Resolve to be a better leader in 2015
February 10, 2015
This weekend begins all of the 2015 Mardi Gras Madness
February 11, 2015
Hard working mother, resilient woman, and devoted Christian. Died peacefully Jan. 18 at age 98.
Few have the work ethic that Bernice Brieden did. Brieden lived to be 98, but worked until she was 95.
Bernice was born in 1917 and married her husband, August Philip Brieden, in 1934. At the time she and her husband were living in San Antonio, Texas. August got a job with United Gas Corporation, and Bernice followed him from town to town in Louisiana as he was transferred between locations.
During the three decades that the couple moved from town to town, they had three children. Bernice stayed at home while her husband worked days.
“She was very much the head of the household,” said Phylles Brieden Lagarde, the oldest of the three children. “When she said jump, you said how high! But she did it with love.”
When United Gas transferred August to Houma in 1965, it seemed like it was going to be the last time that the Briedens had to move. They bought a house, and three months later August passed away, leaving Bernice with a house note and no job. Lagarde was already married with child, but Bernice still had two sons to take care of, Philip and Michael who were 11-and 17-years-old.
“She didn’t look back; she looked forward,” Lagarde said. Bernice was a meticulous woman who always planned ahead.
Bernice decided to go back to school to revamp her work skills. After that, she went to work for the City of Houma as a secretary for Bobby Bourg, who was the City Clerk. She would write correspondence and call people when they were late paying their utility bills. She worked there for 16 years retiring in 1981. She was 64.
“She’d gone through two or three months of retirement and said, ‘I can’t sit here and do nothing,”‘ Lagarde said.
So Bernice volunteered at Terrebonne General Medical Center. She volunteered there for 10 years. After her time volunteering at TGMC, she finally took some time for herself.
Her daughter was managing the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store with her husband, James. Two of her employees happened to go into surgery the same week, leaving her shorthanded at the store.
Bernice offered to help out. Well, her “stint” at St. Vincent’s lasted 20 years.
“Anything she did, she did fast, she did well. She was.. .a very sharp lady,” said Lagarde. “Her work ethic was awesome.”
She could never be idle with her time. If work was ever slow at the store, she would crochet articles of clothing for sale in the store. She finally retired, though, three years ago.
When her health declined, she went to live in a nursing home.
“She loved to crochet,” said Jean Scott, who would visit Bernice in her nursing home through Caring Ministry for First United Methodist Church. “She always had a smile.”
Bernice’s hair never went grey, and neither did her wits.
“She was a very sharp lady,” said Don Ross, pastor for First United Methodist Church. Ross visited Bernict in the nursing home and asked how she was doing. She responded, “Well, they’re treating me like an old goat!”
Ross told her that he had just preached about goats, but Bernice cut him off.
“I know, I read it in the Circuit Rider,” Bernice said. The Circuit Rider is the church’s newsletter. Scott would bring her the newsletter every week.
Bernice never felt old. Lagarde visited her mother every day, keeping her supplied with yarn. One day, Lagarde walked in to visit her mother.
“And she was grinning from ear to ear,” Lagarde said. “And I said, ‘I see that, but what are you crocheting?’ And she said, ‘I’m now crocheting lap robes for the old people.’ And I said, ‘What!?'”
Lagarde thought it endearing that her mother, in her late nineties, did not consider herself old.
“And I just though what a wonderful, wonderful outlook, that she is so young in spirit and mind, that she does not consider herself old,” Lagarde said.
Bernice Mae Brieden, pictured above with her hands clasped, died Jan. 18 at the age of 98. She loved crocheting and was a devote Christian.
