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HENRIETTA MARIE GALLIANO OSTER February 25, 1996

Henrietta was born January 23, 1924 in Galliano, Louisiana, the daughter of Pierre Antoine Galliano and Selima Jeanne Ledet. Her godparents were her uncle Arsine Albert Lasseigne and her mother’s first cousin Frazia Marie Gisclair Duet. Henrietta was named for her grandmother Henriette Marcellin Guidry Galliano.

She is the seventh of twelve children. Her siblings are Harina ‘Rena’ Marie, Salvina ‘Sally’ Marie, Bud Paul, Angelina Josephine, Smiley Joseph, Clarice Marie, Ernest Joseph, Doris Mae, Joyce Ann, Nancy Rita and Horace Jules. Most of her sisters and brothers remained in Lafourche Parish near the home of their parents.

Henrietta remembers working in the fields with her siblings. The children were paired; she and Clarice worked together doing household and farm chores. All the children helped in planting and harvesting the crops of corn, potatoes and field peas. She especially remembers planting potatoes with Bud one winter.

Like many of her family, she has mixed memories of her life on Bayou Lafourche. The family worked hard to keep the farm running and money coming in to the house. The area was very secluded from the rest of the state. Many of their groceries and supplies came by way of rolling grocery stores, on buses and trucks.

When she was young, medicine was administered by local healers (traiteurs). Her grandfather Antoine Ledet was a traiteur. When she was a child, it was common for families to burn trash along the banks of Bayou Lafourche. There were small piles of ashes all along the banks. She recalls stepping into one of the piles burning her foot severely. She went back to her house, but no adults were around, her sisters had her soak her foot in a bowl of boiled milk her mother had cooled on the dinner table. (Families had to pasteurize their own milk in those days.)

Henrietta attended school in Galliano until the eighth grade. That was as far as the classes extended in her area. The high school was too far away to reach on foot, and there were few cars and no school buses at that time. She did quite well in school, though. She was Salutatorian for her class.

She left home at the age of fifteen to work in a boarding house for teachers and oil field workers. She also worked as a waitress and bar tender at Theriot’s Restaurant in Golden Meadow, Louisiana. By the age of eighteen had moved to Harvey, Louisiana to live with her sister Angelina Danos on Pailet Avenue in Harvey, Louisiana. She also lived next door with her brother Bud and his wife Clementine on Pailet Avenue in Harvey, Louisiana.

While living in Harvey, Henrietta’s first job was as a car hop at a ‘pig stand’ (forerunner of the fast food drive through). She went on to work as a file clerk at Celotex. It was on Pailet Avenue, that she met Joseph Hickman Oster. During the World War II, while her boyfriend served in the Pacific, Henrietta became a certified welder and began working at Delta Shipyards - her part in the war effort.

For the end of the war, she was working downtown at Maison Blanche Department Store. She remembers throwing confetti from the balcony at Maison Blanche when the war ended. Canal Street was the center of a celebration like the famed activity in Time Square.

She and Joseph Hickman Oster were married soon after his return from the Pacific. Justice of the Peace John Scioneaux married the two on 2 November 1945 in Harvey, Louisiana. Present at the wedding were Earl Aloysius Oster, Jr. and Thelma Parr, Joseph’s brother and sister-in-law, and Bud Paul Galliano and Clementine Clara Lasseigne, her brother and sister-in-law. Joseph’s parents, Earl Aloysius Oster, Sr. and Cybble Joyce Hickman were also present for the wedding.

They lived for a short while in Harvey, Louisiana before settling in their new home in Marrero, Louisiana. Henrietta and Joseph had two children Karen Marie born 20 December 1946 and Brian Joseph born 27 August 1952.

Although she was raised as a Roman Catholic, she converted to the Southern Baptist faith around 1958. She and her family became members of the First Baptist Church of Marrero. She taught Sunday School for several years in the early years of her membership. More recently she became a member of the Woodmere Baptist Church in Harvey, Louisiana.

Henrietta is a skilled interior decorator, seamstress, landscaper and homemaker. She is known for her hand sewn Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, hand sewn Teddy Bears, and excellent cooking.