his family. After World War I, Dominique returned to France in 1925 and was taken prisoner. His son Louis was born after he was released with the help of his family. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, he was still living in Arnegi, a town in the border between France and Spain. When World War II started, the Germans took control of Arnegi. During those days, Louis was warned to stay away from the German soldiers, to avoid being captured. Following World War II Armistice, he joined the new French army that was being organized and traveled to Germany.

In 1949, Louis Aphecetche traveled to Argentina. He was welcome by his cousins, sons of his mother´s brother. He spent five years in Argentina (1949-1954) and worked in several jobs, such as helping in a rancho, taking care of a service station, or dispatching gasoline at San Luis Airport. He flew to California in 1954 at the age of 28.

He arrived from Argentina to the U.S., speaking Basque, French, Latin and Spanish. He learned English using a dictionary and listening to the radio while working as a shepherd. He worked in Wyoming, in the Mojave Desert near Bakersfield, at Mono Lake in Nevada and the Oakland-San Francisco area. In 1963, he started his own gardening business on the San Francisco Peninsula. In 1966, Louis Aphecetche married Blanche Morton in Palo Alto, California. They traveled together through Europe and the United States, visiting the Basque Country in 1967.

Blanche Morton – Aphecetche put together these memories, and more, in the book Life Story of Louis Aphecetche, which was finished in December 2001.