St. Bridget parishioner turns 100 years old this month

Samson Babin will be 100 years old on Nov. 21, 2022.

The St. Charles Community native lived in Raceland for 50 years and has been a resident of Schriever for the past 19 years with his second wife Walterine, who is 92. He is a parishioner of St. Bridget Church parish in Schriever and his wife is a member of the Assembly of God. He and Walterine, who has four children, two boys and two girls from a previous marriage, have been married for 19 years. Babin’s first wife of 50 years died in 2001.
Babin says growing up his family was really poor. “I didn’t know it then, but we were really, really poor. I was raised on a farm off of Highway 308 about a mile from St. Charles Borromeo Church in the St. Charles Community.”

He went to school until the 8th grade. His father developed multiple sclerosis and was paralyzed from the neck down for 12 years, so Babin went to work at the age of 14, while also helping his mother take care of his father. He had one brother four years younger than him who died in 2001.

Babin says the biggest adventure of his life was going to school. “I didn’t know how to read or write before that, and I didn’t know my ABCs. My mother and daddy worked hard all day long. They didn’t have time to teach us that. They went to bed at 7 o’clock and got up at four in the morning. Life was different then.”

His grandmothers didn't speak any English, but he says his mother and father could read and write English and French, something they were able to learn in school. Babin says he used to speak French, but has forgotten most of what he knew.

Babin started working at the Raceland Lumber Co. in January 1947 and worked there for 50 years. In 1970, his boss sold the ready mix and lumber business to him and two of his coworkers, so he was part owner until he retired in 1988. “Back then you could make a good living running a small business; today you can't,” says Babin.

After he retired, he was still doing estimates part time for the business, as well as for Morrison Lumber Co. and Robichaux Lumber Co. until around 2002.

Babin says his health was not good in 1943, and he was put on blood pressure medicine. “I wasn’t supposed to live this long; but since January of this year, I don’t take any medication anymore. Something happened to my body … I don’t know what … but I don’t take any heart medicine or any blood pressure medicine. And, my blood pressure is normal, 115/65.”

He had a bout with cancer in his lymph nodes last year and he’s undergoing a special kind of therapy right now. In fact, Samson says, both he and his wife are cancer survivors. They were both operated on for cancer right before Hurricane Ida’s landfall last year, him in August and her in July for colon cancer. Samson received radiation treatments and his wife has to do chemotherapy.

His sister-in-law, who Babin says is an angel, takes them to all of their therapy treatments and doctor's appointments. Babin just stopped driving last year, although he still has a driver’s license. “That’s the hardest thing when you can’t drive and you have to depend on other people for everything,” he says. “Life is not the same anymore when you can’t drive.”

The lifelong Catholic says his father helped build the first St. Charles Borromeo Church in the St. Charles Community. He remembers Father Albert Mauret, the parish’s first pastor, taught him catechism every Friday afternoon after school. Later, when he lived in Raceland, Babin served as an usher for many years, and he became friends with most of the priests who served at St. Mary’s Nativity parish.

Samson recalls that he paid $25 for his first car, which was either a 1928 or ‘29 Plymouth or Dodge. After that car, he bought a 1935 Ford Model A. “Now that was a car!” he says.

Babin believes the greatest technological advancement in his lifetime is the cell phone. “That’s everything … in there,” he says. “I don’t know how to use it and I don’t want to learn. I’m past that … I’m not interested in computers, either. I made money by figuring things out with a pencil and paper, and my head.”

Babin says the best times of his life were the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, when America was rebuilding after the war and the economy was good.

If he could give any advice to a young person today, Babin says he would tell them to go to school … trade school or college, it doesn’t matter … but take advantage of the opportunity to go to school and learn a trade or get a good education.

When asked what he attributes his long life to, Babin says he doesn’t really know why he’s lived as long as he has, but he does know that he worked hard all his life. “I kept busy all my life. I worked in my garden. I played sports like basketball and baseball, and I exercised my whole life.”