Leola Marie Chauvin Nunez Massey Lahasky
January 27, 1936/37 – March 5, 2019
Known as Lee to her friends, she died at 4 AM Mardi Gras morning of natural causes after 83 years of drinking, dining and dancing through life. Born in Vermilion Parish she grew up in Cameron Parish where her family established an offshore linen service, Coastal Laundry. She returned to Vermilion Parish upon her first marriage at 16 and went on to survive a tornado, the Oil Bust and her frenemies to become the best gambler her family has produced in centuries. She was fond of saying, “Always a bride, never a bridesmaid.” She dropped out of college, substituted first grade at Mount Carmel and was a Cub Scout den mother. She could saddle her own horse without chipping a nail and jitterbug in Italian toed spike heels to Fats Domino live. She was proficient in history and spent years traveling with her favorite cousin Michael Lane Delcambre to read Civil War cemetery headstones, but she never told anyone who she was looking for.
Lee is survived by her children Kent Nunez, Troi N. Reppart (Tom), Wm. Jason Massey and Robin M. LeBlanc (Chad); her grandchildren Brent Nunez (Michelle), Felicia Nunez, Jansen Istre, Ashton Istre (Courtney), Ryan Sonnier and Andrew Sonnier; her 5 step-grandchildren Christie Reppart, Luke LeBlanc, Logan LeBlanc, John Brooks and Lee-Ann Brooks, and 9 great-grandchildren; her sisters Verda Conner Fusilier Motley Berry Riggs, Gwen Chauvin LeMaire, Angela Chauvin Manceaux; her brothers Richard George Chauvin and Edwin Chauvin; her daughter-in-laws Marsha Groff and Jan Hensley; her son-in-laws Brent Istre and James Sonnier; and her godchildren Carol “Shooney” Gallet and Mary Ellen Porche whom she told to never leave the house without lipstick.
Lee was preceded in death by her eldest son Shane Nunez, her husbands J. D. Warren Nunez, William J. Massey and Dr. Bernard Lahasky, her parents Otto Marcel Chauvin and Elda Saltzman, her step-parents Pierre Conner and Azema Richard Chauvin, her sister Ewella “Yelly” Chauvin Creppel Hagar Lewis, her brother Julius Conner, her BFF Neely S. Porche and her housekeepers Rosemary Dozier, Ida Green and Edna Pilette Harthorne.
A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday March 23, 2019 at Riverfront Banquet Room 503 W. Port St. Abbeville La., 1 PM.