Son of Octave Gonzales Fernández and Mary Benson, he was born, lived, and died in
New Orleans,
Louisiana. Their ancestors came from the
Canary Islands, Spain and were also of
Cajun,
Alsatian, and
Galician descent. Settlers in Louisiana from the Canaries are known as
Isleños. On June 3, 1920, he married 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. In the
election of 1946, Fernández briefly served as the reform candidate against Mayor
Robert Maestri, but he withdrew from the race at the last minute after Maestri offered to pay his campaign expenses. Maestri was unseated, however, by the reformers' choice,
deLesseps Story Morrison. == Personal life ==