ANNA MONICA / L’Observateur / June 9, 1999

Her name is almost synonymous with “needle and thread,” and add that to “near perfection” and you have the tangible and intangible that best describes Jane Cambre Chapman’s approach to her life and work.

She quickly and sincerely states, “I feel fortunate that all my life I have been able to do what I wanted to do and make a living at it.”Jane’s passion for needle and thread developed in the first grade and was nurtured throughout her youth by her grandmother, Emma Montz, and mother Yvonne.

Remember the cones of string that grocery stores once commonly used? Well, Emma kept one of those cones in her home and each day supervised Jane in the making of chain stitches. At the end of the day the stitcheswere taken loose, the string rolled back and onto the cone and they would start the process over the next day.

Her next venture was making embroidered dish towels from the feed sacks they got from her uncle, Abdon “Noon” Cambre, who had a chicken farm.

After Yvonne drew designs with crayons they used a hot iron on wax paper to set the color and then embroidered, using running stitches.

“Everybody had embroidered dish towels,” Jane remembers.

She was 8 or 9 years old then. When in the third or fourth grade, Janebegan sewing doll clothes, and by the sixth grade she discovered the 4-H Club, which she continued with until finishing high school. To her it wasan excellent program, helping to develop incentive and motivation. Evenwith the Girl Scouts, she continued her sewing and crafts.

Jane took two years of home economics in school, and sewing was and remains her favorite part of the course.

“You can take the kitchen off my house if you want,” she exclaims.

College at Southeastern Louisiana University enabled Jane to become an elementary school teacher, but even then she managed to incorporate home economics and art electives such as historic costume, family sewing, child care and home nursing that would benefit her major. Graduation fromcollege was eventful in other ways, too, because having made all her own clothes from an early age, it was then Jane slipped into her first “bought” dress.

The late Yvonne and Edward “Bush” Cambre were Jane’s parents, and for 38 years she has been married to Allen Chapman of Garyville. They live inLaPlace as do their two sons, Mark and Stephen, and their families.

Even though their children were boys, Jane still made their little suits for them until about age two.

“To sew,” she claims, “was in her blood.”During her 26-year teaching career, Jane taught in public, private and parochial schools. She ended her career while at Riverside 10 years ago. Fondly, recalling treasured incidents involving her former students, she readily admits how much she misses being with them.

Jane loved teaching, but sewing has always been her passion. About 20years ago she started doing craft sewing with purses and from there went on to cross-stitching. Today she is very “at home” and accomplished in hersewing and looks forward each day to another adventure with needle and thread. She has advanced to, and is comfortable with, the latest equipmentand technologies, yet still demands near perfection in her work.

“I can picture in my mind what something is going to look like,” she declares.

It’s said a talent like that is a gift. Seeing Jane Chapman’s work proves it.

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