NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The Latest on the funeral for New Orleans chef and civil rights icon Leah Chase (all times local):
3:30 p.m.
It’s been a distinctively New Orleans send-off for famed chef Leah Chase. It’s alternating between the somber and the festive.
Her funeral Monday was at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in New Orleans, blocks from the family restaurant she ran for decades.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was among those offering memories. She told those gathered that Chase had offered her encouragement as she became New Orleans’ first woman mayor.
Services featured spirited gospel from a choir and Deacon John’s soulful “Peace in the Valley.”
Chase’s casket was escorted from the church by a brass band playing a slow dirge. It gave way to an upbeat “I’ll Fly Away” as it carried her for one last visit to her restaurant on Orleans Avenue.
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9 a.m.
Family, friends and admirers of New Orleans chef Leah Chase are gathering for funeral services just blocks away from the landmark family restaurant where she fed heroes of the civil rights movement.
Chase died June 1 at age 96.
Monday’s funeral Mass is set for noon at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, followed by a dirge procession to Dooky Chase’s. That’s the restaurant where Chase gained fame as a creole chef and civil rights icon. A motorcade to a local cemetery was to be followed by a parade to the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Monday’s will be the last in a series of goodbyes to Chase. A brass band led a parade by the restaurant last Monday, and a public memorial was held at Xavier University on Saturday.
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