ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / July 19, 2000

Lionel Lemoine has been building things all his life, and he isn’t about to let retirement stop him now.

Standing in front of a two large tables loaded with his work, Lemoine proudly shows off his cardboard creations of houses, churches, gazebos and birdhouses.

“This keeps my hands and mind busy,” said Lemoine, a resident of the Twin Oaks Nursing Home in LaPlace.

Lemoine’s daughter, Barbara Gainey, said, “I hope my hands are as steady as his when I’m his age.”An energetic man with a big smile and bright blue eyes, Lemoine’s enthusiasm and vitality belie his 83 years. He excitedly shows details tohis cardboard buildings. He points to a tiny rocker and table inside agazebo that sits in the middle of his cardboard village. One of the houses,brightly decorated with wrapping paper and pages from magazines, was the house he grew up in Simmesport.

“We were farmers, but my daddy was also the town carpenter and he taught me carpentry, ” said Lemoine. “He was also the only person in thetown who built coffins, and he taught me that, too.”During World War II Lemoine learned to build other things, like ships. Hewent to work for the Dixie and then later Avondale Shipyards putting together military boats for the war effort. He worked in the ship-buildingindustry for many years.

Then he turned his attention to mobile trailers. He got a job refurbishingused trailer homes and trade-ins. He did that until a back injury put him ondisability in 1974. He and his wife of 60 years moved to Belle Pointesubdivision in LaPlace, and his yen to build things turned to more artistic endeavors.

“I had to do something,” said Lemoine. “I couldn’t just look at four wallswhen I got disabled.”So he started building birdhouses using wood scraps from all the house- building going on around him in Belle Pointe.

“He used to build the most beautiful birdhouses,” claimed Gainey. “Theywere these big three-story bird mansions.”Lemoine also got into the business of building models of trailer homes for dealers in the area. This was when he was first introduced to workingwith cardboard. He would build mobile home models with removable topsso that prospective customers could look inside and see what they were buying.

He also designed and built furniture.

Then his wife got Alzheimer’s, and he spent a lot of time with her at Twin Oaks. After she passed away he sold his house and moved into the nursinghome where he has lived for the past five years.

However, when he moved into Twin Oaks, he forgot one important thing – his tools. But as he didn’t let that stop him.”God told me to use cardboard,” said Lemoine, “and my daughter brought me a box cutter.”That worked for awhile, but he wasn’t happy with it so he got his daughter to get him his favorite butcher knife.

“This knife is 65 years old and has a very narrow blade,” said Lemoine. “itlets me do very detailed work.”Using old boxes, glue, tape and his trusty butchers knife, Lemoine has designed and built hundreds of houses, churches and other buildings.

Examples of his work are found all over the nursing home.

To decorate them he uses either wrapping paper or pages from old magazines. This can add some interesting effects to his creations.There is a house decorated with Christmas wrapping paper that has Santa Clauses all over it, or another house with an ad for cigarettes on the roof and another ad for mouthwash on the walls. In the middle of thesebuildings a large blue church with pink windows towers over the other cardboard buildings.

Not only does this hobby keep Lemoine occupied, but it has also become a lucrative business for him and his daughter. She takes his creations andsells them at arts and crafts fairs and church bazaars.

“They sell like hot cakes,” said Gainey.

Lemoine is happy with what he is doing now. In fact, he wishes he hadstarted it sooner.

“If I knew what I know now and could be re-born,” said Lemoine with a twinkle in his eye, “this is what I would do for a living.”Back to Top

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