The Treasure Chest

  

Having spent more than 30 years researching my family history, I've learned a lot about my people. 

I'm a little bit Irish, a whole lot of English, some French, a touch of German and, somewhere, one percent Native American.

I also know that I descend from a very long line of packrats -- people who keep everything and don't know how to throw anything away. This was not a surprise, really. At least I know I come by it honestly.

This notion was recently reinforced when I inherited "The Trunk," a very large steamer trunk that belonged to my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and, finally, my sister, who decided it was hers (dammit). She took it and put it in her garage, which sadly flooded a few years back. But let me say this about those old turn-of-the-century trunks -- they were built to last. Remarkably, everything was very well preserved except for a few photo albums that stuck together. 

The Coach and I dragged it home, and it took me a few weeks to get up my gumption to go through it. Once I opened it and got past the musty smell from the flood and the many years, I spent a week strolling down other people's memory lanes and sifting through the memories and mementos of four generations of very sentimental women. 

They kept everything.

Bills. Receipts. Checks. Check registers. Newspaper clippings, especially of classmates who married, had babies and died. Tickets. Programs. Dance cards. Birthday cards. Sympathy cards. Congratulatory cards and telegrams.

And every letter ever written to them.

I found the funeral book from my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my grandfather, to add to the one from my mother-in-law and my father-in-law.

I found my grandmother's high school scrapbook, filled with blurry black and white photos of young flapper girls with bob hairdos. She attended Sophie B. Wright High School in New Orleans and was a member of the Terrible Tooters, a music and drama group. I have a ticket to her graduation, the program, and her senior yearbook.

   

Grannie married a boy who went to Warren Easton High School. I have a ticket to his graduation as well. He was the son of a politician in Algiers who served as a Councilman and as a State Representative. There were a few papers of his and some stationery from his role as the Union Head for the Railroad Conductors.

My other great-grandmother, Lena, was a registered nurse. There were lots of identification cards, membership cards, and calling cards from the early 1900s and many letters thanking her for her kind care.

When I was about 2 years old, my family loaded up the old white Rambler station wagon and took a trip to New York for the World's Fair, with stops all along the East Coast and D.C. We stayed in a hotel that had little Indian tepee tents. Sadly, that was one of the photo albums that got almost ruined, but there were a few fun mementos from the trip I was on but of which I have no recollection.

This was an intensely emotional journey for me, looking at the photos of my entire family who lived, kept a bunch of stuff, and died. I remember seeing these photos, hearing the stories. I enjoyed looking at the scrapbook from my grandmother's retirement after 31 years with the Louisiana Employment Agency and Grandpa's 45 years with the telephone company. 

I loved seeing the young ladies from the 1920s and a bunch of Grannie's beaus, along with her completely filled dance cards. (I have no idea who this beautiful young woman was.)

A few leftover tickets from our trip to Disneyland. 

Old physician's tools, including a very scary-looking primitive syringe. (I donated these to my own doctor, who has a display case with other similar items.)

Photos of my grandparents' house when they first bought it, with the white fence and rose-covered trellises at the end of the driveway.

My sister's high school yearbooks from the 1960s.

It was a wonderful walk down memory lane.

But here's where some of you are going to disown me....

While I did keep quite a bit of it, along with the trunk, I threw a lot of it away. I had to throw away the check registers and bills and cards and letters, along with many of the photos of people who have long gone and I never knew. 

 I have already carried on the family trait enough with my own treasure trove of stuff -- keepsakes, high school scrapbooks, things from my college years, my wedding. 

Then I became a mom. So now I have trunks and boxes of her stuff, none of which she seems to want.

Then my mama died and left me a bunch of her stuff. And a lot of her stuff was stuff that had previously been her mama's stuff, and her grandmother's stuff, and her great-grandmother's stuff.

It has gotten to the point where I need my own museum!

And someday in the not too distant future, my adopted daughter and my step-children, who have no connection to any of these people or any of their stuff are going to have to go through all of it. And they won't know what to do with it either. None of it is really worth anything (I don't think). It's all just memories at this point. And yes, some of those are priceless. 

But mostly, it's just other people's stuff. 

My family supported education!

Grandpa's retirement gift from the telephone company.

The bill for my mother's birth at St. Mary's Hospital in Patterson. 

 

My daughter's wedding

My daughter's wedding took place on a warm, humid night in June, in the courtyard of a unique little venue that once was a small town bank. 

The mother of the groom and I spent many sweaty hours trying to bring my daughter's vision to life, strategically placing silk flowers, votive candles, and bud vases. It was a simple celebration for a young couple just starting out, with one set of parents who are retirees. There was a budget.

She was just stunning in her sparkling white dress and veil, her long jet black hair in soft waves around her face. I had seen her in her dress numerous times since it arrived at our door via UPS, but seeing her all put together with hair and makeup done to perfection just took my breath away. It was the first time I cried.

The groom was handsome -- hot -- in his tuxedo. So was her dad. I mean ... June. Courtyard. Louisiana summer. Hot. 

They didn't invite a bunch of people they didn't know to this celebration. None of mom's or dad's old work friends, nor distant relatives they never see or hear from. They wanted to be surrounded by people they knew and loved. Family. Friends.

Her first mother, Gail, was under the weather but Lora's half-sister came. Her other sister caught the bouquet. Her nieces were the flower girls. I was her "Something Blue." Her Godparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and several members of her new family she has met only a few times made the trip from several points east and west.

It made me miss my own mama, my brother, and my sister.

But my best friend since the eighth grade was there, just as she was on the day Lora was born, when she surprised me and spent the day keeping me calm and sane as I held my new baby while her first mother watched. On this day, she held on to me when I cried while we watched my husband dance with his baby girl.

There wasn't much dancing, though -- it was much too hot - but there was a lot of love and hope and joy. Familiar faces gathered to celebrate this happy occasion -- my daughter's wedding. 

When adoptive parents receive a child from another woman, a lot of people boldly ask, "Why did she give her away?"

And I figured that one day my little girl would ask me the same question. I was ready.

I found a quote on the internet that I loved and latched on to for my reply: "She didn't give her away. She gave her to me." 

At my daughter's wedding, the minister, a friend of theirs, asked my husband Marty, "Who gives this woman in marriage?'

"My wife and I do," he replied.

And I thought of those words I used so often so long ago.

We didn't give her away. We gave her to Gavin. For safekeeping. To have and to hold. To love and to cherish. In sickness and in health. 

He did ask, so he better do it right. 

We trust him to take care of her, to make her happy, to see to her needs, to make sure she grows old in good health, to make sure she visits us once in a while.

Gail chose us to receive her child. 

Lora chose Gavin to receive ours. 

So now I have a son-in-law and a whole new set of in-laws/out-laws by marriage. We welcome them to our own crazy blended family of steps, halves, and adoptees. 

We know that every step our children take in their lives is really a step away from us. That makes us mamas proud, but it also makes us sad. 

My daughter's wedding was another step in her life's journey forward, even though it takes her another step away from me, from us. 

But now she has a partner by her side to make sure she gets there safely.

Wedding Week

 

There's a brand new sparkly white dress hanging on the back of the door to the bedroom she hasn't lived in for a long time.

There's a sparkly white veil hanging on the mirror next to it.

There are a couple of boxes of new shoes.

Something new.

There is a small ancient hand-sewn bag embossed with the name "Evelyn."  It was my grandmother's, probably for her first communion. I carried this same bag at my wedding. Eveylyn is Lora Leigh's middle name.

Something old.

Our Trophy Room/office is filled with wreaths, silk flowers, photographs, frames and ribbons. There's also a pair of ivory silk baskets that once were filled with rose petals and carried -- on the day of my wedding --  by my stepdaughter and my niece.

Something borrowed.

Hopefully, all of it will come together this week at a venue called The Bank. It really used to be a bank back in the early 1900s, but now it's a unique, rustic wedding and party venue.

And Friday night it will be the site of my daughter Lora Leigh's wedding.

The little baby girl that Gail handed to me on that amazing January day nearly 25 years ago is getting married. She will put on that sparkly white dress, the sparkly veil and her new shoes. She will carry her self-made bouquet and her dad will walk her up to a fine young man named Gavin. She will become his wife. Then she will be changing the name her father and I gave her.

She will become a Branch.

Fitting don't you think? A new branch... branching out... leaving the next on our branch to create her own...

I will be sitting first chair, with a box of tissues, wearing my own sparkly dress and corsage. Blue. 

I am her Something Blue.

I've been trying not to, but I've been crying intermittently for weeks as I think about the event on the horizon. For some reason,  the song "Sunrise, Sunset" keeps rolling through my brain. 

And "Slipping Through My Fingers" from Mama Mia.

"A Thousand Years."

"My Girl"

"I Hope you Dance."

When she went off to college I made her a playlist of all the songs that said all the things I wanted to say to her as she left my nest. She says she listened to it. All of those songs are on it and many, many more that I hoped would explain what was in my heart.  I mean, even the best writers need a little help now and then saying what they want to say on occasions such as this. Especially when you're a crier like me.

What I want to say is, --

My darling girl,

 I waited for you forever, but you were the one I was meant to have all along. And you have filled my world with love and fun and all the colors of the rainbow.  You are the frosting on my cake, the ketchup in my red beans, the pickles in my chili Fritos. I was there when you were born (well, sorta) and I guided you through this life. I always tried to give you everything I could. Now you are a beautiful grown woman building a life of your own. My dandelion seed is flying..

I cry because I'm sad to see you go, but also because I have so much hope for your future.  I hope you love. and are loved -- fiercely.  I hope you are devoted to each other as your dad and I have been to each other. I hope you have fewer bumps in your road. I hope you continue to dream in color. I hope you dance and sing and laugh together.  I hope your skies are always blue. . 

And I'll be here for you as long as I can. Please visit often.

Love, Mom

March the 9th

For centuries, the month of March has come in like a lion with a familiar warning: "Beware the Ides of March."

For most people, that's the 15th of March, or the middle of the month. It's most famous for being the day that Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated millenniums ago and marked a millennia later by William Shakespeare.

But in my family, for as long as I can remember, we've all been warned to "Beware March the 9th."

For some reason, it's just a baaaaaaaaad luck day in our clan. Over the years we've all learned to beware and don't travel or schedule elective procedures.

Still, there have been accidents. There have been miscarriages. Two of my great-grandmothers died on March the 9th. 

Coming the day after my birthday, many of my March the 9ths have been spent in bed anyway because I drank too much the day before -- my birthday. 

Of course, most people are skeptical about this day of misfortune, no matter how we try to explain it. When I was in college and dating a lovely boy named Shawn, we spent a whole day with his best friend and mine, just goofing around New Orleans. Every time I moved, they teased me. "Watch out! It's March the 9th."

We laughed and laughed.

When I got home, there was a message on my answering machine (it was the 80s, y'all). My stepfather had had a heart attack and was in the hospital.

Years later, my best friend since eighth grade, Janine, lost her father on March the 9th.

So, my nephew Lee was a little taken aback when I scheduled a memorial service for my late sister, Jo Lee Ann Delanuville Lyons Saunier Miller Catton LeBlanc, on Sunday, March the 9th, 2025. The day after my 63rd birthday.  But, I figured, why the hell not?

My sister never got a funeral. She died on Dec. 11, 2022 in a nursing facility north of Baton Rouge after a year-long fight with an infection following hip surgery. Her husband, already in ill health, took her loss hard. We kept saying we were going to get together to disperse her ashes into the Mississippi River the same way we did my Mama's, but Nick never was well enough. When he died in late 2024, his family had a graveside funeral for him and put his ashes in a military cemetery. They just kind of stuck Jo Lee's in there too. None of our family went. They barely mentioned her name.

But a few months ago when I went to claim a few family treasures from their house, Nick's daughter gave me a small vial of my sister's remains. At least we had something to say goodbye our own way.

So I put together a table of vittles and an ice chest of drinks, made a photo collage of some of her most dweeby pictures over the years, and invited family and friends to join us. We shared finger sandwiches, veggies, cheese and crackers, and our memories for a while before moseying on down to the Bonnet Carre Spillway where there is a boat launch.

Just as the sun began to set, my husband Marty read a lovely prayer he had put together. We shared a few words, some tears, and put her and a dozen roses into the murky Mississippi. Meanwhile, a boat full of fishermen circled a few yards offshore, waiting for us to finish. We didn't take long.

 Maybe she's with Mama and our brother, Rhett. Hopefully she's with Grannnie and Grandpa, Nick, and every pet she ever loved. I hope she is finally at rest and at peace.

Snowmageddon 2025

I have tried to count the number of times I have seen snow in my 62 3/4 years. I think it has been a half a dozen -- maybe more (the trip to Chicago doesn't count).

But never in my life have I seen snow like what we got last week all the way down here in south Louisiana. This was movie snow. Hallmark Channel snow. We actually were under a blizzard warning. 

Like, for real.

On Tuesday, January 21, 2025, shortly after I gave up and went to bed at 4 a.m. after trying in vain to wait up for it, it began to snow. Only two hours later, my husband woke me up to "come see." Yep. There were flakes in the air and a light dusting on the ground! I was so excited. I got to see snow!

Oh, I would see snow, all right. Lots of it. Because this little snow pressure system, combined with an artic cold front, would send a record-breaking snowfall to our little sub-tropic paradise. It snowed ALL DAY, not letting up until just about sunset when everything started to freeze over. By the time we were done, we guesstimated we had about 6-8 inches of the white fluffy stuff in our yard, on our cars, all over the patio furniture and covering Apple Street. That did not stop the couyons from driving up and down Apple Street, however.

The kept telling us it was coming, but even I had a hard time coming to grips with the forecast that predicted up to a foot of snow in some places. Here? Snowmageddon, they called it. It became the Bayou Blizzard.

The Coach,, who spent several years shovelling snow in Chicago, didn't believe it either. He thought they -- or I -- were exaggerating. Ha! Showed you!

While he was used to this kind of weather and moved to New Orleans to escape it, it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime kind of snow for me and many others. According to the record books and those who read them, it was the most snow since 1895 when Baton Rouge added up about 22 inches over two days. I am well aware of this story because of my grandmother, Evelyn Himel Cross French. Her grandfather was Oscar Himel, the owner of Himelaya Plantation in Labadieville. He and his wife Dorothee Bernard Himel were to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary on Feb. 15, 1895 -- the second day of the historic blizzard. The party had to be canceled. But the Himels were gifted a lovely silver tray engraved with the date, which I have in my possession.

You see, people down here don't quite know how to do snow. Folks up north made fun of us on social media because we canceled school, shut down businesses and the airport and told people to stay home.  Tourists who had come down for a few fun days in the French Quarter were stuck for days. People trying to get here were stuck out of luck. We quite literally closed the state and said, "Ccme back later."

And forget driving. Every major road was closed, iced over and bridges were turned into a nice ski ramp. 

But then, just a few days later, some of those same folks were finding our photos, videos, and TikToks showing little babies and elderly grandparents playing and marveling in the wonder before us. Some had never seen snow before. Most had never seen snow like this before. 

We made sleds out of cardboard and seafood trays to slide down the levees, which are the only "hills" we've got. Some pulled out their pool toys. Some got in their pools with them. We made snow angels and snowmen, women and others and decorated them with Mardi Gras beads and feather boas. There were giant snowball fights. Ladies I know made snow faces in the soft powder.

I did not do any of those things. I watched from my living room window and through my back door as my summer paradise turned into a scene from Frozen. I did take a bite or two and I threw one snowball at my husband. My poor little poodle was very confused. I ate bowls of homemade vegetable soup, chili and lots of Little Debbie snacks.

And it stayed this way for several days. Wednesday dawned bright and beautiful with clear skies and warmer temperatures, but the snow barely moved. Some of the roads began to thaw, but the bridges were still closed. This was the day lots of people made their snowmen out on the lawns -- or snowgators in some cases.

Thursday there was still a lot of snow around as Marty and I (and Lola) shook off our cabin fever to drive around the neighborhood. The levees were still iced but with deep ruts in them from the sledders. The snowmen and women were hanging in there. And we marveled at the science of snow and how one lawn would be completely thawed while the neighbor's was still a sheet of ice.

It was an experience we all reveled in and will all remember because of the millions of photos posted on the Internet.

I have only about three photos from the first time I saw snow in 1973 in Houma.  I have one black and white photo of my brother holding a snowball and one of my grandpa and me throwing snowballs. That's it. But I still remember that day clearly. School was canceled or let out early so we could be home. We scraped it off of cars and the trampoline and threw snowballs at each other. My brother got me good when he went inside for a bit and I, wondering what took him so long, went to look for him. As soon as I opened the door he nailed me with a snowball to the face.  

I remember thinking -- snow! Snow is wet!

I wouldn't see any considerable snow again until 1989. It was Christmas Eve and I was working at The Times-Picayune in downtown New Orleans at the time. The snow started in late morning -- after I got to work -- and continued for several hours. It was big news!

We spent most of the day watching through the giant windows as policemen directed traffic and tried to push people over the Broad Street overpass. The sports staff was, for the most part, the night shift. By early afternoon they were beginning to call in to say they would not be able to get to work because all the roads were closed. My boss was asking me how much agate and pasting did I remember. Finally, in frustration, he had me tell the guys that if they couldn't drive, they should give me their address because they were going to send the big orange delivery trucks to get them.

A few trickled in on their own after that. But oldtimer Waddell Summers, who used to be one of New Orleans' best boxing writers until he was "desked" as an editor, just walked right in, right on time as if nothing was going on.

I finally started to drive myself home after dark, which normally took 10 to 15 minutes. It took me an hour. I hit the first patch of black ice on a quiet, frozen residential street. My little Nissan 200 did a complete spin to the other direction. So, I drove to the corner, turned left, made another left and hit another patch of ice, which turned me back in my original direction. I repeated the maneuver until I got to the next street.

When I finally arrived at my little apartment on Willow Street, I let my standard poodle Laycee out. She was very happy but wiped out on the ice and snow.

After I moved to LaPlace in 1991, there was a snowfall in March of 1992 or 93. I remember because it was on my birthday. But there wasn't enough to stick.

There were a few snowflakes visible in the streetlights that one year we took Marty's parents and a couple of their friends to see the bonfires in Lutcher. But they, having lived in Chicago for many years, assured me that it wasn't "real" snow. 

In 2004 we got a real White Christmas. Lora was almost four and cute as can be. Daniel and Courtney came over and we all watched it snow and tried to scoop some up. 

We got another snow dusting in 2008. They didn't even cancel school for that one! But it made for a nice Christmas card!

Then, in 2017, the day my mama was cremated, it snowed once more.

So that adds up to about seven. Seven snows in 62 3/4 years. And I remember each magical one. 

This is my favorite clip of the day... Best Day