It is with great sadness that we report the death of a very unusual, courageous man, Louisiana Pearl Diver and past Pearl Society Speaker, Louis Mangano. The Pearl Society was just notified that he passed away a year ago, on January 15, 2006.
Pearl Society founder Eve Alfillé reports “His mother was going through his address book recently, found my number and left me a sad message. He had been using his chain saw to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina clear debris, and was found on the side of a road, dead of a heart attack at age 47.”
Mangano, one of the “larger than life” pearl personalities we’ve had the pleasure to meet through The Pearl Society, came to Eve’s Gallery on March 24, 1996 to speak about the rare pink pearls he collected from his native Louisiana. He shared his tales of romance and intrigue related to diving in the murky depths of the Pearl River, collecting natural pink pearls from the Potamulus Purpuratus mussel.
He regaled us with tales of his pearl-diving exploits, describing how he and his common-law wife, Annette, lived on a houseboat and dove for pearls. She would alert him to danger, like alligators, snakes or loggerhead turtles (large enough to snap your hand off in a single bite), by banging on a frying pan! Describing diving conditions: “You are down at 45 feet, it’s pitch black. You can’t see anything, so you feel around for the mussels by running your hand along the river bed. Every time you move your hand you risk something biting you!"
The species of mussel he hunted, the Potamulus Purpuratus, has a ridged black outer shell which opens to a pastel, pinkish-purple colored mother-of-pearl interior. The interior also sports some highly iridescent areas along its edges, including colors of peacock blue, chartreuse, hot pink, yellow and purple. Besides a rare necklace of baroque pink pearls collected by Louis over twelve years and once owned by Annette, the Eve J. Alfillé Gallery is fortunate to own a magnificent 14.93 carat natural pink pearl with a wonderful butterfly shape from another river, as well as a large collection of mussel shells.
Louis and Annette participated for a month every year in a special U.S. government reforestation program to save a type of oak tree found only in the Tennessee woods. The government offers bounty hunters about $100 for each large sack of acorns collected from deep in the forest. This helped them to survive the rest of the year on their Pearl River houseboat. Eve has a small collection of acorns Louis left with her, as well as some small alligators Louis carved out of pink mussel shell in his kitchen during the winter months, which he sold to tourists.
Through his connection with The Pearl Society, Louis realized his dream of going to China to learn the secrets of Mabe pearl culture. His dream was to be the first to produce a pink Mabe from his beloved mussels. With his newfound know-how, he set out some nucleated pink shells into a pond he rented from an uncle. But success was elusive, and his untimely death signals the end of this magnificent obsession. The Pearl Society offers its heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.
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