Jean Marie Allen Porter

Jean Marie Allen Porter died on November 24, 2024. She had grown increasingly frail in the months beforehand, a state of affairs that did not sit well with her driven, independent and fiercely active personality; but the death was sudden and unexpected.

At her birth, she would come to be the last child born of her matriarchal family in the octagon bedroom of her grandmother’s house. Although her family lived in New Orleans, her mother travelled to Amite for the birth. At her death, she was just short of her ninetieth birthday and the Silver Anniversary of the Krewe of Muses, for which she had sewn since its inception- making 1200 costumes a year all by herself on a small sewing machine she had purchased in 1953. Between birth and death, she did not miss much.

She briefly lived in Lafayette where she moved the day after her honeymoon. For a day, she felt trapped and bored and directionless in the small town where French was still the primary language. So, the next day she drove downtown to the most logical place: the fabric department of the most upscale department store. By month’s end, her tall thin frame, deep set eyes, high cheekbones and the dramatic coloring of her French ancestry had secured her spot as the model on the Saturday afternoon local television show. She also managed to get adopted by the Trappey family of cooking fame; and at their large farm, she set about mastering Cajun cooking at the hands of the head cook. She was not one to sit still.

Her early adult life was centered on her then thriving nuclear family with weekends and holidays in the Tangipahoa country at the house in Amite and the nearby family camp set idyllically around a large pond. There were garden clubs and the Presbyterian church, cub scouts and couples’ dinner parties, bridge and fashion modeling, and flower arranging and gourmet cooking classes. If there was an organization to join, the next year she was President. If there was a blue ribbon to win, it was hers.

When her youngest entered kindergarten, she started working at the Lafayette Shoppe, but retail was too confining. She moved to Krauss, known for its fabric; and in her yellow Fiat sedan crammed to the roof with fabric samples, she designed spaces as humble as the St. Thomas Housing Project. In no time, she had a book of business and opened her own design firm. Her projects read like an encyclopedia of New Orleans- a grand Pontalba apartment, The President’s Office of Jesuit High School, the Racing Commissioner’s Office at the Fairgrounds.

When her youngest entered college and her parents died, it was time for another change. She thought she was home too much. So, she dropped the Vogue patterns and donned a pair of red coveralls, purchasing a Shell franchise complete with a two-bay mechanic’s shop and twenty-four-hour service. Which she ran. By herself.

Then came the first grandchild and it was time to be where she was most needed again in the occupation for which she was most well-suited: Mother. Her grandson lived around the corner and she wanted to keep an eye on him. She got out the sewing machine and started the Muses project. She had a broker in New York and a supplier in Asia and the fabric was so voluminous it arrived in a moving van. She found time to throw countless parties at the house where she sewed and which she adored. It sits surrounded by a large yard evocative of the country houses of her youth. It was the site of elaborate Easter Egg hunts for St. George’s Episcopal School, dinner and holiday parties where she displayed her cooking skills, hilarious dog picnics “Bouledogues Sur l’Herbe” and raucous Mardi Gras weekends where amid Covid and the parading hiatus and house float hysteria, it became The House of the Rising Sun.

Her life brushed up against unique New Orleans characters over the many decades, and she herself unwittingly became one. Her voice was an irreplaceable blend of old Southern drawl and New Orleans charm. Her long thin hands wrote many a touching note in a penmanship that was itself an art form. She had a natural sense of elegance. Her unfailingly quiet sense of self-confidence, courage, and adaptability bound the varied chapters of her life seamlessly. She will be missed darting around town in her 1975 sky blue convertible Oldsmobile 88, which she drove at a frighteningly high speed.

She was buried in a private ceremony in the family graveyard in view of the house where she was born.

Her three children survive: Gregg Allen Porter (Weezie Welch) of New Orleans, David Thomas Porter (Kathleen Cooney) of McLean, Virginia, And Jennifer Anne Porter (John Rowland) of New Orleans and Tenants Harbor, Maine. Her grandson Whitcomb Welch Porter resides in Atlanta, Georgia and is engaged to be married to Leah Pate Hardison of that city. Her twin granddaughters graduate college in the spring: Anna Burke Porter (University of Virginia) and Amelia Brinkley Porter (Clemson).

Services will be held Friday January 3, 2025 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1329 Jackson Avenue. Visitation at 10; Service at 11. The family notes the help of assistants Eugene Perkins, Octavio Lopez, Sister Blaise Fernando, O. Carm. and Valerie Johnston through the years.