Leah Chase, who fed generations of New Orleanians and tourists alike at Dooky Chase's restaurant, died Saturday. She was 96.
Leah Chase mixes her bread pudding at Muriel's restaurant in New Orleans in April 2006.
Chase's family released a statement to news outlets Saturday night, sharing that the woman they called a"believer in the Spirit of New Orleans" died surrounded by family. Chase's determination propelled her from a girl with a small-town Louisiana upbringing to a celebrated chef who wrote cookbooks, appeared on cooking shows and fed civil rights greats such as Thurgood Marshall and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Well into her 90s, Chase could be found every day at the restaurant, using a walker while greeting customers and supervising the kitchen.
At a time when other black Creole women were working in the city's garment industry, Chase worked as a waitress in the French Quarter, which exposed her to the segregated city's pricey restaurants frequented by white people. Dooky Chase's became known as a place where white and black civil rights activists could meet and strategize about voter registration drives or legal cases. Although Chase and her husband were breaking the law by allowing whites and blacks to eat together, police never raided the restaurant.
"It was a haven for them to refresh themselves with wonderful gumbo and it was a place where they could strategize after a hard day's work," Morial said.Hurricane Katrina in 2005 devastated her restaurant, where 5 feet of water lingered in the dining room for weeks. When the waters eventually receded, mold was everywhere.
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