Obituaries of APRIL 1991 Thibodaux, Lafourche Parish, La.

NOTE: THE OBITUARIES BELOW MAY NOT BE A COMPLETE LISTING FOR THE MONTH.

Submitted by: As listed with each Obit

Source: It is likely that this file was derived from publications of the
Terrebonne Genealogical Society. TGS has granted permission to re-format and
publish this data on Genweb Archives. The TGS file was derived from sources as
noted with each record

Last modified: 8 Feb 2007


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The date preceding the obituary, if given, is the date of the newspaper, not
the date of death.
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Daily Comet Lafourche Parish Apr. 15, 1991
Submitted by: Chris Tidwell

Renowned educator dies at 86

Leola Washington Leola Washington, a pioneer black educator in
Thibodaux, died Monday at 7:30 a.m. after a brief illness.

She was 86. Funeral will be at 8 p.m. today at Allen Chapel A.M.E.
Church in Thibodaux for the Thibodaux native and resident.

Visitation will be from 5 p.m. until funeral time at the church.

Dismissal will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at the church cemetery. For more
than 20 years, Washington was the principal of C.M. Washington
Elementary School, now South Thibodaux Elementary. She retired from the
school after the first year of integration in 1968. In the 1920s before
her tenure at Washington Elementary, she taught first grade at the small
Corporation School on Narrow Street in Thibodaux. The school, built by a
black social organization, operated until the 1940s when C.M. Washington
High School and an attached elementary school were built. Before
integration, the schools were the only choice for many North Lafourche.
Parish black families who could not afford to send their children to
private schools in New Orleans retired C.M. Washington librarian and
teacher Jessie Weber said in ah intervi ew last week. April 11,
Washington was given the Washington-Bryant award for her lifetime of
service. ''She was more like a mother figure to the students," Thibodaux
Police Officer Ronnie Winston said when the award was presented to
Washington. Winston, a representative of the Washington-Bryant Monument
Committee, recalled that he and other students secretly called her
"Mamma Washington." In each of her students, Washington inspired a sense
of pride and commitment to service, he said. "We felt like it was a
family. It wasn't like just going to school," Winston said. ''She made
you feel like you were part of something," he said. "She encouraged us
to excel. She encouraged people to do the best they can," Winston said.
Washington sponsored school wide May Day celebrations and field trips
when field trips weren't part of the regular curriculum. Fund raisers
she organized kept the school working, Winston and Weber said. In her
own home, Washington often took in and fed hungry children. Several
times she helped find tuition money to send poor children away to
college, Weber said. "She helped many people," Cynthia Streams, another
former C.M. Washington teacher, said during the awards commemoration.
"Any person could come and say she was hungry and Leola would fix them a
dinner.

She was just warm like that," she said. Washington is survived by a
half-brother, Peter Brooks; and seven grandchildren; Darrell Buggage,
Anthony Rainey, and Jeanine, Laurie, Crescent, and Kandace Washington.

She is also survived by seven great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Archibald H. Washington and
son, Herman A. Washington; parents, Johnny and Sally Getridge Phillips;
two brothers and one half-brother. Landry Funeral Home is in charge of
arrangements.
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