By Francis T. “Frankie” Poirrier
On the home page of this Website, there is a picture of Septime Poirrier Sr. and Mary Poirrier. The photo was taken in the late forties. The bench they are sitting on is what this story is about. The bench was originally installed in the “Colored" waiting room of the Texas and Pacific Railroad station in Edgard Louisiana. Sometime during World War II, the “ Colored" waiting rooms were locked by the railroad and the furnishings (benches) were removed. The benches remained in the still open “White” waiting rooms. I remember playing on them in the Edgard station and seeing the identical benches at the T&P station in Luling, LA. “Somehow”, one the benches found its way to the Poirrier residence on River road in Edgard.
When the Poirrier family moved to Lowerline Street in New Orleans, the bench came too. It was a major part of the early back yard furniture. At some point in the 1950’s, it disappeared from Lowerline. I do remember a bench like it on the front porch of the Navarra residence on Nashville Ave. I never considered how it got there. This was in my late teens and family history was not an important part of my life.
The last memory of the bench on Nashville was at the Navarra Christmas party in 1972, sitting on it with my father. He was not feeling well and went outside to get fresh air. The bench vanished from my memory until 1021 Nashville was preparing to be sold. Emmett Becnel was doing a massive cleanup of the property in 2011. He knew I was purveyor of antiquity (junk collector), and asked me to take a look at things I might be interested in. There in a pile of stuff that was underneath the house were the legs of that bench. The armrests were nowhere to be found. Emmett remembered that they came from the T&P Edgard station. He thought that Fano Navarra probably threw away the armrest during a cleanup in the past.
The bench legs came home with me along with a few other treasures. Hours and hours of internet searches never located a source for the armrests. I am still trying to locate them. The railroad used materials intended to last forever. The Edgard Station was built in 1878. I managed to find redwood scraps from that era and used them to start restoration of the bench. The project is in work to this day.
NEW INFORMATION:
There were two
benches in the colored waiting room. One went to the Poirrier residence in
Edgard, the other probably went to the Navarra house on Nashville Ave. This is
evidenced by the photo below, circa 1945. This would be the same time that the
bench photos were taken in Edgard. This means that the legs that I have are NOT
from the Edgard/Lowerline bench, but from the Nashville Ave. bench.
