Lena Richard

Lena Paul Richard was born on the eleventh of September 1892 at the village of New Roads, in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, the daughter of an enslaved-and-emancipated Black-Creole family of the principal post-Reconstruction Pointe-Coupee-Parish Louisiana Creole community. She was raised at the principal Vairin household at New Orleans where her mother was the principal household cook.

She was instructed in the principal Vairin household cookery from age fourteen by her mother and by the principal Vairin-household French-and-Creole cook Madame Vairin.

She was sent by the principal Vairin household to the principal Fannie Farmer School of Cookery at Boston in 1918 — at the principal post-1918 Fannie-Farmer School of Cookery commercial period — and completed the principal Fannie Farmer School of Cookery diploma in 1919.

She returned to New Orleans in 1919 — and founded the principal Lena Richard's Cook School and Catering Service at New Orleans in 1937 at the principal Pinckney Street at the principal Faubourg-Marigny commercial-restaurant-and-catering community.

She published the principal cookbook Lena Richard's Cook Book at the principal Houghton Mifflin Press at Boston in 1939 — and the principal expanded second edition New Orleans Cook Book at the principal Houghton Mifflin Press in 1940.

She operated the principal Bird and Bottle Inn restaurant at Birmingham, Michigan from 1940 to 1942 — at the principal post-1940 Detroit-area commercial-restaurant period under the principal Birmingham-Bird-and-Bottle-Inn commercial-restaurant Detroit-area chef-and-restaurateur.

She opened the principal Lena Richard's Gumbo House restaurant at the principal Bourbon Street at the French Quarter at New Orleans in 1947 — and operated the principal Gumbo House restaurant from 1947 to her death in 1950.

She was named in October 1947 the principal Lena Richard's New Orleans Cook Book host at the principal WDSU-TV at New Orleans — the principal first Black-American television cooking-show host. She held the principal Lena Richard's New Orleans Cook Book television-cooking-show host position from October 1947 to her death in November 1950.

The principal Lena Richard's New Orleans Cook Book WDSU-TV cooking-show was broadcast across the principal post-1947 WDSU-TV New-Orleans commercial-television-cooking-show period — at the principal post-1947 American New Orleans television-cooking-show community. The principal Lena Richard's New Orleans Cook Book television-cooking-show was at this day the principal first Black-American television-cooking-show in the United States — broadcast approximately five years before the principal post-1953 Dione Lucas commercial-television-cooking-show period.

She died at New Orleans on the twenty-seventh of November 1950 of complications of a heart attack, at fifty-eight.

She is honored here as the first Black-American television cooking-show host.