CHERISHED MEMORIES takes a memorable journey back to New Orleans of the 1950s. Professor Beverly Jacques Anderson shares stories from her childhood and from her elementary school classmates, providing a fascinating look at the experience of growing up in the Creole culture of the Seventh Ward of New Orleans. This culture indelibly shaped the character, personality, and aspirations of Anderson and her elementary school classmates, many of whom became hard working, family-oriented, service-oriented, productive, self-assured citizens. Creole culture in the Seventh Ward was rooted in close family ties, hard work, creativity, high expectations, independence, the Golden Rule, Catholicism, shared language/manner of speaking, and a shared sense of belonging to a unique community. Teachers, parents, and principals-all African Americans-valued education and set high standards for student achievement. According to interviews with twelve of the author's classmates, these beliefs, along with the unwavering support of parents and teachers, helped to produce competitive individuals in all walks of life. The Creole culture was also rooted in racial, ethnic, and religious segregation that affected individuals in surprising ways. Anderson also examines the history of public and Catholic education for children of color in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans and addresses the impact of the school on the community and vice versa. Explore this fascinating community and its educational history with Cherished Memories.

CHERISHED MEMORIES

Snapshots of Life and Lessons from a 1950s New Orleans Creole VillageBy BEVERLY JACQUES ANDERSON

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Beverly Jacques Anderson, PhD
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-0321-1

Contents

Three Elementary School Classmates Meet...............................................1Civil Judge and Former Civil Lawyer...................................................4Chief Administrator for the City of New Orleans.......................................12Creoles of the Seventh Ward of New Orleans............................................23Our Beloved Valena C. Jones Elementary School.........................................53Most Frequently Attended High Schools of Classmates...................................71Rivers Frederick Junior High School...................................................71McDonogh 35 Senior High School........................................................77St. Augustine High School.............................................................81Ophthalmologist.......................................................................85Special Education Teacher.............................................................95Pediatrician and Former Health Officer for the State of Louisiana.....................110Retired Employee Development Specialist...............................................128Lawyer and Former Louisiana State Legislator..........................................138Special Education Paraprofessional....................................................146Carpenter Contractor..................................................................157Retired Elementary School Teacher.....................................................164Middle School Science Teacher.........................................................173Retired Elementary School Teacher.....................................................185A Part of Our History Is Preserved and Cherished......................................194Concluding Notes......................................................................197References............................................................................209Appendix A............................................................................212Appendix B............................................................................214Appendix C............................................................................218Appendix D............................................................................222Appendix E............................................................................225Appendix F............................................................................233

Chapter One

Three Elementary School Classmates Meet

It was noon as I stood at the dining room entrance of the Le Pavillon Hotel in New Orleans, my hometown, eagerly waiting to have lunch with two of my friends from elementary school. One of them started with me in kindergarten, and the other one joined our fourth-grade class. I could hardly wait to see them. It had been at least twenty-five years since the three of us were last together, and I was eager to laugh with them and reminisce about old times. Hurricane Katrina, with all its devastation, had left me with a greater need than ever to remember life as it once was. I started looking up old friends, particularly those from my fifth-grade class. I'd always thought there was something special about that group.

I looked around the dining room to see if either of my friends had arrived. My eyes immediately fell upon a distinguished black man in an expensive-looking suit. His thick gray hair was brushed back, and his heavy gray eyebrows complemented well-defined facial features, resembling those of an American Indian. In a room filled mostly with whites, my classmate stood out with his deep tan skin and his confident manner. Instantly, the image of this seemingly well-to-do, established man was juxtaposed in my mind with the picture of the elementary school classmate whom everyone knew as Herbert Cade. The young boy who is now a district judge for the city of New Orleans earned, by his indomitable way, the privilege of having his friends use his full name whenever they talked about him. Later, during the lunch, we would laugh about this manner of referring to him.

Sitting to his left was a professional-looking woman with short curly brown hair, bubbly cheeks, warm and engaging eyes, a smiling face, and nearly white skin. My best friend and classmate from kindergarten through twelfth grade (except for the eighth grade), quick-witted Brenda Garibaldi had become Brenda Garibaldi Hatfield, the chief administrative officer of the city of New Orleans, with a slightly heavier build than the slim frame she had carried most of her adult life, and still vivacious with the same demeanor. As I was dazed matching the pictures in my mind with my friends of today, they noticed me, and I found their loving eyes. All I could do was smile and rush to the table. I sat, and we sheepishly looked at each other, not wanting the other persons to know that we were checking them out to see if the years had been good to them. We concluded that the years had been fairly descent to all three of us aging senior citizens.

We were ecstatic to see each other, but we tried to be cool. Herbert Cade (henceforth Herbert) knew exactly what to say to two women who thought they looked pretty good "back in the day"; he reminded us that he was a year younger. Of course, we let him know how much we appreciated that information. We also admitted to him that his age was probably the reason that we didn't date him. "You know, we didn't want to rob the cradle" was my automatic response to him. That teasing response made me feel as though we picked up where we had left off many years ago: Brenda or I always had a comeback to Herbert. I had not seen Herbert in more than twenty-five years. I last saw Brenda a few months earlier when she attended a meeting in Washington, DC. We spent a couple of hours together at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, catching up on each other's lives. I also talked with her briefly at my mother's funeral in December 2005. I vividly remembered being happy to see her at Mother's funeral. But today was different. I wanted to re-establish my friendship with Herbert, and I also wanted to be nostalgic and focus on our unique fifth-grade class at Valena C. Jones School, and Mrs. Owinda Taplette, our fifth-grade teacher.

After selecting our meal at Le Pavillon's luncheon buffet, we began to talk freely about our spouses, children, grandchildren, and impending grandchildren. We talked about the not so positive experiences in our lives, and we talked about classmates and my incessant desire to get the complete roster of our fifth-grade class. We had the exciting occasion to laugh about so many of life's experiences that we could not have even discussed with each other twenty years earlier. Perhaps, we now believed that inhibitions of our earlier years had dissipated or vanished in our senior citizen status. My classmates and I appeared to be free!

Herbert remembered another name for the roster, and at that point, I announced that we had accumulated forty names for the roster. Brenda seemed to think there were a least forty-two students in our class. The conversation then shifted to the class members who had died—we mentioned Germaine Viltz, Arthur Robinson, Tyrone Clements, Brinton Watts, Augusta Woods, Bernadine Payne, George Robichaux, Adrian Arnaud, and Gerald Mitchell....