Mary Lorraine Harding

Visitation will be observed on Friday, September 21, 2018 from 11:00 AM until funeral services at 2:00 PM at the St. Paul United Methodist Church 1405 Annie Moore Drive  Jeanerette, Louisiana 70544. A Celebration of Life, celebrating the life of Mrs. Mary Lorraine Harding will begin at 2:00 PM with Pastor Darrell W Briggs Sr., officiating the services. Burial will follow funeral services in the Rising Sun Cemetery in Jeanerette, LA.

Mary Lorraine Freeman Harding was born June 30, 1938 to George Freeman and Alma Robertson Freeman in Jeanerette, Louisiana.  She was reared and educated in Jeanerette, LA.. She had one sibling, George Raymond Freeman. She often talked about being the only child and grandchild for 8 years.  

Being the only girl with one brother had many advantages and rewards as well as its drawbacks. Basically she knew her life goals and expectations were preordained.  Church and school were always priorities in her household.  At a very young age, Christian and educational values were instilled, it was never an option to not go to school.  She attended elementary and high school  in Jeanerette,  she was a 1956 graduate of Jeanerette Colored High School. She attended Southern University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Education, later returning to school and completing a Master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling. She finally retired after working in the Iberia Parish School System for 33 years. She participated with the Retired Teachers and Alumni association in Iberia Parish.

Mary Lorraine was baptized at St. Paul United Methodist Church by the late Rev. P. M. Long where she maintained her membership for over seventy years.  Serving in positions as church membership chair and historical record researcher.

On December 17, 1966, she married Herbert Harding. Immediately expanding their family to five and then lastly the addition of their son. She was a loving daughter, a good wife and loving  mother and grandmother. She had her unique way of letting you know how she felt.  Not to mention the love of her Alma Mater, Southern University A & M College.  Bayou Classic will never be the same.

Preceding her in death were her parents: George and Alma Freeman, one son: Barry Harding; two grandsons: Demond Harding and Darius Harding; and two aunts:  Ethel Brown and Mabel Berugh.  

Mary Lorraine passed from this life on Monday, September 17, 2018 at 1:23 PM, Iberia Medical Center in New Iberia, LA surrounded by her family and friends. She leaves to continue to celebrate her life, her husband, Herbert Harding; one brother:  George Raymond Freeman; three children: her son, Dwayne Harding and his wife Monica of Franklin, LA, her son, Donald Ray Harding and his wife Beverly of Jeanerette, LA, and her daughter Donna Maxine Bogan and her husband Wendell of Verdunville, LA; nine grand-children:  Conxavia Feazell, Christian (Jamaika) Eugene, Tremaine Harding, Jermaine Harding, Wrenrick (Zantavia) Bogan, Justin Harding, Andranaye Harding, Wydrick Harding, Alexis Harding and Desmond Johnson; eleven great grandchildren. A cousin raised as a brother, Virgil (Lena)  Williams of Jeanerette, LA, a daughter in law, Naomi Harding, and a niece close like a  daughter, Hattie Mae Thompson. She will live forever in the hearts and minds of her family who loved her dearly, her past students and co-workers, church family and dear friends.