Still a lively stepper: Leana Jitterbug Manuel turns 100
RITA LEBLEU, The American Press
April 10, 2021
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LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) Leana ‘Jitterbug’ Manuel may not swing like she did when she was young, but not much gets past this 100-year-old with dancing eyes and a bopping good sense of humor.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me my age,” Manuel said. “I thought that was why you were here. I just had a birthday you know. Everyone brought presents. Did you?”
She was born March 9, 1921 in Iowa, Louisiana to Henry and Leona Manuel. She recently celebrated the occasion at her residence at Villa Maria Retirement Center in Lake Charles. JoAnn Prescott, who is the wife of Manuel’s nephew Maurice, helped fill in many of the details about Manuel.
Maurice Prescott was named for Manuel’s brother who was killed during World War II.
“Her father was a sharecropper, and also drove a school bus,” Prescott said, “convenient for transporting such a large family.”
“We always had something to eat,” Manuel said. “My mother was a great cook. We had a garden. She baked bread and kept some for us and sold the rest.”
She was in her 20s when her parents divorced. He moved to Westlake and died in 1956.
“I really missed my daddy when he left,” she said.
All the children worked to help pay for the family home on Moss Street after the divorce.