My great grandmother, grandmother, mother, and me.

Mary Peltier Jackson 1895-1970

 

 

On June 20, 2014 the descendants of Mary Peltier Jackson gathered in Thibodaux, Louisiana to celebrate her legacy and her life.We took a pause from our busy lives, and demanding schedules to devote two days to reflecting on the legacy of Mary Peltier.We only began to scrape the surface of her legacy, and there are many more things to uncover. It was a weekend filled with trips down memory lane, wonderful reminiscents of days gone by, and terrible losses that will never be forgotten.

 

The daughter of a successful barber, Louis Peltier, and a beautiful lady (rumored to be an Octoroon), Marguerite Leblanc, Mary grew up in relative comfort. Louis Peltier owned and operated a barber shop in Thibodaux, La. Her grandfather Joseph Peltier, owned a printing press, where she worked as a very young woman.With her husband Courtland Jackson, Mary Peltier successfully raised nine children in Thibodaux who went on to remarkable careers in Education, Construction, and Government. 

 

 

 

 

 May she never be forgotten, may all her travails, struggles and victories be recognized. We have come this far because of her sacrifices.

 

Wiletta Jackson Thibodeaux 1917-1999

 

This is my grandmother, Wiletta Jackson Thibodeaux. By the time I met her, she was Mother Dear, my glamorous grandmother who drove a Lincoln Continental. She was born in Thibodaux, La, as one of nine children that my great grandmother gave birth to. Because my great grandmother had so many children, my grandmother was sent to live with her well-off aunt, Gertrude Peltier Leblanc, in nearby Donaldsonville.

After divorcing the man who was my biological grandfather, Clarence Davis, My grandmother moved to New Orleans in the late 1940's. Her first job was working at Woolworth's on Canal Street. According to family lore, she passed for something non-black and was hired. That would be the last time my grandmother would pass for anything. She worked hard and reinvented herself as a successful entrepreneur and business woman. When Ponchartrain Park was developed, a middle class subdivision for African American professionals, my grandmother became one of the first homeowners in the neighborhood. She owned several nightclubs, as well as owning and directing Thibodeaux's daycare center for nearly forty years.

 

Wiletta Davis Ferdinand b. 1948

This is my mother Wiletta Davis Ferdinand. My mother was born in New Orleans and grew up in Ponchartrain Park My mother is a writer who enjoys History, Literature and New Orleans. She taught History and English for over twenty years in the New Orleans Public School system. It was her research that provided the pathway to our family reunion. In this photo my mother was in graduate school at Howard University, studying Afro American studies, while teaching at Mary Church Terrell school.

When Mary P. Jackson unexpectedly died, my mother returned to New Orleans. I believe this may have been the catlyst for her marriage to my father. The marriage would later end in divorce, but not before my parents directed an independent school together, and  had four children togther.

 I knew my mother as a historian. She worked with E.J. Morris Senior Citizen Center, and wrote grants for the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanties. My mother enjoys collecting stories, and one of her many skills is that she can draw information out of people.