Gumbo with Carolyn Shelton

Gumbo Conversations with Carolyn Shelton

One of Continental's First Black Flight Attendants on Good Manners and the Universal Language of Food

Story and photos by Alexandra Kennon

“Can you make some gumbo?"

This question has followed Carolyn Shelton—who became one of the first Black flight attendants for Continental Airlines in 1969—on her international travels from Guam, to Hawaii, to Japan, and far beyond. No matter the destination, when a new friend (because like her mother, Shelton never meets a stranger) heard she was from Louisiana, gumbo was always the first priority for discussion.

“Gumbo is like a universal word,” Shelton told me on a recent afternoon spent chatting about her life in her New Orleans home. “I don’t care whether you’re in the Netherlands, if they take you from Louisiana, there’s a gumbo conversation.” And, luckily for the many international friends Shelton has made throughout her storied career—and for me—the answer to the gumbo question is a resounding, “Oh yes, cher.”

Alexandra Kennon

“We were raised on Creole food. It was gumbo. Gumbo was all the time. I mean, I don’t care whether you went to my mom’s house, my Nana’s house— everybody had some gumbo,” Shelton emphasized. “We grew up with gumbo. Gumbo was our healing soup, it was our friendship soup.”

For the Creole woman born in Cajun country, nothing comes quite so naturally as a good gumbo roux—except for an intense streak of friendliness, positivity, and ambition. Shelton spent her early childhood in Youngsville, Louisiana, the oldest of nine children. Around the time she entered high school the family moved to what is today Houston’s Fifth Ward, which was largely populated by Louisiana Creoles. “And what made Louisianans different from the other African Americans in Texas was that most of them were Catholic,” Shelton recalled. “So they had they built their own church, they spoke French.” At the time Shelton lived with her family in Houston, the Fifth Ward area was known as—and is still called by many—“Frenchtown”.

Her mother Angelique was a housekeeper who wore lipstick and pearls to work every day, earning only around five dollars a day. “The person I admired the most was my mom,” Shelton mused. “And my grandmothers, but my mother never seemed to have a bad day.” Despite her mother’s graceful and dignified approach to her profession, Shelton once told her—and herself—that she could never clean another person’s house for a living. “So, at a young age, I knew that I only had one weapon to get out of that situation,” she said. “And that was to get an education.” Her plan was to become a teacher, marry a doctor, and live “happily ever after”. As is often the case with carefully-laid plans, things turned out quite differently than she imagined: less than two years into a wonderful marriage, her husband died in a car accident in the military. “So, one morning I just woke up and I said, ‘Mother, some friends and I are moving to California. I’ve got to leave,’” Shelton recollected. “Because I had too many memories.”

So, in 1969, Shelton dropped out of Texas Southern University, moved to California, and became a flight attendant for Continental Airlines (“Which, of course, is now United,” she reminded me). At the time, Shelton was one of the first Black flight attendants with the airline—the very first, she recalled easily and with reverence, was a lady named Diane Hunter. “So, I endured a lot of racism,” Shelton said matter-of-factly. “Lots. Lots, lots, lots, lots.” Her memoir Coffee, Tea, or Watermelon: Life as a Flight Attendant chronicles these, along with her other varied experiences as a Black flight attendant at a time when to be a person of color in aviation was to be a pioneer.

In the same breath that Shelton spoke of the racism she endured, she volleyed back to her signature positivity. “I lived a very good life. I lived in Hawaii, Guam, Australia. In many of the destinations she traveled to, “Gumbo” became Shelton’s nickname, which she embraced. “When I lived in Chicago, they used to say, ‘Hey, Gumbo!,’” she chuckled. “I’d be walking on Michigan Avenue in a mink coat: ‘Hey, Gumbo!’” In Chicago, and many of the other cities Shelton lived over the course of her career, she would throw “gumbo parties”, inviting the friends she made so easily wherever she went: “Girl, it would be jam packed.”

During her time back in Houston where her family lived, she took the opportunity to share the wealth of new experiences she had been introduced to working for Continental. “I mean, we never had money to go out to dinner. So, all of the fancy restaurants that I had been experiencing, I took my mom, and my sisters, and everybody,” she said, beaming. “So now I’m living in a nice section of Houston, you know, Audi, Mercedes, the whole nine yards, shopping…” But when she wanted a taste of Creole food—a taste of home—she found herself back in Frenchtown. “When I wanted that good food that my mama used to make…I’d have to go to the hood where my mom lived.”

IT WAS GUMBO. GUMBO WAS ALL THE TIME. I MEAN, I DON’T CARE WHETHER YOU WENT TO MY MOM’S HOUSE, MY NANA’S HOUSE—EVERYBODY HAD SOME GUMBO. WE GREW UP WITH GUMBO. GUMBO WAS OUR HEALING SOUP, IT WAS OUR FRIENDSHIP SOUP.

On those visits, she began to take notice of the young people living in her old neighborhood. Growing up in a family of Louisiana Catholics, manners were pinnacle to Shelton; something she was taught in Catholic school and around her grandmother’s table. Her skills in etiquette helped her obtain her flight attendant job, as well as get along with individuals all over the world. “Back in the day, many of us were interviewed over a lunch or dinner, and they’re watching and paying attention to your manners,” Shelton emphasized. “When you represent the U.S., and let’s just say you go to Japan and you go to Australia, you go all over the world, you have to know the norms and mores of that culture.”

She wanted the kids she observed in Houston, and eventually far beyond, to be equipped with the etiquette that opened the cabin door to her own successes. “So, long story short, I started a program teaching self-esteem and manners,” Shelton said. “All of a sudden, I’m all over the place. Everybody’s buzzing about the stewardess teaching etiquette.”

First a Houston newspaper did a story, and eventually news of the flight attendant teaching manners to low-income youths made it to Joe Lovett at 60 Minutes, and Shelton was interviewed on the show by Sylvia Chase. “The most important thing was respect, and saying excuse me, thank you, and please. That was the most important message,” Shelton told me of her curriculum. “And it worked.” She began to get requests to teach her etiquette classes all over the country, from Omaha to Seattle to the Cabrini- Green Housing Projects in Chicago. These days, like many things in the era of COVID, Shelton teaches etiquette, as well as cooking, virtually.

“My passion, even right now in 2021, is to one day—I don’t know when, I don’t know if—but to open an etiquette school,” Shelton said, describing that she would want her school to be multi-faceted: not only teaching etiquette, but cooking, and kitchen management. She said she’d also want to empower her students by educating them about the extensive contributions African Americans have made to the culinary world. “These kids need to understand that we have made tremendous, tremendous contributions. Most of us have worked in the back of the house. I tell them that okra came from Africa … gumbo did not come from Nova Scotia. The word gumbo means okra, which I didn’t even grow up knowing that … so I want them to be proud.”

Alexandra Kennon

Carolyn Shelton’s books include her memoir chronicling her life as a Black flight attendant Coffee, Tea, and Watermelon, her recipe book highlighting the contributions of African American cooks who work in the back of the house 47 Years In the Back of the House, and a cookbook of recipes from Zydeco musicians called Zydeco Gumbo.

To purchase Shelton’s books or discuss booking her as a speaker or etiquette instructor, email her directly at angelinagumbo337@aol.com.