The family of Hattie Mae Coates holds her memory close as they share the news of her passing on March 12, 2026. At 85 years old, Hattie Mae took her final breath at home on a quiet afternoon, cocooned in the deep, enduring love of the family she spent a lifetime nurturing. Born in New Orleans on March 24, 1959, she grew up on a shotgun block in the Seventh Ward. She was a woman of the city, a soul who rarely strayed from the streets that shaped her and the community she helped build with every small, kind gesture.

Known affectionately as Shirley, she was the third of seven children in a close-knit Creole family and carried the pride of being the first among them to attend college. After her graduation from St. Mary’s Academy in 1958, she followed her passion for words to Dillard University, earning her degree in English. For forty-one years, Hattie Mae Coates poured her heart into the sixth-grade classrooms of the Orleans Parish public schools. Her influence reached thousands of students, and her love for the language was so fierce that she was known to gently correct a former student’s grammar at the grocery store well into her retirement. A twice-honored Teacher of the Year, the true measure of her impact was felt most deeply on her eightieth birthday, when her former students gathered for a surprise reunion to honor the woman who had believed in them.

Hattie Mae Coates life was a beautiful tapestry of service and song. Her kitchen was the heart of her home, where her guarded gumbo recipe became a family heirloom and the scent of red beans filled the air before dawn every Mardi Gras morning. For over fifty years, her alto voice rose in the choir at St. Peter Claver, and her Saturdays were dedicated to volunteering at the Ozanam Inn. Whether she was exploring her creative spirit through ceramics and watercolor—or making a brave, brief, and unsuccessful attempt at the accordion—she embraced life with curiosity. She was never without a book, a finished crossword puzzle, or a heartfelt letter to her cousins in Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

She is reunited now with her beloved husband of fifty-seven years, Calvin Coates, as well as her parents and three siblings. Her legacy of love continues through her children, Vernon, Marcus, Yvette, and Camille; her thirteen grandchildren; and her four great-grandchildren. She will be deeply missed by