Aunt Eugenia, Gussie, Uncle Edward Gussie
Augusta Hicks Bayonne, also known as Gussie, was born in Fullerton, Louisiana to Nace and Willie Estes Hicks. The oldest daughter of an oldest daughter, Gussie has six sisters and one brother, named in order of birth: Wilma, Marion, Gladys, Nace, Jr., Robertine, Onita and Elois. Gussie is my mother.
Gussie was about three when she visited her grandparents in Bayou Maringuoin, Louisiana, and was photographed with her Aunt Eugenia and Uncle Edward.
Augusta was enrolled as a first-grade student in the newly constructed St. Monica Catholic Church School in 1926. She was a good student and graduated in 1934. During the summer, she joined St. Monica's softball team. Gussie enrolled in Xavier Prep in the fall of 1934, and joined the CYO basketball team, and played for four years. She was on the Letter Squad and in two operettas. Her favorite subject was Latin, and she graduated in 1938. She met Harold, my father, her first and only boyfriend, and they enrolled in Xavier University.
Harold and Gussie finished their freshman year at Xavier and enrolled as sophomores when they dropped out of school for financial reasons. They were married in 1940 and had five children between 1941 and 1949, namely Patricia, Jacqueline, Annette, Carol, and Harold, Jr. The Bayonne family lived in Portsmouth, Virginia, during WWII. Dad was a welder hired to work on war-bombed ships at the Norfolk Shipyard. After the war, we moved back to New Orleans and lived with Grandmother Carrie at 3212 Dixie Court. In 1950, we were evicted from Dixie Court to make room for a school.
We had trouble finding a place to live. No one wanted to rent to a family with five young kids. With financial assistance from Grandmother Carrie, we purchased a lot in Jefferson Parish. The area was undeveloped—there was no water, gas, or electricity. Trees had to be cut down before the house could be built. As soon as the house was framed, we moved in. Although we were living like pioneers, we were happy.
Mom was hired as a second-grade teacher at Kenner Elementary in 1957. We all attended Kenner Elementary, but only my brother, Juney, was currently a student. Gussie enrolled at Xavier University to work toward a degree in education. She also enrolled in a German class at Southern University in New Orleans, where I was a student. At the end of the semester, Mom, my friends Barbara and Maxine, and I were the only ones to earn the grade of B.
In 1967, Gussie was hired as an Outreach Worker for Jefferson Parish Community Action Program, President Johnson's War on Poverty Program. She worked with the needy in every aspect of their lives. Gussie loved her job and was the first employee to receive the Employee of the Year Award. In December 1985, she retired with 18 years of service. Dad had retired the year before due to poor health.
After retirement, Mom was very busy caring for Dad who died in 1994 and Big Mama, her mother, in 1998. She continued to do community work with the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Program - 18 years on the job and 14 years after retirement.
In 2000, Gussie made her 80th birthday. It was a banner year and a year of first experiences: first passport, first airplane ride, first trip out of the country, and first birthday party. Onita, a younger sister, gave her the gift of a lifetime; she took Mom to Rome for the canonization of Blessed Kathrine Drexel. Mom felt eternally blessed to attend the canonization of Mother Katherine Drexel because she met her when she was a student at St. Monica Catholic School. Gussie was chosen to read her composition, "Building for Eternity," to Mother Katherine, something that she will never forget.
Now, Mom is in the final stages of Alzheimer's; she is no longer able to care for herself, and she has forgotten her sisters, her brother, my sister Jackie, and me. She only knows the people she sees every day- my sisters Annette and Carol and grandkids Carla, Cameron, and Marcus. To paraphrase Nancy Reagan, whose husband, President Ronald Reagan, died of Alzheimer's, It is a long, slow goodbye.
