L’Observateur / January 20, 1999

It was 1947. A time of innocence when the streets were filled with youngmen returning from World War II and the air waves were filled with the swinging sounds of the big bands.

Nineteen-year-old Iris Boudreaux was a young woman who had graduated from Leon C. Godchaux High School just two years before. A formercheerleader, she was working as receptionist at the Godchaux Sugar Refinery in Reserve when her dreams collided with her future one Saturday afternoon.

That’s when her future husband walked through the door.

Sidney Dufresne, leader of a big band called The Southerners, came to her office and asked her to sing with the band that night.

Without hesitating she said yes, broke a date and sang with the eight- piece band that night without a single rehearsal.

“See, he knew I could sing,” she explains.

It was, in fact, the night Iris Boudreaux had been rehearsing for nearly all of her life.

Now 71, Iris Dufresne Rousse says she began singing when she was 4.

“I came from a large family,” she says. “There were 11 of us children. We all sang together.”Later on, as she began to read and could read the words to songs, her love of music grew. As a teen-ager she spent hours just sitting in the familycar singing.

If the young songstress heard of anyone making the trip into New Orleans, she cajoled them into picking up a songbook.

“In those days,” she says, “you could buy a songbook for a nickel that had 200 songs in it.” Iris Boudreaux learned them all.And she sang them all that Saturday night without missing a beat. Songslike “Sentimental Journey” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”Looking at her now, you find it easy to imagine how she looked that night in 1947.

She still has that same sparkle in her eyes that must have captivated the audience when she first stepped up to the microphone more than 50 years ago. She still has that same bounce in her step and infectious smile.Yes, young Iris Boudreaux must have been a vision in the dark green organdy gown she wore in her first appearance with The Southerners, her long, dark hair cascading in waves to her shoulders.

We may never know if Sidney Dufresne was captivated along with the audience as he played his trumpet, backing up his new female vocalist, but it would be two years before the couple started dating.

Meanwhile, the band played on. A favorite on the local circuit, they playedthe Godchaux Pavilion in Reserve for picnics on Sunday afternoons and nightclubs and dances on Friday and Saturday nights.

Some nights they played for carnival balls across the river.

“On those nights,” Rousse reminisces, “We’d come home on the ferry at 4 in the morning. We had such a good time.”In 1953, Iris Boudreaux and Sidney Dufresne became man and wife and began planning a family. Iris gave up her career with the band to raise herfive children.

“I didn’t have time to sing,” she says. “I really enjoyed getting marriedand starting my family. That was my joy in life.”Once in a while, as a young mother, Dufresne found an outlet for her musical talents in community theatre, playing Lady Thiang in the St. JohnTheatre production of “The King and I” in 1960.

Oddly enough, after Sidney Dufresne died in 1983, Iris would find her second husband at the theatre.

She had gone to St. John Theatre to see her daughter appear in “Oklahoma,”and she met Calvin Rousse, who was serving drinks for the Lion’s Club.

Two months later the couple was planning a wedding.

Now, in retirement, Iris Rousse still sings. She’s lead soprano at St.Peter’s Church in Reserve and finds contentment in her life.

During the years Rousse spent working as a secretary or receptionist at local businesses, she says she has made many friends.

“I got to meet and know so many people,” she says. “It’s a wonderful wayto face my old age.”Rousse says she’s enjoying her retirement and her eight grandchildren.

“I don’t know where my time goes,” she says, laughing. “I have a full,active life. I stay young by being involved. I approach everything by giving100 percent. Everything is fun because I want to be a part of it.”

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