Elaine Seeger

Elaine Seeger, 1915-2005

David Cuthbert
Staff writer

The story that members of Elaine Seeger's family all tell is how she walked from her home on Gen. Diaz Street to St. Dominic Church on Harrison Avenue almost every morning for early Mass. "And on the way," her nephew Michael Macksey said, "she'd pick up the newspapers on lawns and throw them on the porches where she knew 'old people' lived. She was 90 but didn't think of herself as old."

"She was still driving until last February," said Toni Macksey, Michael's former wife. "A Jeep. Can you imagine this lady, 85 pounds dripping wet, driving around in a Cherokee Jeep?"

Nephew Pat Macksey can. "She was a great shot with a pistol," he said, "and a great fisherman."

Pat and Mike Macksey were raised by Elaine Seeger and her husband, Everette, after their mother died in 1952.

Their father, Milford Macksey, was Elaine's brother. She met Everette "when a friend of her father's got him a job with Delta Steamship," Pat said, "and her daddy brought him home to dinner." They married in 1940.

To the boys, the Seegers were "Nanny" or "Nan" and "Paran." They operated Qwik Cafe, a coffee machine vending business.

"Paran got up early in the morning and went to service all the machines he had around town," Mike said. "He filled them up and collected the money, and Nanny kept the books and counted the coins. When Paran had a heart attack, she got up in the dark and serviced the route, with a .22 pistol in a paper bag."

"With her finger on the trigger," Pat said. "She was the nicest lady you can imagine, but you didn't mess with Nan."

Everette died in 1980, and his grave site at St. John Cemetery on Canal Street became another daily stop for his wife. She sold real estate for more than two decades, also doing volunteer work for Pitot House.

"She was selfless," Michael said, "always helping someone out. There's no telling what would have happened to Pat and me if they hadn't raised us."

"Angola, maybe," Pat joked, "and I don't mean the country. They were both great. She had the sweetest voice and long, dark hair, which she wore up in a twist, and as she got older, colored blond."

Mrs. Seeger doted on Mike's daughter Michelle, whom she called "Angel Face."

"We'd go to City Park, eat tuna fish sandwiches and ride the train," Michelle said.

Even though her own father had drowned in Lake Catherine during the 1947 hurricane that hit New Orleans, Mrs. Seeger would not leave her home when Hurricane Katrina threatened.

"She'd gotten through Betsy and Camille," Pat said, "and didn't expect any problems from this one."

"We all begged her to evacuate with us," Mike said, "even (former Lt. Gov.) Jimmy Fitzmorris. But when she wouldn't (leave) for Michelle, I knew she was staying."

Mrs. Seeger drowned in the home and neighborhood she loved and was laid to rest beside her husband in a quiet graveside service, as she requested.

"She was very clear about that," Michael said. "She didn't want any fuss made over her."

Published in The Times-Picayune