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DEL.ICIO.USCandymaker finds blessing after Katrina
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She was mixing up a batch of pralines when the telephone rang. It was a friend in Chicago who’d been watching coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She was calling Daisy Angelety to tell her to get out of New Orleans.
“I didn’t even have the television on,” Angelety said. “We’d grown so complacent.”
Fortunately, she took her friend’s advice. She packed up shorts, jeans, sandals and T-shirts. She called her son and daughter, both of whom live outside New Orleans, and told them about her plans. She finished making the candy, dropped some by her son’s barbershop and headed for Centreville, Miss., her hometown.
“I thought I’d stay till Sunday and come on back home,” Angelety, a retired schoolteacher, told me. “Under no circumstances did I think that I’d be homeless.”
She had lived in a house on Iroquois Street, in the upper Ninth Ward. Flood waters rendered it uninhabitable. Angelety lost valuable keepsakes. The only possessions she salvaged were the clothes she’d packed to leave town.
Before Katrina, Hurricane Ivan had been the only other storm that had compelled Angelety to evacuate. She rode that one out in Centreville, too. It was on that trip that she met Jeffery Wayne of Gwinnett County. They became friends and have stayed in touch through the years.
In New Orleans, Angelety’s life had centered around her church, New Life Ministry, and her pralines project. She made the candy at home and sold it to clients in the city. Her minister had been her taste-tester.
“My pastor told me that I was going to go far with this candy because it is anointed,” she told me. “But it didn’t happen until Katrina.”
Days after the storm, Wayne called to check on his friend. She told him the news — that her house was unlivable and that she’d lost everything.
“Usually after a storm, they could go back home,” said Wayne, a loan officer. “This time, they couldn’t. I told her she should come on down.”
Angelety, a native of New Orleans, definitely did not want to live in small-town Mississippi. So she moved to Atlanta and eventually settled in Lawrenceville.
One day, she felt like making candy. She didn’t even have a set of pots.
“I went to a thrift store and bought a pot,” she said. “I’m still making candy in this pot.”
What started out as a hobby in New Orleans has blossomed into a full-fledged business. Last month, Angelety started selling pralines from a kiosk on the first floor of Gwinnett Place mall. Bags of chocolate and coconut-covered ones go for $2.50.
She gets her pecans and candy bags shipped in from New Orleans. If you’ve never had a praline, she’ll give you a free sample. She’ll tell you hers are made from scratch and that she perfected her recipe in the Crescent City.
And if talk turns to hurricanes, she might tell you Katrina was a blessing.
“It got me out of my complacency,” she told me. “There are times you might catch me when I am down, and I’ll shed a tear or two about some of the stuff I lost. But I’m not sad. I didn’t lose my family. I’m safe.”
And for that, she’s grateful.
Comments
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By Dave Oliver
March 13, 2006 09:30 PM | Link to this
Way to go Angelety. Nothing in the world is quite like a honest to goodenss home made praline. I will see this lady in the mall soon. Keep em cooking, and lots of luck
By Michael H. Smith
March 13, 2006 09:42 PM | Link to this
Hmmm, NOLA in Lawrenceville, plenty of shops on the square Angelety and a theater is on the way? Maybe I’ve been watching too much Emeril.
By Julie Ann Tuminello
March 14, 2006 04:26 PM | Link to this
Angelety you are a strong person. Thanks for such an inspiring story. I was glad to hear Angelety the comment of complaceny. A great decision made to make lemonade out of lemons. To loose everything and start fresh it not something that many people have the courage to do. Life is strange, but it pushes us to new levels. Hope to see you soon. Julie
By CAM
March 15, 2006 03:06 PM | Link to this
There are many Katrina evacuees who are now making a living in Gwinnett County and contributing to the economy. My friend’s nephew and his family lived in St. Bernard Parish and don’t plan to return. He has bought a house in the metro area, his kids are enrolled in the local schools and he is working. I applaud Angelety for what she has done and I applaud all the others who are making it.