Oaks to Jelly

by Karen B. Gibbs
photography by Abby Sands Miller

Ellie Laurent is a vibrant 82-years-young great-grandmother who is best described by her friends as “a heart walking around on two legs.” A native of Chalmette, for thirteen years Ellie ran a prosperous floral business, “Wedding Flowers Exclusively by Ellie.” From 1978-79, she served as president of the St. Bernard Business and Professional Women’s Club, choosing as her signature project the planting of oak trees along the bare neutral ground of Judge Perez Drive.

Between the skepticism of fellow members and the resistance of the State of Louisiana to approve the project, Ellie faced an uphill battle. While she could do little to change the minds of her fellow businesswomen, she challenged the powers-that-be in the state and ultimately received permission to proceed with beautifying Chalmette’s main thoroughfare. Her husband, Roy, had just one question of his ambitious wife: “Who’s going to do this with you?”

“You are,” Ellie replied, sweetly.

Ellie tapped family members Paul and Jeanne Lagarde to donate the first five oaks that she planted. Located in front of the Police Jury building, these inaugural trees were harvested from the Lagarde property. Next, Ellie approached five local businesses that together donated $500, enough to purchase five additional live oaks. “They were trees,” explains Ellie, her hands indicating their size, “five and six feet tall.” After much backbreaking work for Ellie and Roy, both in their 50s at the time, the next five oaks were planted.

Needing more trees but lacking the funds, Ellie asked the owner of a wooded site in St. Bernard Village, Rita Palmisano, for permission to dig oaks from her land. For the first two years of the project, she and Roy were the only ones who transplanted the trees. To assist in lifting the 5 to 6-foot trees, Roy fashioned a winch on the back of his pick-up truck. Ellie’s job was to guide the trees onto the truck. Ellie laughs as she tells of the time one of the trees smacked into her head. “I thought I lost my ear! I couldn’t hear out of it for the rest of the day.”

The work proceeded slowly. That’s when Lynn Dean, a generous St. Bernard businessman, asked Ellie, “What are you and Roy trying to do, kill yourselves?” His words were spoken more in concern than in criticism. For the next two years, Dean sent workers to help Roy and Ellie dig, load, transport and transplant trees to the neutral ground on Judge Perez Drive. During dry spells, Ellie and Roy spent their evenings watering the trees from 50-gallon drums of water on the back of their pick-up truck.

Finally, four years from when it began, Ellie’s project was complete and 450 oaks lined Judge Perez Drive.

Around 1984, Ellie and Roy moved across the lake to Lacombe. They settled in Brier Lake subdivision, where Roy’s dear friend, Monsignor Francis Boeshans, had just begun a new parish. One day, after attending Mass in the little chapel, the couple stopped to chat with him. He mentioned that his yard was covered with may haw berries and asked Ellie to make jelly from them to help raise money for the new-church building fund.

“I told Father I’d never even heard of may haws nor did I know anything about making jelly,” Ellie recalls.

He simply replied, “You can do it.”

“I reminded my husband as we left, ‘I can’t make jelly.’ He answered, ‘Father said you can do it, and you will. I’ll help.’” Remembering the oak tree project they worked on together, Ellie had no choice but to agree. True to his word, Roy helped Ellie for nine years until his untimely death from cancer.

Ellie smiles recalling the first time she and Roy “picked” may haw berries in the rectory yard. With buckets in hand, they crawled on the ground picking up thousands of tiny fallen berries, one at a time. (They later learned to position visquine under the fruit-laden branches before the berries ripen. Then, simply pick up the visquine, berries and all, once the fruit falls.)

Things didn’t go any more smoothly once Roy and Ellie brought the berries home. Ellie figured they had to remove the tiny stems and leaves from each berry individually. “Oh, I thought we’d go crazy picking off all those stems,” she recalls, throwing her hands into the air and laughing. She soon learned to cook the berries as is and strain out the debris later.

The first batch of jelly did not produced many jars, but it didn’t take Ellie long to perfect the craft of jelly making. Soon, she was holding regular jelly sales at church and supplying the parish’s Holiday Boutique with cases of the now highly sought-after delicacy. The pastor who started it all describes Ellie’s creations: “Over the years, Ellie’s jellies and jams have been a source of enjoyment for many—a gastronomical delight. They are truly delicious and the proof of this is the fact that she cannot make enough to keep up with the demand.”

For 14 years, Ellie made jelly for the church. While she relied on the generosity of parishioners to supply her with fresh fruit from their yards, one special couple, Sam and Nancy Modica, provided surplus fruit aplenty from their produce business in New Orleans. Ellie also supplemented their largesse with store-bought strawberries and blueberries.

The jellies first helped to pay off the church debt. Once the church was paid for, proceeds went to assist seminarians, the Discalced Carmelites in Covington and the Holy Family Sisters in New Orleans East. Since 2004, donations have gone to support the work of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis.

To assist Ellie in her ministry, Floyd and Edwina Ohler accept donations in exchange for her jellies and jams at their business, Ohler’s Tires, in Lacombe. Ellie readily admits she couldn’t do as well on her own. She calls the Ohlers her angels, but they view things differently.

Remarks Edwina, “Ellie is lovable, kind, thoughtful—always thinking of the other person. We’ve known her since before Roy died. He used to come by with may haw jelly for our grandson, Mark. About three years ago, Ellie asked us to help her with her jelly ministry in the shop. All we do is put them on the counter and people want them. It’s remarkable. Ellie has a following. We have people coming in just for her jellies—by the jars and the case!”

Remarkably, in the last three years the Ohlers have received donations totaling several thousand dollars for “Homemade Jelly by Ellie”—a mighty nice sum for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. In appreciation for her extraordinary generosity, Marlo Thomas recently sent Ellie a St. Jude’s Hospital commemorative plate. Deferring the praise to her kind-hearted friends, Ellie gave the gift to the Ohlers because, as she says, “They earned this, not me.”

Since 1984, a conservative estimate of the money given to charity from Ellie’s jellies is an impressive $10,000. What a testimony to one woman’s dedication and caring!
Dedication and caring—that’s Ellie Laurent. From her tree-shaded Judge Perez Drive to homemade jelly fund-raisers, both are reminders of a determined lady who wasn’t afraid to dream big and of a husband who loved her too much to let her dream alone.