90-year-old Elmo Royer moved to Lafayette from Duson.

He was the middle child with one sister and a brother.  

Royer says living the farming life meant early to rise.

He is a man of very few words until he reflects on joining the military; right when the war came to an end.  

He says he was returning home from New Orleans on the brink of turning 18.

“The guy said you have to come back on your birthday which was the following day.  I said could I join now?  He said yes.  So, I joined the service right there,” Royer recalls.

He has loads of pictures of spending time in foreign places, meeting different people and experiencing unique cultures. 

After 16 months overseas, Royer returned home.  

He got married and had three children…a boy and two girls.

“I married about 3 years after the service and then I moved back to New Orleans,” says Royer.

Royer was a dedicated Louisiana Icegators fan; he has a signed hat to prove it.

Royer says he’s had a good life.  

“I’m satisfied with what I went through,” he says.

However, if he could change one thing, Royer says he would trade his years of being a laborer for working in an office.

Royer says his mother lived to be 96 and he has an uncle who lived to be 101 years old.