Feature
March
24
"Ladies of Lorton"
by Weekly Staff
Just in time for National Women’s History Month, the long-awaited tribute to the Ladies of Lorton has been published. Houma native Melissa Winder Hughes has compiled a photographic memoir honoring the founders of Houma’s renowned Lorton School. The book, complete with the founders’ background as well as the story of the school from its 1903 beginning to its 1940 closing, is now available at Southdown Museum Gift Shop and Bent Pages Book Store in Houma and Cherry Book Store in Thibodaux.
Sarah, Nina and Louise Winder founded Lorton School in Houma just months after joining the ranks of some of the first female graduates of George Peabody College in Nashville. Lorton School quickly became the pride of Houma when its students achieved great academic success and were admitted to the finest academies in the country.
Lorton taught kindergarten through high school classes, and the faculty consisted solely of the three sisters. They were the first women to receive degrees from George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville. Classes and the school building itself were both small. Anyone familiar with Lorton remembers these two things the most: the sisters gave each student undivided attention, and they were very strict. They were the secret ingredients in the Winder sisters’ recipe for students’ success.
“They really cared about their students, their well-being and where they went in life,” says Katie LeCompte, executive director of Southdown Museum, where an exhibit on Lorton School resided. “It wasn’t just about teaching and studies. It was much more than that.”
Students recognized the sisters’ devotion to the school and to those who attended.
“What’s really interesting is that all the graduates I’ve spoken to have the highest respect for the school and the Winder sisters themselves,” LeCompte says. “It’s amazing how they all felt that way.”
There were no entrance exams required to attend Lorton, but in addition to the $6 monthly tuition, the sisters required students to maintain good attendance, or face expulsion. The sisters stressed that Lorton’s goal was to prepare students for higher education and life.
In addition to the traditional students attending Lorton, high school graduates from across the state attended so that they could be “prepped” for entrance exams into West Point and Annapolis military academies. Lorton was one of the few schools in the country authorized to do so. A diploma from the exceptional school was a golden ticket, as it automatically granted acceptance into many Louisiana universities.
About the book’s creation, Hughes said, “After discovering a box of old school catalogs and photographs, I became fascinated with my great great aunts’ story and decided this would be an appropriate way to honor their legacy.”
About Melissa Winder Hughes
Originally from Houma, Hughes graduated from Vandebilt Catholic High School in 1998 and continued her studies at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, where she graduated in 2001 with a BA in Journalism and Media Writing and a minor in International Studies. She had a successful advertising career in New Orleans at Peter A. Mayer Advertising while completing her graduate studies with an MA in Mass Communication from Loyola University in 2006. Currently, Hughes resides in Mobile, Alabama, where she cares for her children, Charlotte and Alexander, enjoys freelance writing, assists her husband David with his finance business as marketing consultant/event coordinator and participates in many volunteer organizations.
