Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s husband Jason Cantrell laid to rest in Broadmoor funeral

Mayor LaToya Cantrell and a church full of family, friends and city leaders on Tuesday laid to rest Jason Cantrell, New Orleans’ first gentleman, at a somber ceremony at Blessed Trinity Catholic Church on Broad Street.

Mourners filled the pews and lined the walls of the Roman Catholic Church in Broadmoor for a traditional burial Mass presided over by the Rev. Daniel H. Green.

Cantrell and her daughter, RayAnn, sat in the first row, the dark wood casket by their side, as Green’s eulogy called on those who loved Jason to continue his work making the city of New Orleans a better, fairer place to live. 

The service, held in the neighborhood where the Cantrell family resided and the mayor’s political career began, came with all the trappings of a New Orleans funeral.

As the choir sang “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” as its final hymn, the mayor, hands clasped with her daughter, followed the casket down the church’s stone steps. They were met by a cadre of Mardi Gras Indians, Baby Dolls and a brass band, who shepherded the casket into a white hearse for the trip to St. Vincent De Paul Cemetery No. 1 Uptown.

The burial was private.

Jason Cantrell died unexpectedly on Aug. 15 at 55 following a heart attack. His death was announced by city spokesperson Gregory Joseph, who requested privacy for the mayor and her family.

Since the announcement, Mayor Cantrell has stayed out of the public eye, with the funeral and a public memorial at Gallier Hall on Monday her only appearances.

At both ceremonies, Cantrell sat in front, her face mostly hidden by a wide-brimmed black hat. Surrounded by family members, she quietly accepted condolences and did not speak publicly.

Loss as a public official 

Following the Mass, Joseph said Cantrell would return to her public duties “in due time, when she’s ready.” 

“The mayor is a very resilient person and she’s going to be there for her daughter and her family,” said Joseph. “City government still moves forward, there’s still progress.”

Like the mayors who came before her, Cantrell has faced difficulties and controversies throughout her five years in office. But few public officials have had to confront the challenge that’s now ahead, said Silas Lee, a pollster and professor at Xavier University. 

“She is experiencing a transition in life that very few elected officials have to go through publicly,” said Lee. “There are so many firsts that have occurred under Mayor Cantrell: first woman, first African American woman, first to deal with COVID, first mayor to have a spouse to die while in office.”

One of the only public officials in the area to share the experience in recent memory is Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee-Sheng, who said in an interview Tuesday that holding public office can make grief easier and more difficult at the same time.

In 2014, while Lee-Sheng was serving on the Jefferson Parish Council, her husband, Stuart Sheng, died suddenly of a heart attack at 47.

On one hand, Lee-Sheng said she was comforted by the outpouring of sympathy. On the other, the private nature of grief was difficult to reconcile with her duties as a public figure.

“There’s something about grief that the things that you do every day are so frightening,” Lee-Sheng said. “Going back to work, putting your feet on the floor, getting out of bed — absolutely frightening.”

Only a few weeks after her husband died, Lee-Sheng recalled having to address a packed community meeting to explain a compromise she had brokered between developers and neighborhood leaders. Weathering heated criticism wasn’t the difficult part, she said. The hard part was getting herself to the meeting at all.

Lee-Sheng said she cried when she got back to the car.

“I wasn’t crying over the intensity of the meeting. I was just crying because I was grieving,” Lee-Sheng said.

A father and a lawyer 

Jason Cantrell tended to stay on the sidelines of his wife’s professional life, rarely appearing with her in public in recent years. But an obituary shared at the funeral on Tuesday offered insight into his life that has rarely come into public view.

Initially from Detroit, Cantrell attended high school and college in Michigan and law school at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, making the move to New Orleans as a young adult.

According to the obituary, Cantrell met LaToya Wilder in 1997 at Houston’s Restaurant on St. Charles Avenue. They were married in 1999.

In 2007, they had their only child, and together, the two made the Broadmoor their home. Jason Cantrell joined The Cantrell Law Firm in 1996 before moving on to serve as an attorney in the Orleans Parish Public Defender’s Office and other legal roles for city departments.