Valerie Conner

JENNINGS Valerie Wartelle Conner of Jennings died on July 5, 2015, at the age of 94. Funeral services will be held at Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church on Thursday July 9, at 10 a.m., with burial to follow at Greenwood Cemetery. Officant will be Rev. Charles McMillin. Visitation will be held from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 8, at Miguez Funeral Home with a rosary recited at 6:00 p.m. Visitation will resume on Thursday, July 9 at 8:00 a.m. until the time of her funeral mass. A daughter of Louis Lastrapes Wartelle and his wife Mary Lucille Quirk, she was born near Washington, Louisiana, on August 6, 1920. Her father farmed family land after attending college in Kentucky. Her great grandfather Pierre G. Wartelle, a former captain in Napoleon’s army, and her great grandmother Louisa King, the daughter of longtime St. Landry Parish Judge George King, married in 1827. Wartelle had commercial holdings in New Orleans, Opelousas, Ville Platte, and Lake Charles and a plantation in St. Landry Parish at his death in 1865. Her great, great grandfather Garriques de Flaugeac, also a former Napoleonic officer, was a surveyor and judge in St. Landry Parish who had fought in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Valerie Wartelle was a star athlete and the valedictorian of her high school class in Washington when she was fifteen years old. She was a campus beauty and sorority girl who worked her way through college as assistant secretary to the president and graduated magna cum laude from Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now the University of Louisiana) in Lafayette at the age of nineteen in 1940. Her degree was in business administration and secondary education with a concentration in history and English. She was also certified as a court reporter. In December 1941, she married John Louis Conner (1901-1973), with whom she worked in the Louisiana Conservation Department in Baton Rouge. After living in New Orleans, they moved to Jennings in 1943, where John Conner had been sheriff of Jeff Davis Parish in the 1930s and later served as mayor from 1945 to 1969. She worked at the Stanolind Recycling Plant in Jennings until the birth of their first child in 1945 and resumed her career in the early 1960s as a legal secretary with the firm of Lestage and Arnette. She then taught business English, typing, short hand, and office practice for twenty-two years in the business education department at Jennings High School until her retirement in 1987. Valerie Conner was a warm, vigorous, and devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. She was a kind and dedicated teacher who helped her students after school. She cared deeply about the people she loved, and she loved to laugh. She was strong willed and strong minded and maintained a keen interest in the things that mattered. As she approached the age of ninety, she correctly observed: “I know I am small, but I am mighty.” She was preceded in death by her husband of thirty-two years, her son John L. Conner, Jr. (1952-2006), her sister Rosa Clara Wartelle, and two brothers, Lastrapes Wartelle and Alphonse Wartelle. She is survived by her daughters Valerie Jean Conner (husband Stan Makielski) of Tallahassee, Florida, and Rosalie Conner Guinn (husband John E. Guinn) of Jennings. She is also survived by thirteen grandchildren: John E. Guinn, Jr. (wife Kim) of Scott; Michael Louis Guinn (wife Tonya), Samuel Grant Guinn (wife Jennifer), Valerie Guinn Gillespie (husband Aaron), Elizabeth Anne Guinn, Daniel Joseph Guinn, Rosalie Clare Guinn, Catherine Conner Guinn, Conner Paul Guinn, and Juliana Marie Guinn, all of Jennings; John L. Conner III (wife Jennifer) of Lake Village, Arkansas; and Faron Edward Conner and Michael Clifton Conner of Lake Arthur; twelve great grandchildren: Kyler Kilmer, Ian Guinn, Michael Guinn Jr., Samantha Guinn, Noah Guinn, Ava Guinn, Issac Guinn, McKenzie Guinn, Anthony Guinn, Samuel Guinn, Abram Gillespie and Charlotte Guinn; and numerous nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her name to the Jennings Carnegie Public Library, which she served as a member of the board of directors.