Montava Trueblood

A FAMILY LOST A child is buried almost a year after the floodwaters swept him away. But his mother and brother aren't there to mourn. They died in a fire months after the storm.

Monday, August 21, 2006

By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer

The foul floodwaters swept little Montava Trueblood away, snatching him from his mother as New Orleans fell into absolute horror almost one year ago.

Montava slipped off a rooftop in the Lower 9th Ward and into a violent sea of destruction on Aug. 29.

He never got to enter first grade. He never got to celebrate his 7th birthday in December. Instead, he slipped beneath a pile of debris and drowned.

Only days ago, Montava was finally given a proper funeral, as the world prepares to take notice of the one-year anniversary of the worst natural disaster -- and arguably the worst engineering failure -- in the history of the United States. Preachers comforted the 30 or so mourners inside Littlejohn's Funeral Home on Aubry Street.

On Aug. 15, the boy's remains were identified by the Orleans Parish coroner's office through a DNA sample his mother gave mortuary officials a month after the storm, the Trueblood family said.

When the child's ashes are placed in a plot at Resthaven Cemetery, he will not be alone.

Montava will be laid to rest in October alongside his mother and his baby brother who, after barely escaping the floodwaters, perished in a fire in Milwaukee in December, a few days shy of his mother's 32nd birthday.

Almost nothing remains of 1908 Tennessee St., where Montava lived. It is among entire city blocks in the Lower 9th where houses were erased by the floodwaters, rocked off foundations to float away or destroyed on impact. On Friday, unkempt grass and weeds flourished where houses once sat. Beneath the weeds, though, one could find the concrete slabs or steps that lead to nowhere. It's all that is left.

After the rising tide crashed through the levee breach at the Industrial Canal, Byndra Trueblood took her sons out of their flooding house, waded through the dirty water and sought refuge on the roof of a house down the street.

The children clung to their mother. Trueblood would later show her family the scars on her arms and legs left by toddler Davonta, who had clutched her tightly amid the rushing waters.

"They were overtaken by the floodwaters," Trueblood's sister, Darleen Trueblood said of the little family. "She said she couldn't hold both of them and he was swept away."

The family evacuated first to Texas, then took refuge in Milwaukee.

Montava's body was recovered sometime before November behind a house in the 1900 block of Forstall Street by Kenyon International Emergency Service, hired after the storm to search for the dead. He remained among the anonymous Katrina victims, stored cold, until Aug. 15.

That was the date Montava's body had been properly identified -- through a DNA sample left several months ago by his mother. Montava, his death certificate says, died by drowning due to asphyxia.

The death certificate reflects a life that has barely begun. Little information is on the form. "Never married," reads one of the boxes.

'A respectful little boy'

Montava's aunts were in town this month, working on rebuilding their homes, when they were called with the news that their nephew's body had been identified. They decided on a funeral, simple yet complete with a pewter-colored casket and a pianist. The modest ceremony dealt with almost a year's worth of grief.

At the memorial service, none of the family members eulogized Montava. A visitor read the obituary, which listed survivors, but little else was said about the boy.

Byndra Trueblood, one of 12 children, worked as a hairdresser. Montava was known around the halls of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School as a quiet, handsome student, who was just starting to emerge from his shell.

"A very respectful little boy," said Doris Hicks, principal of the school, which is now a charter school operating out of a 9th Ward building instead of its flooded Lower 9th complex. "Very shy, but good-looking. I found him initially quiet, not as outgoing. But then, toward the middle part of the year, I would see him as more outgoing."

At the start of a new school year, the Lower 9th Ward school faculty continues to count the missing and the dead. More than 30 people so far, Hicks said, including students and their families. During student registration recently, Hicks said she was haunted by thoughts of who survived and who didn't.

"It has been devastating," Hicks said. "We have counted the ones we know from King Elementary. It's family for all of us. We're just celebrating survival."

During a recent parent-teacher conference, a woman told Hicks: "My mother drowned. She didn't want to leave with us."

Then there are the families who have disappeared. Hicks said her colleagues will think of a family and wonder aloud: Did they get out?

"Those thoughts come to you so often," Hicks said.

Fatal fire

Montava's mother and brother were killed in a fire in their apartment on Dec. 8. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Byndra Trueblood was found in the living room and died later at a city hospital. Davonta, who had just turned 4, was found dead in his bedroom.

Initial reports showed that Trueblood appeared to have fallen asleep while smoking.

Trueblood and Davonta have already been cremated. The ashes of mother and two sons will be placed together, in a plot at Resthaven Cemetery off Old Gentilly Road.

The boys' father died more than a year ago of cancer, relatives said.

Montava's grandmother, Laura Trueblood, remained in Milwaukee last week and could not attend the boy's funeral because she is on dialysis and could not arrange treatment in New Orleans, her daughters said. Dave Jones, 77, a church leader who has known the Trueblood family for 40 years, arrived at Littlejohn's chapel before the family. He asked a visitor how old Montava was. "That's all," Jones said, shaking his head. "He was young. That was a long time to just identify his body. A long time."

At rest

Montava's casket was capped with blue and white flowers, an arrangement that included three small teddy bears and his graduation picture from kindergarten.

"You can't run from death," Darleen Trueblood said. "When it's your time, it's your time."

At least the surviving Truebloods know where their relatives are, she said, unlike others who still wait for a signed death certificate. About 50 bodies remain in Orleans Parish, at the coroner's office, unclaimed and unidentified by next of kin.

"I'd hate to be in those people's shoes," Trueblood said.

Published in The Times-Picayune