Mardi Gras Day

My grandmother, Esther St. Pierre, was born on September 14, 1914 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to her birth, the family lived in Edgard, Louisiana. My grandmother was the youngest of 10 children and the only member of the family that did not speak French at home. I suspect it was because they were in New Orleans now and the provincial ways of Edgard were out of step with the more cultivated and Americanized city.

Her mother was Rebecca Chapoton, born in St. James Parish in 1876. Her father was Valery St. Pierre, born in St. Charles Parish in 1878. All I know about them, according to my grandmother, was that her father played the violin and had a lot of mistresses. I don’t remember her talking about her mother at all.

Over the years she talked about her sisters Roberta, Lola, and Cornelia (Connie) quite a bit but I never met any of her siblings. It wasn’t until high school when my mother and sisters and I moved to New Orleans that I met any of my mother’s family – that is to say, I’d met my mother’s father (her parents were divorced) and I’m sure other family members years earlier but I was too young to remember them.

I met my mother’s cousin Brenda LaGarde Castiglione when I was about 14-15. Both my parents are only children and I had no concept of extended family, so meeting a near distant relative was somewhat odd. “Aunt” Brenda had 4 children, my second cousins, and served the only direct attachment to the French side of my family. Aunt Brenda was also my mother’s Maid of Honor so I’d seen pictures of her in my mother’s wedding album.

When I was very small, maybe 2nd grade and living in Bangkok, my grandmother had what my parents described as a nervous breakdown. My mother traveled to New Orleans to be with her. Shortly thereafter, when we were living in Fayetteville, NC, she came to live with us. She followed with us to Naples, Italy a year later and 3 years later to Kempner, TX. Soon after she moved back to New Orleans on her own.

She rented an apartment in the Delta Towers Hotel on the corner of Canal Street and Claiborne Avenue. She’d lived there once before years earlier when it was known as the Claiborne Towers. So it was familiar territory to her. She worked in the hotel’s newsstand and later in Krauss’ Department Store.

When my parents divorced in 1976, we moved to New Orleans to be near her. This was odd since she and my mother did not get along well but I guess we had no other place to go. We stayed with her in the Delta Towers for a couple of weeks until we found a townhouse in Metairie near my mother’s father, Raymond Fields. This caused some friction between my mother and grandmother…a friction that would hold until my grandmother’s death in 2001.

But when relations were amicable between mom and grandma, we visited the Delta Towers especially at Mardi Gras time. Grandma would get us passes so we could come and go during parades. This was a God-send since some years it was cold and it was always nice to have a warm place to go and a clean bathroom to use! She always made chili from a can and had hot dogs available for a quick meal between parades. Grandma dressed for Mardi Gras too…and it was forever a thorn in her side that we chided her for it. We shouldn’t have. She embodied the spirit…maybe something that comes from being born here and growing up with the parades. I still remember her chasing after the floats and demanding “Throw me something mister!” And I remember too a time she reached for a doubloon on the street and a drunk tourist stepped on her fragile hand. No worries though, she gave the guy a piece of her mind…Fo’ sure!

In later years when she was too old or too weary to go to the parades, she’d watch them on Channel 4, WWL. I thought of her today as I watched some of the coverage. Years later she moved first to East New Orleans and then Gentilly…without ready access to the parades. She was always thankful that WWL covered at least the Mardi Gras day parades – she loved Zulu and Rex the best.

Hail Rex, grandma! I know you’re part of God’s Mardi Gras Krewe now.