Katrina's Lives Lost: Shields, Iris 1945-2005 Submitted By: N.O.V.A March 2006 Source: Times Picayune ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Since 1927, countless visitors have walked through the stately, awning- covered entrance to the Pontchartrain Hotel, the Garden District landmark that boasts of taking its name from Count de Pontchartrain of Louis XVI's court. For the past 36 years, scores of those people have asked after Iris Shields, or, more specifically, "Miss Iris." "People that have worked with her over the years, they'd come ask me, 'Is the little short lady Miss Iris still working here?' " said Yvette Duncan, a longtime friend and cashier at the Pontchartrain Café, where Shields was a chef. "She had a very bubbly personality," saidDiane Norton, the Pontchartrain's director of sales and marketing. "There are people that were coming here to eat breakfast for 30 and 40 years just because she was cooking breakfast." "They knew they were going to have some sort of fuss with her about their eggs," Duncan added. Miss Iris also made exemplary blueberry muffins -- "to kill for," by Duncan's estimation. But more than anything else, Miss Iris was known for the Mile High Pie, the decadent, trademarked dessert that became Miss Iris' signature for most of her tenure at the hotel. Convention holds that a meal at the Pontchartrain is not complete until you've done damage to a curiously vertical slice of ice cream pie set in a cloud of whipped cream. "While she was on her shift at breakfast she would make the Mile High Pies and put them in the freezer," Norton said. "She was the only one who made the Mile High Pies." The pies included several types of ice cream, a homemade crust and, as a finishing touch, meringue whose preparation, Duncan explained, called for Miss Iris to wield a blowtorch. "She was an expert at the Mile High Pie," said Shields' daughter, Djune Everidge. "And the red beans and rice." Iris Shields was born Iris Everidge on South Johnson Street and attended Booker T. Washington High School. She raised three children: Darren Shields, and Djune and Terrence Everidge. Terrence died last year. A pistol who enjoyed the casino, shopping and wisecracking with friends and customers, Miss Iris, according to Norton, liked to "have her little party time and smoke her cigarettes." "And she loved her apple martinis," Duncan said. Miss Iris also took tremendous pride in her work. "She never missed days," Djune Everidge said. "She was the first one back on the job after the storm." Last month Miss Iris was cleaning out the contaminated freezer in her shotgun house on Constance Street when she collapsed. "She couldn't catch her breath," Everidge said. Miss Iris was in good health beyond suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, according to Everidge. She said her mother, who wasn't wearing a mask, was felled by inhaling fumes from the bleach solution she used to clean the freezer. "She lost consciousness, and we called the ambulance," Everidge said. "By the time they got here, she was in a coma." She never regained consciousness. "Me and my brother had to make a decision to take her off the machine," Everidge said. Miss Iris died on Nov. 21. She was 60.