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?Outrageous Mildred? at 80 years
The invitation asked guests to come to a party for ?Outrageous Mildred.? On the front cover was a drawing of a woman on a power mower. It was Mildred Fossier?s 80th birthday.
The power mower is her newest and proudest possession. She gave herself a brand new one for her birthday. Almost any Saturday, she is riding it to mow the huge lawn of her weekend house in Bay St. Louis. She guns the mower as if it wet-e a racing car.
Outrageous? She is that. She is a passionate environmentalist and works these days as Mayor Sidney Barthelemy?s unpaid consultant on environmental issues. She doesn?t hold her tongue.
As the house near the lake-front filled with the party crowd, everybody had a favorite story about Mildred. ?Remember what she said to that man who told her pollution was not really a problem with incinerators? She told him, ?You?re too old to be so stupid.? He nearly fell out.? Some of Mildred?s remarks about polluters and superior-acting males are unprintable.
?You should have heard the questions she asked Gov. Edwards at that meeting on the environment. She raked him over. And would you believe it, he came over to her afterwards and said, ?You?re cute.? ?No,? she said. ?I?m mean.? ?
Mildred believes her age and her white hair allow her to say and ask things younger people can?t.
Many of Mildred?s environmentalist friends at the party
As city welfare director, Fossier had been the first woman department head at City Hall. When she went to the Parkway and Park Commission she was the first woman director of that department, where she bossed 400 men, most of them truck
drivers.
were 40 to 50 years younger than she. Some didn?t know the Mildred stories from her years at City Hall.
Former Mayor Moon Landrieu often called her ?the best administrator in City Hall.? He shifted her from running the city welfare department to maintaining its parks and broad neutral grounds, although Fossier frankly told reporters she didn?t know one plant from another. ?She?ll get that department straightened out,? Landrieu promised.
As city welfare director, Fossier had been the first woman department head at City Hall. When she went to the Parkway and Park Commission she was the first woman director of that department, where she bossed 400 men, most of them truck drivers.
When she first went to the job, the men called her ?that woman.? But before long it was ?Big Mama? and ?Hot Mama.? They liked it when she got mad. They liked her salty language. She often broke up fights on the yard by wading into the crowd and physically separating the two men fighting.
The men thought even more of
her when she used her knowledge of civil service to get them better pay and a ?career ladder? that allowed them to move up in their jobs. Black employees hadn?t been given promotions in the department before.
Mildred is from an old Creole family in New Orleans. She can be as proper and as imperious as any Uptown dowager. Her resume includes graduation from Sacred Heart convent, Newcomb College and a masters degree from the Tulane school of social work. But she broke out of that mold long ago.
Landrieu while he was mayor couldn?t wait for his staff meetings when Fossier would tangle with Streets Director Blaise Car-riere on oak trees. They got into it once when Carriere was trying to widen South Carrollton Avenue. He wanted to narrow the neutral ground and cut down the oak trees there.
As Mildred argued for the trees, the birds and the way trees soak up carbon dioxide, Carriere burst out, ?Mildred, you?re a bird brain!?
Mildred assumed her haughtiest manner. ?But at least there?s something going on in my
head. Birds are twittering up there,? she said, fluttering her fingers around her head. ?But you, sir, are a cement head.?
City Hall talked about it for months and, for a time, Fossier was known as Bird Brain and Carriere as Cement Head. But Mildred won that battle. The neutral ground and the oak trees were saved.
Landrieu?s chief administrative officer, Ben Levy, laughed about his annual meetings with Fossier to discuss her department?s budget. One year, to relieve the boredom, she brought in a mechanical toy, a monkey that could clap his hands or turn around and show his backside. The monkey?s behind was red.
When Levy gave Mildred?s department money, the monkey clapped. When he took it away, the monkey showed his behind.
Yes, Mildred is outrageous. But she is a very serious person who works for what she believes in. As welfare director in Mayor Victor Schiro?s administration, she integrated the city?s institutions, including a nursing home for the elderly, with no fanfare. At parkways, she promptly hired black employees in the office and, later, brought Vietnamese workers into the mostly black workforce. She also submitted scholarly papers to congressional committees on welfare reform and the needs of the elderly.
For those who know her and her accomplishments, Fossier is an original and a legend. The legend is only brighter because it rings with laughter.
Iris Kelso is a staff writer.