American chef Leah Chase (1923 - 2019) in the kitchen of Dookie Chase's in  New Orleans, Louisiana on January 19, 2015. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

Leah Chase gave everyone she met something they never had before

Leah Chase gave everyone she met something they never had before.

by Mary Staes | June 2, 2019

In 2015, before I was hired full-time at any newsroom, Leah Chase sat down with me and told me her Katrina story.

It was a part of a partnership with NOLA.com and Loyola University, and by the grace of family and a few well-timed phone calls, I got the interview of a lifetime.

Almost 20 minutes into her Katrina story, one of her daughters stepped in and told her who I was: a Staes. She immediately warmed up and said my name with an accent as the old Creoles do.

“I’ll be darned, that’s your daddy!” she said. “Your grandfather used to come in here. He would sit at that bar, all by himself. He would say very little to anybody, just sat there and would relax after work. But he was very good people.”

After Katrina, like many, family photos were scarce. By chance, I had just taken a picture with my phone of my grandfather, who died before I was born, and showed it to “Ms. Leah”.

“That’s him,” she said. “He would drink a beer, and maybe when he got ready to go, he’d ask us to fix an oyster sandwich to take home to his wife.”

That’s when it hit me. I know what she said is true. My aunt tells stories of my grandmother shucking oysters, and half of them never making it to the table because she’d eat them along the way. Of course, he would get her an oyster po-boy. Of course, Ms. Leah would remember that.

There I was, literally at the table of a legend, crying because she was telling me stories of my family I’d never heard of until that day.

Leah Chase gave everyone she met something they never had before. No matter if you were a president or an average Joe, she found time to bless you with a few words. For some, it was a meal. For others, it was a realization of New Orleans and its people; knowledgeable, warm, inviting, with a lot of spunk and spice. For me, it was a better understanding of my family and who I was as a person.

I cried the day of that interview because she gave that knowledge to me, and I’m heartbroken now because it’s gone.

New Orleans will forever revere the Queen of Creole Cuisine. Her numerous accolades will always remain relevant, but her heart, her words, her very aura, is what we will all miss the most. We all just lost our grandmother.

Rest in Peace, Ms. Leah.

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Mary Staes

Mary Staes

Mary Staes is Digital Content Lead for Very Local. She works with our freelancers and crafts content for our social media platforms and website. Before Very Local, she worked with CBS affiliate WWL-TV as a web producer and weekend assignment editor for about 4 years. She has also handled broadcast coverage for 160 Marine Reserve training facilities while she served as an active duty Marine. As a native New Orleanian, she takes being "very local" to heart. She loves being intertwined with the culture and figuring out how there are less than two degrees of separation between us all, whether we're natives or not.

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