DOWN MEMORY LANE

Teche Area residents will have an opportunity Thursday night to take a trip down memory lane with an emphasis on the strong women who helped make the community what it has become. 

The Iberia Cultural Resources Association will hold its fall meeting, beginning at 5:30 p.m., to highlight the stories told by four “fabulous” women who call Iberia Parish home.

Shirley LeMaire was born in New Iberia in 1925 and has diapered and cared for thousands of newborns. She was a nurse at Dauterive Hospital for 40 years, seeing changes not only in location but sweeping advancements in technology throughout her career.

“There are worlds of difference today,” LeMaire said. “It used to cost $35 to have a baby at Dauterive and the nicest room in the hospital went for $6.50 a day.”

Claire Mire, 82, was born in New Orleans but considers herself a native of New Iberia since she moved here at 6 years old. She has been active in the Iberia Cultural Resources Association and the movement to protect the historic district of New Iberia for 20 years.

As a legal secretary, she worked for many politicians and local lawyers and has known many notable figures in the community, including newspaper man Southwell Fisher, Theda Murray Ewing, Etta Murry, Chevey Saunders and Bessie Kyle, leading educators and Edmond Landry, who built the first hospital in town and who she said had a penchant for using silver spoons instead of tongue depressors.

Ann Patout, 78, moved to Jeanerette when she was 18 months old from Port Arthur, Texas.

“I married Gene Patout because he’d take me out of Jeanerette to New Iberia, the big city compared to where I grew up,” she said.

Patout said she always has been inspired by women in the community who made a big impact but who were limited in the degrees they were allowed to do so. Patout said three great New Iberia women come to mind: Yvonne Patout Southwell, her mother-in-law who when widowed early in her married life with eight children ran the Hotel Frederick, the only hotel at the time between New Orleans and Houston she said; Clara Roy who ran the Teche Wholesale Co., and Laurence Bowab, the matriarch of the Ackal family.

“These three women worked very diligently for the community,” Patout said. “If they couldn’t get something done, they knew people who could. The good ol’ boys didn’t want them in politics because they didn’t think they were capable or something like that, but I just think they were scared these ladies might do a better job.”

Julaine Shexnayder, born in 1943 in Jeanerette, said her story will be about the orphan train that brought thousands of children from New York to Louisiana to be adopted by primarily Catholic families here.

“It was a phenomenon, a social experiment that will never be repeated,” Shexnayder said.

“At the time it was very hush-hush. And since the Louisiana Orphan Train museum has opened in Opelousas, we’ve been trying to track down everyone who is part of this.”

These fabulous ladies will tell more of their stories Thursday night on the stage of the Sliman Theater. The event is a way to share and preserve the history of the community intertwined within their stories, said association president Cathy Indest.

The program, which is free to attend, is sure to entertain everyone who attends, Patout said.