FEATURES
Man in the Mirror: Local NAACP President Danatus King by Anitra D. Brown
A Tribune Exclusive: St. Augustine's Father Raphael Speaks Out
A Book Review: War of the Pews by Orissa Arend
A Book Review: Cherished Memories
by beverly s. mckenna
Columns & Departments
Publisher's Notes
Cherished Memories
Katrina's upheaval inspires bookAt this point in time, when public education in America is in serious transition and new models are being developed to meet the needs of children and society this project (book) could provide food for reflective thought and discussion on how to rally the village to rear the child. History can be a very good teacher, if we listen.
Adrienne C. TervalonMiss Fannie C. Williams was principal of Valena C. Jones School for more than thirty years. Miss Williams and her army of outstanding, competent, pioneer teachers, many of whom lived in the Seventh Ward worked hard to stimulate student interest in the professions, provide the academic foundation for children to be successful in secondary and higher education and convey to students that they were capable of being whatever they wanted to be. These individuals had a vision for my generation.
Beverly Jacques Anderson, Ph.DThis community was important; "it propelled me from the back of the bus to the bench."
Judge Herbert Cade
College mathematics professor, consultant to the federal government, dedicated mother, loving grandmother, and physician’s wife, New Orleans native Beverly Jacques Anderson attributes all that she is and the woman she has become to the proverbial village—a village that was New Orleans Seventh Ward in the mid-20th century. “Snapshots of Life and Lessons from a 1950 New Orleans Creole Village" is the sub-title for Anderson’s newly released book Cherished Memories, a look-back at the close knit, insular community that produced, nurtured and reared numerous outstanding citizens…contributors to every facet and sphere of undertaking from education to politics, to justice to health in our community.
The daughter of the late Alvin Jacques, a self-made businessman and landscaper, and housewife Dorothy, who were parents of 10 successful children, Beverly Jacques Anderson blossomed and thrived in the safe, secure homogeneous neighborhood where those who lived there shared values and a common culture. Catholicism, respect for self and others, close family ties, language and manner of speaking, appreciation of education, following the Golden Rule, independence and high standards were the ties that bound.
Along with her personal story, Anderson has fashioned her book around the stories of 12 classmates at the heralded Valena C. Jones Elementary School.
It was after Katrina and its devastating effects on the author’s nine siblings and their families and their 90 plus-year-old mother, all of whom still resided in New Orleans, that Anderson, who has made her home in the Washington, D.C. area since moving there for graduate school some 45 years ago, vowed to write the book.
During the upheaval of Katrina, she served as command central, a call center so-to-speak, to keep connected her sisters and brothers and their mates who had been dispersed far and wide to states where some of them had never been. One set landed in North Carolina, another in Florida. Some never to return.
Mrs. Jacques, the author’s mother, a resident at La Fon Nursing Home of the Sisters of the Holy Family , died in the aftermath of the storm when power and back-up generators failed and life support systems ceased working and neither a frantic Anderson nor her sisters and brothers could find out where she was. It wasn’t until weeks after that her body was located and identified through the efforts of Anderson’s husband, a Howard University trained ophthalmologist, Dr. Ronald Anderson, who was able to make a positive identification because of her intraocular lenses.
It was the pain and upheaval of the Jacques siblings and their acquaintances which brought home to Anderson that a unique way of life was rapidly evaporating. She recognized that with so many of the bearers of the culture, including members of her own family, having been forced to leave, her community would never be the same. It was with that realization that she decided to record her memories and the memories of those with whom she shared a common history and background. She took a leave of absence from her job in 2008 to conduct research and eventually went to work on the manuscript.
