Joachim O. Fernández

Who was Joachim O. Fernández?

Joachim Octave Fernández, Sr., was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 1st congressional district. Like all other members of his state's congressional delegation at the time of his tenure, Fernández was a Democrat.

A son of Octave Gonzales Fernández and the former Mary Benson, he was born, lived, and died in New Orleans. On June 3, 1920, he married the former Viola Murray, and the couple had two sons and two daughters. He began his political career as a member of the Old Regular political machine. He was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1924 to 1928 and the State Senate from 1928 to 1930 at the time of the administration of Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. In 1930, however, Fernández defected to the camp of Walmsley's enemy, Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr. He became Long's Ninth Ward political boss and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1930 with Long's support. He lost his seat in 1940 to reform candidate Felix Edward Hébert, a former journalist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Fernández was a delegate to the Louisiana state constitutional convention in 1921, which wrote the document to govern his state until 1975. He was an alternate delegate to the 1936 Democratic National Convention, which renominated the Franklin D. Roosevelt-John Nance Garner ticket. In his forties, Fernández served in the United States Navy as a lieutenant commander during World War II. After his congressional service, Fernández was the U.S. collector of internal revenue in New Orleans.