Lloyd Walter Bennett, Jr. (Childhood)

Lloyd Walter Bennett Jr was born August 25, 1935, to Lloyd Walter Bennett Sr (age 29) and Gabrielle Mary "Gabi" Dobard (age 23). Gabi gave birth to Lloyd at the family home at 1129/1131 North Villere Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, in a bed in the corner of the front room. This fact Lloyd is eager to point out to visitors. 

The home, a double shotgun style typical to New Orleans, was owned jointly by Elvira "Vavsie" Dobard (1869-1968), Lloyd's great aunt, and her friend Josephine "Gramsie" Levy (1876-1948).

Gabi’s mother, Marie Clotile Tenette (1890-1931), died at age 40, leaving six children: Gabi (19), Edgar “Brother” (18), Hubert (6), Claude (5), Fred (3), and Louise (1). Their father, Edgar (age 45), was unable to cope with all of the children and farmed them out to relatives. This was not unusual for the times.

Gabi accepted the responsibility of keeping the family together as much as possible. “Brother” was probably living in the French Quarter. Claude went to live with his aunt Bertha Tenette Cook (1902-1985). Fred went to live on the farm in Livonia, Louisiana, with relatives Frank “Papa Frank” Dobard (1888-1985) and Frances Sarah “Mama Sarah” Barbre Dobard (1885-1977). Hubert and Louise lived with Gabi under the care of Vavsie and Gramsie on Villere Street.

Gabi and Lloyd Walter Bennett Sr were married in June 1932.

In 1935, Lloyd Sr, Gabi, and Lloyd Jr lived on the 1129 side of the house. The 1131 side was home to Gabi's siblings Hubert Dobard (then 10 years old) and Louise Dobard (then 5 years old), Vavsie (66 years old) and Gramsie (59 years old).

Young Louise was accustomed to being the baby princess of the family. Her sister Gabi sewed dresses for her, and as the youngest child, she was generally doted upon. When Lloyd Jr was born, Louise was put out. She didn't like having this new baby come mess up her play house, as she put it. After a while, as the baby got older and was able to play, she recognized him as a playmate. Lloyd recalls that when Louise got a new dress, he usually got a new shirt made of the same material. Lloyd was known in the family as Baby Lloyd; the nickname stuck for many years and still rises up on occasion.

Gabrielle gave birth to a son, Gregoire, in 1940; he died as an infant.

Craig School at Villere and Ursulines is a half block from the family home. When Baby Lloyd started school there in 1940, Louise and Hubert had to walk him to school and home again. Lloyd attended Craig School from first through eighth grade, graduating in 1948. He ran track, played basketball, and learned woodworking and bricklaying in the manual training course.  Lloyd served on the school patrol, reaching the rank of lieutenant. Mrs. Anna Besant Henry was his fifth grade teacher and art teacher. He did a lot of drawing for the friezes on the library walls (long gone). Mrs. Miriam D. Martin was the band director; it was one of the few elementary school bands in the city. Lloyd played trumpet in the band from third to eighth grade. The band paraded on McDonough Day and for Mardi Gras. Mr. Warren Laddo was the assistant band director. 

Lloyd’s cousin Verona Tenette (1923- ) was a substitute teacher for sixth grade. Verona was a strict disciplinarian who did not let the children get away with anything. Gabi was friends with many of the teachers at the school. As a result, Lloyd did not get away with many pranks. In fact, when Lloyd was in first grade, she had the teacher keep him in during recess and lunch so he would not roughhouse and spoil his clothes.

Lloyd recalls that he spent a lot of time playing in the shed behind the house and on the “dryer” that was on its flat roof. When it was not being used for drying laundry on the permanently installed clotheslines, the dryer became a ship complete with flags and a big sail or a fort. It offered a good view of the Baptist church next door; he and Louise used to spy on the full immersion baptisms, which were a novelty to a couple of Catholics.

One year he got a chemistry set for Christmas. His father built him a laboratory in the shed, complete with a combination lock on the door. Lloyd did many experiments but was somewhat hampered in his efforts because his father would not let him use the Bunsen burner that came with the set.

Economy Hall, a society building where dances and wedding receptions were held, was on Ursulines Street, next to the Craig School playground. One group of Lloyd’s friends comprised Mokey; Leroy (Mokey’s uncle); Johnny; Pasquale; cousins Ronald, Lyle and Everett Stuart; Bernard; Jackie (a Japanese boy); Johnny Fernandez; and two Frank boys. The gang would sometimes sneak into the hall to play hide and seek. There was a risk of being caught by Mr. and Mrs. Joe Touro, who were the live-in custodians of the hall. Punishment was light – maybe a spanking and withheld privileges -- light enough that they would try again another time. 

They enjoyed harvesting fruit from Mr. Roth’s mispole (sp?) and mulberry trees with his blessing. One time Louise, cousin Verda Davis (1936-2011), and Lloyd went to visit Verda’s mother, Vera Tenette Davis (1908-1985) on Bienville. Lloyd thinks the children were given money to get them out of the house while the adults visited. They went to the grocery store, where they bought dried peaches. They ate enough to upset their digestive systems and were hard pressed to get back to cousin Vera’s house. Louise did not make it; she had to relieve herself next to the school building.

The intersection of Ursulines and Villere served as football and baseball fields. The games were played on concrete while dodging cars and horse carts and the streetcars that then ran on Ursulines. When they got bikes, they still did not stray far from the neighborhood.

Around 1943, about age 8 or 9 years of age, Lloyd and his uncles Claude “Clooky” (then 17) and Hubert (then 18), helped their maternal grandfather, Edgar Dobard (1886-1973), repair his girlfriend’s roof. Lloyd recalls that Grandpa claimed that Hubert was too clumsy and tied him to the chimney to keep him from falling off. 

When he was old enough to cross Claiborne Street, Lloyd could visit his paternal grandmother, Francesca Fauria Bennett Barbarin (1885-1981), who lived at 1811 St. Philips Street (between Roman and Derbigny). Grandma France always had fruit, tea, coffee, and other goodies. She’d say, “Come on, little boy, you must eat.” And so Lloyd ate. The only thing he could not do was play with Grandma’s dog, Tarzan, a feisty spitz; he was warned that Tarzan would bite. 

On Grandma's side of Claiborne he could also visit with Uncle Walter Barbarin (1918-1980) and ride with him as he drove a fruit and vegetable cart through the neighborhood pulled by his horse, Danny Boy. Lloyd's cousin Warren "Hooks" Volter also rode along. Hooks was Uncle Walter's stepson. He got his nickname because he was slightly bowlegged.

He played with the neighbor kids Charles, Wallace, Lloyd, Patricia and Myrtle Vigee; Phyllis, Louis and Armand Charbonnet; as well as cousin Gladys Deransburg (1935- ). Cousins Lyle Deransburg (1942- ) and cousin Barry Bechet (1943- ) lived in the neighborhood, but they were babies. All these children except Lloyd attended St. Peter Claver School and St. Peter Claver Church.

Lloyd’s mother was a member of the Knights of Peter Claver Ladies Auxiliary. Lloyd studied catechism at St. Peter Claver Church, on St. Philip Street between Prieur and Roman, and took confirmation there. Lloyd says he attended noon mass at St. Augustine to avoid the eight a.m. children’s mass at St. Peter Claver. Nobody except maybe Vavsie wanted to go to church that early, he recalls.

But there was another incentive for attending St. Augustine. While St. Peter Claver was an all black congregation, St. Augustine was integrated, although the blacks and whites kept to their designated pews. Lloyd liked to go to St. Augustine because his friend Pasquale, who was white, and other friends could attend the same service. They could not sit together, but they could play together before and after mass. His father was a member of the Holy Name Society.

The Gypsy Tea Room, a bar at St. Ann and Villere, had a back room where the boxers practiced. The boys enjoyed watching the boxers, and several lads in Lloyd’s circle took up boxing. At that time there was no problem with youngsters being in a bar. They could buy beer for their elders. As Lloyd says, who was to know if a few sips were missing by the time the pitcher was delivered to the adults?

San Jacinto, a society building on Dumaine between Marais and Villere, was the site of dances for St. Mary’s school. Lloyd met one of his first girlfriends, June Epps, there.  He used to call her on the phone. At the time, hers was the only phone number he knew.

In 1947, Gabrielle gave birth to a daughter, Ann Marie Bennett. Lloyd recalls that Uncle Elbert Barbarin brought them home from the hospital. He drove up on the sidewalk in front of the house because it was raining. Ann Marie had red hair and green eyes as a baby. Lloyd, then 12 years old, insisted that she could not be his sister because she did not look like them. He was sure they’d been given the wrong baby at the hospital and wanted to send her back.

Lloyd attended high school at Joseph S. Clark on Dumaine Street, a new segregated black school that was opened mid-year 1949 in what had been an all-white Benjamin Franklin School. In his sophomore year, the class moved to Bayou Road School on Bayou Road and Derbigny. Before his graduation in 1952, Bayou Road School had been renamed Joseph S. Clark Senior High, and the former Joseph S. Clark became the Clark Annex and then later in the 1950s became Andrew J. Bell Junior High School.

In high school Lloyd forsook the band and joined the football team as halfback for three years with the number 25 on his jersey. He continued music lessons with Miss Bernice Blache, who was one of Uncle Hubert's girlfriends. He took both trumpet and alto saxophone lessons. Louise had played the saxophone at St. Mary's; when she gave up the instrument it passed down to Lloyd.

He danced away his sophomore and junior years only to find out he did not have enough credits to graduate. Lloyd says the record keeping at the school was not all that great because of the overcrowding, so it was possible to hit a physical education class several times a day and let slide some of the necessary courses. Lloyd was in demand as a dance demonstrator, and he did love to dance. Thanks to some finagling by understanding counselors, he went to school from 7 am to 5 pm his senior year and earned the credits he needed to graduate.

  

Hubert was heir to Gramsie’s half of the house; she died in 1948. In 1950 he claimed his heritage. Lloyd’s family, comprising Lloyd Sr, Gabi, Lloyd Jr, and Ann Marie, had to move. Lloyd recalls that as he left the Villere Street house for school one morning in 1950, his mother told him to go to his Grandma France’s house on Annette Street after school. When he got there, he found out that it was now their home, too.

The house on Annette Street was also a double shotgun. It was owned by Uncle Elbert Barbarin (1915-1987). The Bennetts shared the 1614 side of the house with Lloyd’s step-grandfather Walter Barbarin (1887-aft 1952) and grandmother Francesca Bennett Barbarin, and their son Alfred Barbarin (1928- ). Elbert’s sister Yvonne Barbarin Bechet (1922- ) lived on the 1616 side of the house with her husband Joseph Bechet (1915-2012) and their sons Barry (1943-) and Alan (1946- ).

Lloyd was fifteen years old; Ann Marie was three. It fell to Lloyd to carry Ann Marie to Vavsie or whoever was to watch her while their parents were at work. He used to take a very long way around to avoid teasing by his male friends.

In 1952, Lloyd’s mother, Gabi, died. Although Lloyd was just 16 years old, his father signed the release that let him join the U.S. Navy. He spent his seventeenth birthday in Hong Kong.