Of mothers, grandmothers, baby bottles – and life

Gayle Gaubert knows Wal-Mart, and she knows baby bottles.

Every year, the St. Andrew the Apostle parishioner, the mother of three adult children, places an order for hundreds of bottles. She’s done it so regularly for the last seven years that the retailing giant gives her a volume discount.

The bottles never are used for their intended purpose, but in the same way that a mother’s love acts as a soothing leaven in a world where so often everything seems to be falling apart, the bottles wind up making an impact far beyond their role as instruments of physical nourishment.

It’s a simple baby formula. In about two dozen parishes in the Archdiocese of New Orleans every year, Gaubert asks parishioners to take a baby bottle at the end of Mass and then return it the following week filled with cash or a check. That money then is donated to ACCESS Pregnancy Referral Centers of Catholic Charities, which each year counsels about 1,000 pregnant women who may need help in deciding to carry their babies to term.

That simple idea has produced about 25 percent of ACCESS Pregnancy’s annual budget, and, more importantly, has saved lives.

Gaubert said a few years ago, she went to a church to make her appeal after Communion. At the end of Mass, a woman, carrying an 18-month-old, came up to see her.

“She told me, ‘This is my ACCESS baby,’” Gaubert said.

Gaubert replied, “Oh, how special. Did you go and get help from them?”

The woman said: “You saved me from having an abortion.”

Gaubert had spoken in the parish two years earlier but had no recollection of what she had said. She had never met the woman. But something she said that day found a home in a mother’s heart.

“I cried and she cried,” Gaubert said. “I still fill up every time I think about it. Sometimes with all that’s involved in this work, I can honestly say, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I’m getting tired and I’m starting to complain to my husband that I have to give this up or get more help.’ Then you hear a story like that, and it’s like the Holy Spirit is telling you something and that God wants you for that ministry.”

It seems like a simple idea. Hand out the bottles, collect the bottles and drop the money in the bank. But early on, Gaubert decided to stop asking for loose change in the bottles. She’s not that strong.

“I know the people at the bank get a little nervous when they see me coming, but they’ve been so generous when I come in with all those coins,” Gaubert said. “The guard will bring out a cart and help me load them up. I bring them king cakes. They really help me out.”

Gaubert grew up in St. Leo the Great Parish in New Orleans, one of five children. Her father traveled a lot for business, so her mother, Florence Leaumont, set an example to her of what a mother’s love was all about.

Two or three times a week, her mother would gather her children to take a short ride on the bus to the St. Bernard Project, where the housekeeper who helped the family lived.

“My mother would cook two days worth of meals and we’d take the bus to deliver them to her,” Gaubert said. “My mother has always been over my shoulder. She was beautiful, inside as well as outside.”

Every other week, Mrs. Leaumont would take her children to confession. Holy Week was always special because the services were in the morning. Sometimes it got so hot, though, that the ushers had to open the windows to get the ventilation going.

“I can still remember when spring came and you could smell that freshness walking to church,” Gaubert said. “I remember the first time we were able to drink water before receiving Communion. There was a water fountain right near the church. The nuns would tell us, ‘You should drink the water to let the church know that they made the right decision.’ I stopped at the water fountain and took a sip.”

Gaubert was the eldest girl in the family, so she naturally had the responsibility to care for her little sister, who was eight years younger.

“I rocked that baby every night of my life,” she said. “She would cry when the 9 o’clock train came by and the dog would holler, so I’d rock her some more.”

Gaubert, who has four grandchildren, decided that for her and her husband Jimmie’s 50th anniversary, rather than throw a huge party, they would celebrate by taking the entire family to Hawaii.

At dinner one night, the family presented her with a bracelet, and then each person had a charm as a special gift.

Her eldest grandson, Hunter Lassere, now a student at Christian Brothers, got up and made his speech. Gaubert had watched him every day for the first three months of his life and picked him up almost every day after school. She helped with his homework.

Hunter said, “You’ve had me your whole life, and you came to all my ball games.”

“We were all bawling,” Gaubert said.

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at pfinney@clarionherald.org.