Theresa Guillotte Hague

Mary Theresa Guillotte Hague passed on St. Patrick’ s  Day, March 17. She was 89. Born in Gautier, Miss. Sept. 24, 1930, she attended elementary school which was within walking distance of her home on Highway 90. Her father, Napoleon Guillotte, worked for the L&N Railroad, and her mother, Sallie Havens Guillotte, was a nurse, but they also had several acres of pecan trees which were an important part of the family income. As a child, Theresa and her oldest sister Elizabeth and youngest sister LulaMae were tasked with picking up pecans in the fall. Her father also kept sheep, and had a crew to help shear them. As the middle child, one of Theresa’s chores was to make two sandwiches for each man before daylight started their workday, and she learned how to do it quickly.

Theresa graduated from Pascagoula High School in 1948. After graduation, she worked as a switchboard operator for Bell South Telephone Company, which was in downtown Pascagoula at that time. She met her future husband, Hermes Hague, who offered to give her a ride home from work to Gautier. He made her laugh and they started dating. By June of 1949, they were married, and by 1957, they had a family of three. They were married for 64 years.

Theresa was an excellent cook, and her signature dish was her shrimp and crab okra gumbo. She would put 10 pounds of peeled shrimp and two dozen crabs, backed and cleaned, into her gumbo because she “didn’t want it to be like those dishes where a dozen shrimp swam through the gumbo and flipped back out.” Her children, who all attended college, said that she had a PhD in food. She made the best pie crusts and pies, and baked a pound cake for every birthday or special occasion. The left-over batter was so good, her children would fight over it, so she would give one child the beaters, another the mixing bowl, and another a little bit of batter put aside in a bowl to head off the tussle.

She was also a talented gardener, and grew her award-winning roses by the dozens. Her yard was filled with daylilies, azaleas, gerbera daisies, amaryllis, pine cone ginger lilies and various fruit trees. She mastered the art of decoupage, and could make someone’s wedding invitation into part of a decoupage piece. Her children joked that if they stood still long enough, she would decoupage them.

She and her husband were active in Entre Nous and some of the dance organizations in Mobile, and Theresa was crowned queen of Entre Nous in 1998.  She loved to dance, and knew everything from the foxtrot to the jitterbug, the waltz to the Cotton-Eyed Joe Two-Step.

She is preceded in death by her husband, Hermes Hague, her parents, Napoleon and Sallie Guillotte, her sister, Elizabeth Love Bridges, and her brother, Robert Guillotte. Her survivors include her children, Terry Hague Walker (Joseph Wayne), Doug Hague (Renee), Susan Hague, her sister, LulaMae Bond Price, grandsons Drew Rosenzweig (Zarouhie), Doug Walker (Chasity), Nelson Hague (Pame), granddaughter Laura Hague Herron (Brooks), great-grandson Joseph Walker,  and numerous nieces and nephews.

The family will hold a celebration of her life at a later date. Those who loved Theresa can honor her memory with a donation to a cause of their choice.

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