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It’s great to know that friendly sibling rivalry can still be found alive and well after a century.
“She stole Enoch from me,” said Melba Chauvin Hebert, laughing, as she visited with her sister Adrine Chauvin Lee, her own daughter Barbara Hebert, and Lee’s daughter-in-law Linda Boudoin Lee. “Our schools played basketball against each other, and that’s how he and I first met.
“One night, he and I were dancing at the Lee Brother’s Dance Hall in Cut Off, and Adrine came up to me after and asked, ‘Oh, who is that good looking boy you were dancing with?’ So I introduced them.”
And, like they say, the rest is history, and between the two sisters, they share almost a century of memories together. On March 24, Lee celebrated her 100th birthday, and on July 15, Hebert celebrated her 99th.
The four southern ladies met for carrot cake and refreshments on a weekday afternoon so that Barbara could record conversations with the centenarian and almost-centenarian for future generations of their family to have. Even though both ladies have a little trouble hearing, they had no trouble speaking and remembering their colorful lives.
Both girls were born at the home of their parents Robert and Helena Knight Chauvin of Mathews. They are the last two of the eight children born to the Chauvin’s, and two of the six Chauvin children who made it adulthood. A sister was lost to yellow fever and a brother died from diphtheria.
Their father was a farmer and surveyor and their mother was a housewife. Both girls attended school in Raceland in the small pink building that still stands beside Raceland Elementary. When not in school, the two girls earned 20 cents a day working in the fields, digging potatoes and picking cabbage for their uncle from 6 a.m.-6 p.m.
“We didn’t cut sugarcane though,” Melba said, laughing. “Dad came to get us one day because he said it was too hot for us to be out in the field. We used to race to see who could pick the most vegetables.”
The children walked from Mathews to Lockport for catechism, and every other week, the family would go to the grocery store in Mathews. Occasionally, a rolling store, a bus converted into a grocery store, traveled up and down the bayou as well.
“Our family didn’t have a car when we were kids,” Melba said. “Our grandfather had a Model T, and he took us to church a few times when we were kids. We rode in wagons, too, near where the Raceland nursing home is.
“Our grandma had her own carriage with bouquets of flower on it, and our grandfather also had a horse and a surrey.”
“Our grandma’s aunt died, and she took me to the funeral with her in the carriage,” Adrine said. “I wore the one hat we shared when we were little girls.”
As the girls grew up, Adrine completed the fourth grade, and Melba was able to complete the ninth grade. When the girls’ mother fell ill from a stroke, Melba was forced to quit school to help support the family.
“We could no longer afford the $1 a week for me to ride the bus to school,” Melba said. “I cried for a week when I had to quit.”
The girls helped make ends meet by washing clothes for another local family, and they earned $2 per week for a basket of washed and pressed clothes.
“We made $10 in a month, and now you have to pay someone $10 an hour to help you around your house,” Adrine said, laughing.
When money allowed, the girls purchased Greyhound bus tickets for shopping trips to New Orleans.
“Ten dollars bought you a whole outfit back then – shoes, a dress and a hat,” Melba said. “It took two months to earn the money for the ticket and the outfit. We would catch the bus in the morning and be back at 5 o’clock that afternoon.”
By the early 1930s, both young ladies had beaus. Adrine was smitten with Enoch Lee, the tugboat engineer from Cut Off that she met with Melba at the Lee Brother’s Dance Hall. Melba had been introduced to a young man from New Orleans who had family in Lafourche Parish.
“My husband’s uncle had a grocery store in the area, and he (the uncle) told me he wanted me to meet his nephew,” Melba said. “He didn’t know how to dance when we met, but we taught him. I used to love to dance.”
Melba and Henry Hebert were married in 1935 by a judge in St. Bernard Parish, and their union was later blessed at the Holy Savior Church in Lockport. Two years later, Adrine and Enoch followed suit by marrying at Holy Savior Church.
“We were married on a Friday,” Adrine said. “Everyone asked why we wanted to get married on a Friday and not a Saturday. Enoch had to get back to the tugboat he worked on, so we got married on a Friday.”
The Lees resided down the bayou in Larose throughout their marriage, and Enoch worked on the boats while Adrine stayed at home and raised their four children. Melba and Henry lived in New Orleans for a short time after their marriage. While there, Melba worked as a waitress at the La Louisiane Restaurant. The couple and their two children eventually made their way back down the bayou, and Henry took a job purifying water at a plantation near Mathews. The Hebert’s also owned a grocery store in the town.
In 1961, the Hebert’s closed their grocery store and returned to New Orleans. Henry went to work for the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board where he worked until his retirement in 1976. Melba returned to waitressing and spent the rest of her career working at the Delmonico restaurant, which is now owned by Chef Emeril Lagasse.
“Delmonico’s was a family-owned place when I worked there,” Melba said. “Lots of Hollywood people ate there. I even got Helen Hayes’s autograph.”
Once the couple retired and returned to Lafourche Parish, Melba used her free time to travel, quilt, crochet and cross stich with her sisters at the local senior center, and Henry fished and hunted until he passed in 1986.
“I liked dancing, but I liked traveling, too,” Melba said. “My son married a girl from Niagara Falls, and I flew up there every year. I tried to get Adrine to fly up there with me, but she didn’t want to.”
“Oh, no, not flying,” Adrine said, laughing. “I did drive there though.”
“So much is different now,” Melba said. “There were no lights back then, no electricity. I had to do my homework by lamplight. We also used washboards and a coal oil heater.”
“When they landed on the moon, that was something else,” Adrine said. “I never thought they would land up there. I thought they would just go up and disappear.”
“I was happy about them landing on the moon,” Melba said. “I just wish I could have been with them.”
In recent years, many celebrations have been hosted in the sisters’ honor, including two large birthday parties for each of them this year. Among those in attendance were the ladies combined 16 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.
“Never give up,” Melba said. “Keep on going. Don’t stop. I quilted at the senior center until I was 96.”
“Don’t give up,” Adrine said. “That’s the secret to a long life. Don’t stop working and don’t just sit around. Some days I have to force myself, but you have to keep moving.
“Talking about this, it’s like we’re living our life all over again.”
Adrine Chauvin Lee (left) of Larose, and her sister Melba Chauvin Hebert of Mathews have experienced many changes over their years. Lee is 100, while Hebert is 99. Below, Melba, left, and Henry Hebert stand at the back of their 1958 Desoto. Melba and her sister Adrine Lee of Larose taught Henry how to dance when the couple began courting in the early 1930s.
