Memories of my sophomore Religion teacher, Brother Ivy Leblanc, SC.
Mr. Thomas Ridgley (SA ’51), his wife Elaine, and Brother Ivy LeBlanc, S.C., at the annual Prayer Breakfast, 2009.
Brother Ivy Leblanc, SC
I was devastated when I received an email last week, asking for prayers for Brother Ivy. The school shared that Brother was not doing well, and his doctors decided on palliative care, to ease his passing. He passed yesterday. Others will eulogize and honor a man who dedicated his life to the Institute and specifically, Brother Martin High School. Here are some personal thoughts and memories of a wonderful man.
The “cool young Brother”
I first met Brother Ivy in the fall of 1973, as a tenth grader. I walked into one of the classrooms in the downstairs Resource Center, finding a younger teacher directing us to sit anywhere for that day. He introduced himself, and that led to a fun year. My fondest memory of Brother Ivy the teacher was the second or third day of the class. Catholic school, just about every class started with a prayer. Brother Leo Godin, SC, always said a Hail Mary. Other teachers, a Glory Be. Brother Ivy starts with the Sign of the Cross, then pauses, rather than offering further prayer. He said, “You know, the Sign of the Cross is, in itself, a complete prayer. So, let us begin, In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Talk about things that stick with you, fifty years later.
Vice-Principal
My classmate Bill McGreal (BMHS 1976) did sketches of the administrative team for the 1976 edition of Yesterday, the school’s yearbook. As I assembled images for the book, including Bill’s sketches was a no-brainer. At this time, Brother Ivy was in his second year as Vice-Principal (Discipline). In the 1974-75 school year, Brother Collin Dugas, SC (another great teacher and man of faith) stepped down as Vice-Principal (Academics). He and Mr. Louis Levy were the assistants to the first two BMHS principals, Brother Mark Thornton, SC, and Brother Brice Hendrick, SC. (Brother Brice later left the Institute, but as with everything I use to document the history of the school, I go with who these men were at a particular point in time.) So, I got to the school in the 1971-72 year. It was Brother Brice, Brother Collin, and Mr. Levy. By 1974, Brother Collin struggled with health issues and retired. Mr. Levy moved to Academics, and Brother Ivy stepped into the Disciplinarian role. Bill sketched Brother Ivy a year into what is arguably the hardest job on campus. He caught Brother’s electricity.
Principal, President
Brother Brice left BMHS at the end of the 1974-75 school. So, Brother Donan Berry, SC, came down from Catholic High in Baton Rouge, becoming Brother Martin’s third principal. Brother Donan left in 1978, and Brother Ivy moved into the top job. This 1987 photo shows Brother and Mr. John Devlin, Assistant Principal, displaying an “Excellence In Education” banner awarded the school by the Department of Education. In 1988, the school created the position of President. Brother Ivy became the first in that role, with Mr. Devlin taking over as Principal. This marked the first time a lay person ran the school.
Provincal
This 1999 photo shows Brother Ivy (left), Mr. Tom Benson (St. Aloysius 1944), and Brother Jean Sobert, SC, inspecting the progress of the “St. Aloysius Class of 1944 Gymnasium” and the Ridgley Fine Arts Center. Brother Ivy had moved to the position as Provincial, in charge of the United States Province of the Institute. Mr. Devlin moved up to President, and Mr. Gene Tullier became Brother Martin’s second principal. There’s a bit of a story behind this photo. As I put together this chapter of the book, the Development Office asked if I could work in a photo of Tom Benson. Benson was a controversial figure, as a businessman and owner of the New Orleans Saints. I came across this photo in Mr. Spellman’s office and thought, this is perfect. Brother Ivy and Brother Jean were both icons.
Legacy
Brother Ivy LeBlanc guided both the school and the Institute through a period of incredible change. His memory will bless the school for generations.
No uniforms meant St. Aloysius students could wear items like this Crusader belt buckle.
Crusader belt buckle
We have a number of fashion accessories in the Crusader Archives at Brother Martin High School. This belt buckle reminds us that Aloysius students dressed in regular civilian clothes for all but the last years of the school’s existence. While there was a grooming and dress code, the Navy uniforms don’t appear until the 1967-68. Since the NJROTC unit chartered at Aloysius, Cor Jesu never required uniforms for its students.
Uniforms but not Navy
The Brothers required students in grades tenth through twelfth to take NJROTC at Brother Martin. That policy changed in the 1975-76 school year. That meant not all students received free uniforms from the Navy. The school uniform morphed from a khaki shirt and trousers to a white, short-sleeved shirt and khaki trousers. The uniform shirt bears the red shield/gold cross emblem. NJROTC cadets wear their Navy uniforms on “drill” days. The modern cadet uniform resembles the Navy’s “junior enlisted” pattern, a khaki shirt with navy blue trousers. Naval enlisted from the ratings of E-1 to E-6 wear this.
St. Aloysius students wore the Crusader belt buckle at a time when so many of them ended their academic careers with high school graduation. This is why the question “where did you go to school” takes on a different meaning in New Orleans. Seniors wore their class rings to proclaim their school, but underclassmen in jeans or chinos relied on other fashion accessories. The letterman’s jacket or sweater was by far the most (and loudest) proclamation. The belt buckle offered students and alumni a way to say “I’m a Crusader” away from campus.
Wearing the school
So, with the exception of cadets on “drill” days, an item like our Crusader belt buckle here wouldn’t be out of order for the majority of present-day students. Even though the majority of Crusader graduates go on to college, where one went to high school remains significant. I’m hopeful that Mr. Rando and the staff will consider bringing back the school belt buckle. Web belts are still popular for young men. Perhaps even elementary schools would allow the belt buckles (hello recruitment!)
Additionally, I know Mr. Rando personally enjoys all the old accessories and ephemera we’re digging up. We also know that he’s a graduate of the Brother Jean Sobert, SC, Institute of Making a Buck for the School. These belt buckles would fulfill that mission!
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The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Jesuits on Baronne Street, is still there.
1874 Illustration of Jesuits Church and the College of the Immaculate Conception.
Jesuits on Baronne Street
New Orleans author and historian Derby Gisclair shared an illustration of Baronne Street from 1871 on Facebook. Here’s Derby’s description:
An 1874 illustration of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, otherwise known in New Orleans as the Jesuit Church on Baronne Street. The Moorish church was erected in 1851 alongside The College of the Immaculate Conception established four years earlier. The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) were given extensive lands in New Orleans by Bienville, an area of land known as the Jesuit Plantation that encompassed what we know today as the Central Business District and the Warehouse District.
Their orange groves were located on land that now includes Orange Street in the Lower Garden District. Le Citron Bistro, at the corner of Orange Street and Religious Street, is one of the oldest buildings in the city and recalls the area’s past.
So, Derby points out that the school pre-dates the church, having opened in 1847.
School re-design
The school side of the property contained the building fronting Baronne, along with a walled courtyard and a second building fronting Common Street. The school enjoyed a great deal of post-war growth. Therefore, the priests planned expansion. They demolish the original property. So, they replaced it with a three-story building that ran from the church to the corner. At this time, the order operated the College of the Immaculate Conception as both a high school and college. It was common for Catholic schools to offer go beyond the basic high school diploma program. Therefore, the Jesuits offered baccalaureate degrees.
Jesuits Church, Baronne Street, ca. 1880. Mugnier photo.
This Mugnier photo from 1880ish shows the new building. The schools continued to grow! The order moved the college uptown, on St. Charles Avenue. That location became Loyola University of the South (Now Loyola New Orleans) in 1911. The high school remained on Baronne Street. The school changed its name to Jesuit High School, reflecting the college’s relocation.
Jesuit Church and High School, Baronne Street, late 1920s. Franck Studios photo.
Since the high school continued to enjoy growth, the order acquired property at S. Carrollton Ave. and Banks St. in Mid-City. So they moved the high school to that location in 1926. The school continues to enjoy success at that location. This meant that the Baronne Street building stood unoccupied. The Jesuits leased the property to a developer in 1929. They replaced the school with an 18-story office building, named the Pere Marquette Building. The office building was converted into a hotel and is now the Renaissance New Orleans Pere Marquette Hotel.
Jesuit Church on Baronne Street. Franck Studios photo, ca. 1948
Demolition of the school and construction of the office building in 1929 took a toll on the church. Pilings driven for the building shook the block so much, they severely damaged the church’s foundation. The order was forced to dismantle the church building and build it over on a newer, stronger foundation. The re-built church now includes the familiar minarets.
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Buy my books! Edward Branley is the author of six books on New Orleans history. They’re available from local booksellers and all the usual online suspects. While we always encourage “buy local,” we’re OK with you buying from your favorite source.
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi dot com. I just love this concept as a way to say thank you/tip creators you enjoy. Our idea of monetization is buying books and having us come to speak. If you see me at a coffee shop, stop and say hi. Otherwise, I’ll raise coffee cup to you if you treat me.
Become a patron. Yes, we’re on Patreon. A lot of creators use the platform for direct monetization, and that’s great for them. We don’t have “exclusive content” for patrons. Still, if you think our history stuff is worth a dollar a month, go join!
Friday nights mean it’s time for prep football music.
Prep Football Music
It’s Friday afternoon! When I was a Crusader Band dad, now would be when we were getting it together to head to Tad Gormley for a Crusader football game. That early? Yes. For the five years my son Kevin (2012) was in the band, Mr. Hurley and Mr. Caronna wanted them at the stadium a good hour before game time. So, off we went to grab a bite to eat, then drop the kiddo at the stadium, then find a place to park. We would usually sit up at the top of the bleachers in the stadium, next to where the band and the Dominican Debs sat. The routine was a far cry from the game nights I spent in the press box as a statistician.
The Horse
While there were many songs that stuck with me from eighth grade in 1971 to this day, I can’t think of a time when the band didn’t play “The Horse,” by Cliff Nobles. While Nobles was a soul singer from Philly, his one hit was this instrumental tune. It’s become a marching band staple ever since.
Nobles released “The Horse” in the summer of 1968, and it went gold in August of that year, selling one million copies. It reached #2 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts. Being an instrumental, it was natural that high school bands picked it up. Crusader band played it regularly in the championship season of 1971, and I fondly remember following the band through the school as they played it on game day mornings. It was never part of a halftime show, always “stand music.”
1971
The photo presents Crusader Band at the state championship game versus St. Augustine, 10-December-1971. I’ve written about the game and that halftime show. What a great end to an exciting, sometimes nerve-wracking season.
Still around
“The Horse” is still in the flip books. This is the only video I found of Crusader Band playing the tune, in 2017. I’m not sure what stadium this is in, but it’s not Tad Gormley. The social interaction of kids walking by as the game progresses on the field is so typical of New Orleans’ version of Friday Night Lights.
Building St. Aloysius 1925 began in the Fall of 1924.
St. Aloysius 1925
“Alumni See Start of New Building” is the title of a short article reporting on the start of the “new” St. Aloysius building. The first steps in the replacement/upgrade of the school began on 8-October-1924. The Times-Picayune covered the “first piling” formalities in the paper the next day. A group of Brothers and VIP alumni posed for a photo:
“It was a thrilling moment for 500 boy students of St. Aloysius College when the first pile was driven for the new building to be erected this winter. Here are some of the older folk who watched the process with interest: W. J. Drez, President of the Alumni Association; W. M. Wren sub-contractor; Maurice Dufour, class of 1900; Brother Paul, president of the college; Brother Alphonse, former president; Gus Llambias, class of ’97; Brother Theodorus, member of the council; and A. S. Montz, class of ’98 and architect for the building.
The Institute opened St. Aloysius in 1869, in the French Quarter, on the corner of Chartres and Barracks Streets. The popularity of a BOSH education led the Brothers to move from that location to the corner of Esplanade Avenue and N. Rampart Streets in 1892. By 1924, the school outgrew the original building at that corner. The city wanted to expand the N. Rampart Street neutral ground, so the original building had to be demolished. The contractors completed the new building by the start of the school term the following year. The city widened the street, giving NOPSI more room for streetcar operations. on the St. Claude and Esplanade/Canal Belt lines.
An interesting aside in the body of the news article refers to the properties around the original building. Since the building on the corner had to come down, the Institute acquired several houses away from the corner. They demolished those buildings, clearing the way for this construction.
In the 1960s, Canal Street buses changed downtown.
Canal Street buses
From: 1965: NOPSI photo of a GM GMC TDH5303 bus. It’s running on the Canal-Lakeshore line, outbound, passing through the 1000 block of Canal Street. This photo dates to about a year after the conversion of Canal to bus service. The vintage-1923 arch roof streetcars ceased operation on Canal in May of 1964.
Cemeteries, Lake Vista, Lakeshore
So much can be said about the buses on Canal, and there are a few other items to be unpacked on this image. Let’s focus on the three Canal bus lines, post-streetcar. I rode those lines in both directions for the five years I attended Brother Martin High School in Gentilly. While my dad, who worked at the University of New Orleans, drove me to school in the morning, I rode public transit home. NOPSI provided two basic routes west from Gentilly. The Broad Street line ran from out in Da East, then Gentilly Blvd. The line turned onto Broad Street, just after passing Dillard University, continuing all the way to Lowerline, uptown. The other option using Gentilly Blvd. was the Carrollton line. Both of these lines crossed Canal. So, we would hop off and catch one of the three Canal lines to City Park Avenue. We caught the Veterans bus from there.
Lakeview
Then there was the second route, through Lakeview. We took the Cartier line from Mirabeau and Elysian Fields to Spanish Fort. The Cartier line started at Franklin and Mirabeau. It was, for all intents and purposes, a school bus route, passing by several elementary schools, F. W. Gregory Junior High, and John F. Kennedy Senior High. So at Spanish Fort, we transferred to the Canal (Lake Vista via Canal Blvd.) That line began its inbound run there. We’d ride Lake Vista to Toussaint and Canal Blvd. While the bus turned inbound on Canal Blvd., we got off and transferred to the line from this photo, Canal (Lakeshore via Pontchartrain Blvd.)
The Canal Lakeshore bus ran outbound on West End, turned right on Toussaint, then left on Canal Blvd. It terminated at the lake. For its outbound run, the line returned to Toussaint and went down Pontchartrain Blvd. So, we caught the inbound Lakeshore and rode it to Veterans, where we would pick up the Veterans.
Suburban transition
Cor Jesu and St. Aloysius High Schools didn’t have a lot of boys from Metairie attending the schools. As suburban expansion grew, the combined Brother Martin High appealed to a number of Crusader and Kingsmen families who moved out to Metairie. We kids from #themetrys were still a minority of the student body, back in the 70s. As the transition grew (now, most Crusaders live in Metairie and Kenner), the school offered school bus service, so families didn’t have to rely on less-reliable public buses.
To continued…
We’ll have more to say about this image in a couple of other posts. Thanks to Aaron Handy, III, for sharing this image to one of the bus fan groups on Facebook and triggering my memories!
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