Velma Lucianá Plaisance Arabie

Velma Plaisance Arabie, was so very special to all of us. I think the word that describes her the most would be Independent! She was so independent and determined and she had a lot of spunk too. She was a great person to have a conversation with. There was always something to talk about whether it was family stories or politics or the weather and there was never any silence. I of course loved the family stories the best.

Velma was born 100 hundred years ago in 1925. Just think of everything she has seen and experienced during her lifetime. She was born on August 17 at Coteau de Cyp or Cypress Ridge on the Golden Ranch Plantation in Gheens. Tante Alice, her father’s sister was the midwife. She was born into a large family which would grow to have fifteen children plus an additional child her parents raised after a relative had passed away. When she was born her parents still used a horse and buggy for transportation, and that horse was named Daisy. The entire family lived in a three-room house with a kitchen off to one side. The house had only one fireplace for heat and a wood burning stove in the kitchen. There was no electricity, running water, or bathrooms in the house. They used coal oil or kerosene lamps for lighting and there was a well and cisterns used for water and their bathroom was an out house in the yard or a pot chambre or chamber pot for nighttime.

Of course, all of the children had chores. Her father was a sharecropper on the plantation and also raised vegetables to sell at the French Market in New Orleans and all of the children had to help harvest the crops and prepare them for market. They also grew sugarcane and the children helped with cutting the cane as well. One time her assigned chore was to grind the corn using the corn grinder. Unfortunately, she could not get the grinder to work and discovered that someone had put a coin in the grinder. She struggled for quite some time to free the coin and once out, she picked it up for a souvenir. And she said that she still had it. Other chores were helping to wash clothes and dishes, helping to bake bread in the outdoor oven and helping to stack wood for the stove and fireplace. One chore she continued to do from the age of 9 until she was married was milk the cow each morning. She even did this on her wedding day. When not doing chores, they would play games in the yard and they had to make their own toys.
She and her siblings had to walk three miles to school each day. Since the family only spoke French, they had to learn English at school. She and most of her siblings had to repeat the first grade since they did not know enough English to pass that grade. The Gheens school only went to the 7th grade. Velma quit in the 6th grade after a disagreement with her teacher. A sign that she was head strong from an early age. She said that along the way to school they would always try to find something to entertain themselves. Along the road there was a huge pile of dead trees which was inhabited by rattlesnakes. She said that when they got to that spot everyday they would throw rocks and sticks until they heard the rattles and then they would run.
Another time they were walking along a levee and came upon an alligator and instead of leaving the area, the children found sticks and began hitting it until they killed the alligator.
As the children grew older, they would attend dances in Raceland. It was at one of these dances that aunt Velma met a young man named Leonard Arabie. They dated for a couple of years before he went into the service to fight in World War II. He came home on a furlough once and wanted to get married, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it. After the war was over he returned home and they were married three months later on March 2, 1946 in Lockport. The reception was held in the yard of her parents’ house. She and Lee Lee moved to Raceland and eventually built a house where she raised her two sons Bobby and Terry.

I am sure that no one here can say that they owned the same car for 50 years. Velma has owned the same car for over 50 years which she purchased in 1972. Although she had several offers to buy her car over the years, she always refused. She even knew how to check all of the fluids in the car herself and always kept the car clean and shiny. One of my favorite stories involves her car. She was driving in Raceland one day when someone accidently hit her car at a traffic light. She pulled over to the side of the road but the guy who hit her car drove off and did not stop. Well, she was not going to tolerate that and she took off after him. Terry says she was in hot pursuit. She was not going to allow him to blame her and she eventually caught up with him and the police had to call Terry to come and help calm her down. Thankfully the car was built like a tank so she was not hurt. She drove that car well into her 90s and it is still parked in her garage.

She was so considerate of others and always remembered everyone’s birthday with a phone call, a card with a little money but most importantly a cake! She would make your favorite cake and then call you to come and pick it up.

In a conversation after her 90th birthday she said that she was surprised to see so many distant family members come to her party. I told her that everyone loved her so much because she loved and cared for everyone. As her siblings passed away, she always kept in touch with those branches of the family to see how they were doing and to share family news. She is well deserving of the title Matriarch of our family.
Velma loved her flowers and enjoyed working in her flower beds. Her favorite garden tool was a huge kitchen knife. I once tried to give her a garden tool to help her dig out the weeds, but she gave it back and said that her knife did the job and that’s how she worked her garden. She continued to work in her flower beds until just a couple of years ago. Even after she was on oxygen she would still attempt to go outside and work in the garden. A couple of years ago she decided she had to trim her bird of paradise plant and although she could only work a few minutes and take many breaks she kept at it until she had completed the job. When she put her mind to something she was going to do it.
She loved learning about her ancestors and together we went on many trips to visit relatives researching our family history. We also went to numerous cemeteries to find graves of relatives. We once visited an old cemetery in Lafitte where the grass was a tall as us, but we walked the cemetery and ultimately found the grave we were looking for.
Velma was the last of her generation having outlived her parents, all of her siblings and their spouses, her husband Lee Lee and son Bobby. In order to deal with so much loss, she said that with the help of the rest of her family and God’s help, you take it one day at a time.
Velma lived a long, full, and beautiful life. We will miss her dearly but now she can rest in peace.