‘The Original Baby Doll’ leaves cultural legacy

12th June 2023   ·   0 Comments

By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer

Before Miriam Batiste Reed, “The Original Baby Doll,” is laid to rest this weekend, she will be celebrated and sent off with a traditional jazz funeral, complete with an ornate horse-drawn carriage, brass band, and a second line reserved for New Orleans’ cultural royalty.

Reed died in Virginia in her sleep, daughter Darlene Roberts explains. She was 97 years old.

“She was just mom to me, but to other people, she was “Aunt Miriam” or “The Original Baby Doll.” Roberts, her mother’s caretaker, expressed gratitude and wonder at the outpouring of love her mother received after news of “Aunt Miriam’s” passing reached New Orleans.

“Family members and the masking Krewe of New Orleans Baby Doll Ladies mourn the loss of their matriarch and elder culture bearer, Mrs. Miriam Batiste-Reed, whom locals endeared as THE Original Baby of New Orleans’ doll-masking community,” Millisia White, creative director of the Krewe of the “New Orleans Baby Doll Ladies,” wrote in the official announcement of Mrs. Batiste-Reed’s passing.

“A pioneer group of ‘Baby Dolls’ masqueraders formed their own Mardi Gras celebration in 1912, combining African exuberance and rhythm with French Creole style and dollish toy regalia,” White explains.

“The Baby Dolls were the first women’s street masking practice in the U.S.,” White adds, explaining the importance of the cultural expression in an interview with The Louisiana Weekly.

Of equal importance was that in 1912, Black dolls were not mass-marketed in New Orleans. Doll-masking presented “live dolls” dressed in custom-made satin doll costumes showcasing Black women’s beauty. The original name of the Baby Dolls was the Golden Slipper Dolls. And other masquerading doll-masking krewes in New Orleans kept the culture going until Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city.

Aunt Miriam’s mother, Alma Trepagnier-Batiste, formed The Golden Slipper Dolls in 1930. The Golden Slipper Dolls hold the most consecutive years of practicing doll masking, from 1930 through 1980. Aunt Miriam continued the practice, but by the 1990s, few women paraded as dolls.

Aunt Miriam collaborated with Antoinette Dorsey Fox K-Doe, known to most New Orleanians as Miss Antoinette, to launch a Baby Doll revival. On Mardi Gras Day in 2004, they debuted the Ernie K-Doe Baby Dolls, named in honor of her late husband, rhythm-and-blues singer Ernie K-Doe, according to Kim Vaz-Deville, who featured Miss Antoinette in “Walking Raddy: The Baby Dolls of New Orleans.”

Aunt Miriam and Miss Antoinette “revived the classic, toy-like costumes and spearheaded a Rally of the Dolls,” White acknowledges. “They aimed to translate a Mardi Gras custom into civic missions such as feeding the hungry, burying the dead, and fundraising for local musicians in need,” White explains.

“I was scheduled to meet with Miss Antoinette on Mardi Gras Day 2009, but that was the day that Miss Antoinette passed away,” White recalls. Several Baby Doll krewes would meet at Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law Lounge in Tremé on Mardi Gras Day.

Sensing the importance of the Baby Doll culture, White, a first-grade teacher, moved back to New Orleans from Atlanta after Katrina, formed the New Orleans Society of Dance in 2005, and worked with Elder Doll Aunt Miriam and her brother “Uncle Lionel,” who donated their heirlooms and untold legacies to the New Orleans Resurrect-ion of Millisia Whites’ New Orleans Baby Doll Ladies. The New Orleans Baby Doll Ladies took to the streets on Mardi Gras Day 2007.

White founded the cultural institutions to preserve the live art form and spark confidence and creativity amongst young girls and women. She wanted to “rekindle” the historical connection within Tremé, the community from which it came.

Mrs. Batiste-Reed and her eleven siblings were born in Tremé. Their house stood on the land the Treme Community Center currently occupies. She attended Craig School and Albert Wicker High School.

The Original Baby Doll hailed from a musical family. Her brother, the late “Uncle” Lionel Batiste, the bass drummer, vocalist, and assistant leader of the Treme Brass Band and the face of the Tremé neighborhood’s bicentennial, passed in 2012, the same year of the Baby Dolls’ centennial.

Aunt Miriam, a mother of three, Walter Jr., Valerie and Darlene, traveled the world with her husband, Walter Reed, a member of the U.S. military, before returning to New Orleans and retiring from a 30-year career with the Orleans Parish Public Schools.

Roberts remembers her uncles marched in street parades as the Dirty Dozen Kazoo Band. The family’s musical legacy includes 25 musicians, including Milton Batiste of the Olympia Brass Band, composer and arranger Harold Battiste, the Batiste Brothers, Jon Batiste, Damien Batiste, Russell Batiste, and Derek Shezbie, a member of the Rebirth Brass Band, among others.

“We grew up in the lower Ninth Ward,” Roberts told The Louisiana Weekly. Aunt Miriam was not only a cultural leader but also led the Usher Board at Battleground Baptist Church for years. In 1996, she and her husband celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

Aunt Miriam received her flowers while she was still living. In 2012, she was honored by The Zulu Club and rode in the Zulu Parade. “She was so proud,” White observes, “riding on a gazebo mobile unit, waving the proclamation around issued by the New Orleans City Council.”

“We masked with Zulu from 2010 to 2013 at the request of King Zulu, Jimmy Felder. We have our own Mardi Gras Parade now,” White, the current keeper of the Baby Doll culture, says. The New Orleans Baby Doll Ladies were granted their own parade during Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration after returning from marching in the Marcy’s Thanksgiving Parade in 2014.

Aunt Miriam’s Baby Legacy will continue, White confirms. “We will carry on Aunt Miriam’s tradition and honor her by teaching cultural enrichment workshops in schools.” Her New Orleans Society of Dance offers storytelling, dance company presentations, and Mardi Gras workshops featuring New Orleans’ Black cultural practices, including doll masking.

Roberts says her mother was weak and struggled to walk in the last years of her life. The Friday night before she passed, Roberts said when she went to help her mother get ready for bed, “she looked drowsy.” “She blew me a kiss. I said, ‘You love me,’ and she said, ‘With all my heart.’ Those were the last words her mother spoke.

Celebration of Life for Mrs. Miriam Batiste-Reed celebration of life will be held at the Charbonnet Funeral Home, a few blocks from the site of her ancestral home, on Saturday, June 17.

Editor’s Note: On second reference, Aunt Miriam’s daughter Darlene was incorrectly referred to as Doreen. This article has been updated with her corrected name.

This article originally published in the June 12, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.