Once Upon a Time in New Iberia

The New Iberia of James Lee Burke exists only in the head of the writer. He depicts it as a dangerous, beautiful place of wealthy people who have only evil intentions. This makes for good reading but little else. In truth, New Iberia has not changed much over the last hundred or so years. Many of the same families who are listed in court records in 1900 are listed in court records of 2013. Many of them still live in family homes on Main Street or on Duperier Avenue. The faces are different but the names are the same. The downtown district of the little city has been rejuvenated. New stores have opened under private ownership once again. Many of the downtown shops were closed and boarded up with the advent of unsightly shopping malls that dot the outskirts of town.

For example, the old Provost’s Bar and Grill has been given a facelift and is now the upscale Clementine’s Restaurant. Lagniappe Café down the road closed when the colorful owners retired and moved out to their home on old Highway 90. When the restaurant was open, Al Landry, owner and local artist, and his wife Elaine visited each table as though visiting family. Al’s artwork lined the walls, and old ladies were pictured at the peak of their prominence, smiling down at diners. The closing of the café was but another sign of the passing of a gentler, more civil time. Victor’s Cafeteria, the favorite haunt of Burke’s Detective Robichaux, is still open and is the de facto breakfast headquarters of the older New Iberians. Tourists sit at tables close to the old men’s coffee club that meets every morning and guffaw at the accents as they furtively eavesdrop on the conversations at the next table. Outsiders sometimes misread the French-clouded accents of the locals and make the dangerous assumption that somehow their intelligence is reflected in their speech patterns. A leisurely drive from East Main through the downtown district to West Main will show much of what there is to see in New Iberia. Both sides of East Main are lined with antebellum and Victorian-era homes. It does not take much imagination to “see” the wildly eccentric Weeks Hall visiting from house to house on a Sunday afternoon, deftly handling his Stutz-Bearcat on the rutted streets. Heir to all the oil and salt on Weeks Island with the antebellum mansion, Shadows on the Teche, thrown in as lagniappe it was rumored up and down Main Street that he ran from madness all his life. New Iberia, like many Southern cities, has a rich and sometimes ironic history. In the late 1830s the yellow fever epidemic claimed many of the people of town. They suffered and lingered somewhere between life and death. Few families, and even doctors, were spared the ravages of this terrible disease. This meant that many patients were left to die without comfort or medical help; however, help came from an unexpected source. A black woman who had been a slave of the Duperier family stepped up and cared for the rich and poor, black and white, who lay dying. She was either Haitian or from Santo Domingo, and for some reason she was immune to yellow fever. She went from house to house, comforted the dying, arranged for burials, and fed and cleaned those who would survive. Her name was Felicité ,and she is a legend in New Iberia history. On the day that she died, some fifteen or sixteen years later, historians note that all businesses in New Iberia closed in her honor, and all citizens attended her funeral and burial in Saint Peter’s Cemetery. The grateful citizens erected a monument in her name and placed it prominently at the main entrance of City Hall.

In those days, another landmark for tourists was the old Mt. Carmel Convent building. The graceful old structure was built in 1826 by Dr. Henry Duperier. The good doctor was a key figure in the rescue of hundreds of unfortunate people trapped on Last Island after a hurricane of epic proportions destroyed it. It is said that many people died in the storm and many more died in its aftermath. One of the doctor’s rescued patients was Emma, a young lady visiting the devastated island. They met, fell in love, married, and then moved to New Iberia. He built the large house on the banks of the Bayou Teche for his bride. Legend has it that using her wedding ring she carved her name “Emma” on a stained glass window on the upper floor of the mansion. In 1892 the house and grounds were sold to the Sisters of Mt. Carmel, and a day and boarding school opened that October. There is not a young or old lady in New Iberia who does not have memories, good and bad, of the school. The good sisters educated, disciplined, and civilized thousands of the young women of the little city. It was an incubator for the “magnolias-in-training” so that many of them could assume their rightful positions in New Iberia society. One cannot help but think that the New Iberia of the 1940s and the 1950s was not that different from the New Iberia of today. Healing from the war, Eisenhower in the White House, troops either buried or settled in their post-war lives, the city went on with its easy Southern ways. History books will tell you that the late 1940s and 1950s were quiet, and if they were quiet across America, in New Iberia time flowed as slowly as the Bayou Teche that runs through the city’s heart. World War II was a vivid memory, and America was comforted with the thought that it was a war that saved the free world. Of course, some unlucky ones spent time in Korea and the decade was not a quiet one for them. Though some history texts call the 1950s a quiet time, that’s really not true. It was not a good time to be a black person, or a gay person, or a divorced person, or really anyone who did not fit the ideal of normal. “White Only” water fountains were seen in every public place up and down Main Street, as well as segregated theaters, restaurants, and even churches. In South Louisiana in the 1950s the Catholic Church was the stern keeper of morals. Catholic education was as segregated as the movie theaters, with boys educated by the Christian Brothers at St. Peter’s College on Main Street, and girls being taught by Mt. Carmel nuns in the wonderful old building on the banks of the bayou.

If you were a young person, and a music lover, you were part of the revolution born in the 1950s. Radio stations in Chicago and Del Rio, Texas, aired “the devil’s own music.” Black crossover music was slowly replacing the sappy, predictable love songs of the older generation. Etta James was begging Henry to “roll with her.” Chuck Berry was electric on his electric guitar. Elvis lifted Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog,” and music changed forever. These were the decades before the assassinations that stole the country’s innocence. Young people were different then. They read books in those days and were not magically connected to earphones and cell phones. The highlight of a good weekend was driving up and down Main Street and spotting boys cruising in the opposite direction. Remember, in the 1950s, television was in its infancy, video games had not been invented, people still had party lines for their phone service, live operators answered when residents called, and text messages were not even on the horizon of imagination.