Known to the world as “Faye,” to her grandchildren as “Mon Mon” (Maw-Maw), to her many nieces and nephews as “Nan,” and to her six sons as the beating heart of her family – the strongest and most loving mother and grandmother anyone could ask for. She was exceptional and brilliant, kind and beautiful. But to hear her say it, you would have never known any of those things, as she was also selfless to the point of self-negation, and lived a life devoted to others and devoid of material possessions. Shiny things didn’t mean much to Faye Warren, and her quiet decency and essential modesty are her family’s most cherished inheritance. She cut and curled her own hair, never pierced her ears, and on fancy occasions (which were few) she would wear a ladybug pendant that one of her boys got her from the local five & dime like it was from Tiffany. She was devout in the spiritual practice of her Catholic faith and was a Roosevelt Democrat to her last breath. She taught her sons that racism was morally evil, and didn’t much care for fat cats or ostentation of any kind, as to her that was just glorified selfishness. Having her kids and grandkids around was the only wealth that counted or mattered.
For our parents, work was something you did with your hands and on your feet, and working from dawn until dark wrangling the seven obstreperous males in her household left our mother little time for leisure pursuits, or the luxuries of an idle mind, like the escape of a good book – but she filled her house with books so that her boys might become readers.
She hummed the same song for seventy-five years (the wartime standard, “Til We Meet Again”), and needed a sweater to stay warm year-round, even in the hottest summer. She was a gifted poet, a killer at Scrabble and any crossword puzzle ever conceived, and a phenomenal Cajun cook who prepared her gumbo, oyster cornbread dressing and many other dishes by touch, never by measuring spoons or recipes – she never even wrote them down. Her sons have never been able to get these seminal delicacies quite right, but vow to keep trying. Our mother was a conscientious citizen, a generous neighbor and a loving friend, and the size of the life she leaves behind – as calculated by the lives she changed with her loving kindness – is beyond measure. We will always fall short of her example, but will keep trying there as well.
Faye Warren was born in Iberville Parish, Louisiana – in the town of Plaquemine – on May 25, 1922, the seventh child (of fourteen) of Mary Claudia Doiron and Achille Joseph Altazan. She was the salutatorian of the class of 1939, Port Allen (Louisiana) high school, and was offered a scholarship to attend Southeastern Louisiana College but turned down the offer of a college education, as it was understood that she was needed at home. She met her future husband, James Destrahan Warren, III, at a movie house in Baton Rouge in 1941. The feature they were there to see was an Ingrid Bergman picture called Adam Had Four Sons, a number that turned out to be a little prophetic and a little low, as Faye and James would marry in November 1943 at the base chapel at Camp Rucker, Alabama, and have six sons. A news clipping from the time noted that she wore “gold gabardine with brown accessories,” and also that, as her new husband was shipping out to the war immediately after their vows, she would “be at home with her parents for the present.” The war ended, and our parents crossed the border into Texas in the early 1950s in search of work, settling on the Gulf Coast. Two kids already in tow, the young couple lived first in Old Baytown before moving to Highlands, where they would live and worship and be a part of the community for the next fifty years, leaving only to be nearer to their large and scattered family. Now, mom is coming home for good.
She is preceded in death by her parents, by all of her siblings except for her sister Rosemary, by her son Craig, and her husband James.
She is survived by her son James and daughter-in-law Amy Flowers (Macon, Georgia); son Kevin (Tracy, California); son John and daughter-in-law Susan Bell (Austin); son Christopher (San Francisco); son Mark and daughter-in-law Jessica Weigmann (New York, New York); and grandkids Sean, Charles, Jonathan, Kimmy, Mia, Matthew, Colson, Anna, Zeke, and Oona; great grandkids Dominick, Justin and Angelina; and dozens of nieces and nephews all over the country, but concentrated primarily in her beloved home state of Louisiana.
Visitation will be at Earthman Funeral Home on Garth Road in Baytown, from 5-8 p.m (there will be a rosary at 7 p.m.) on Monday, December 13. The funeral mass will be at St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church in Highlands at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, December 14, followed by a gravesite service at Sterling-White Cemetery in Highlands. For those who are unable to attended the service, it will be livestreamed. To join the livestream please go to Earthman Baytown’s website, www.earthmanbaytown.com and click on Mrs. Warren’s name. It will have a link there to “Join Livestream”. For the visitation and funeral mass, the family asks for attendees to look out for each other and to please wear masks (which will be provided). Thank you very much.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.earthmanbaytown.com for the Warren family.
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