Though confident and popular, Gail also seemed to gravitate toward serious, committed relationships.  It was during this time in Jackson that Gail had her first serious relationship with a boy.  As her mother, “Nona,” remembers, “Gail was going with this boy, and he was in a Catholic school and making a confirmation, and his mother even bought a prayer book for him that the mother and father gave to Gail, with a little note.  I still have it.  We moved to New Orleans so that relationship ended, (but) it was getting kind of serious.”

 

Living outside of New Orleans in River Ridge, LA, it wasn’t long before Gail started spending time with a boy from the neighborhood, also from a big Catholic family, Jack Langlois. Jack remembers this time.

 

“I became friends with (Gail’s brother) Wayne and started spending a lot of time at their house. I would visit with Gail but she would spend a lot of time in her room studying. I would see her walking home from her job as a lifeguard and I’d go over and visit her.  She was just a kind, friendly, outgoing person with a great sense of humor.”  

 

Soon, they were dating and going to prom together.  They’d go to the Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street to listen to live music.  “She really loved to dance,” Jack recalls.

 

Nona remembers this time as well. 

 

“All the boys in the neighborhood hung out with each other. And Gail started

dating Jack. Gail and Jack looked after each other.  We liked him. They weren’t

smoochy-woochy in front of us.”

 

Inseparable

When Gail got accepted to the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Jack decided to go there as well.  At USL, they became inseparable.  They were both dorm counselors, honor society members, and shared the same small tight circle of friends.  They spent as much time with each other as they could, despite the housing being segregated by gender.  

 

“Gail would go to class and study, and then we’d meet for dinner at the cafeteria.  We’d hang around in the lobby of her dorm until 9 or 10 p.m. and I’d walk back to my dorm.  We both enjoyed meeting people, going to parties, listening to records, having people over, and talking about politics.”  

 

By Junior year, “we each had new roommates but basically Gail would come and live with me for a lot of the time.  It was very happy times.  We felt like we lived in this little oasis that was very fun and very safe.”

 

By senior year, Gail had decided to get her masters in Psychology and got into the University of Tennessee.  Jack had decided to go to Law School and was accepted at LSU.  

 

“So there was a lot of angst that year because we had been together 6 years and this would be the first time we were apart and there was a lot of unknown.  So she went off to Tennessee and I went off to LSU and I roomed with her brother Wayne who was an undergrad.”
 

Before leaving, Jack wrote Gail a note to “hereby promise and swear to marry Gail Fontenelle as soon as possible,” and then provided a second version in his native French.

 

“I think that year changed things a bit for us,” Jack remembers. “Where after that first year it seemed like the relationship was not going to continue, like it was going to end - with the time apart and the fact that we really hadn’t experienced anything else. And we started having other relationships without telling each other that we were.”

 

The two years apart could have easily been the end of Jack and Gail’s relationship, but – in Jack’s recollection – Gail took the initiative to return to their future together, and collect on Jack’s promise.

 

“In the end, I think Gail decided that she didn’t want to end the relationship – and decided that she was going to move to Baton Rouge and we would get married.  Looking back on it, it felt like the world – and family - had decided that we should be a couple and that there wasn’t much choice in it.  And part of me really loved her and didn’t want to close our relationship.”

 

Gail was only 24 and Jack was 23.  They had no money.  Jack’s mother took Gail to get an engagement ring and the two got married at St. Matthews Church - just a few blocks from their family homes in River Ridge.  Gail moved to Baton Rouge where Jack was finishing law school.  She got a job waitressing and then with the city government in their public relations department. 

 

After graduating law school, Jack got an offer to do a special law program in Aix-en-Provence, France.  They’d never been out of the country, with the exception of the island of Guadeloupe where Jack had grown up as a child.  

 

In France, Jack remembers that “even though Gail only spoke a little French she was a total trooper about it.  My father arranged for an apartment for us in Aix-en-Provence and the apartment was on the top floor and it was VERY small … with a slanted roof.  So we had a very small bedroom and bathroom and a tiny little living room.  But it was all kind of enchanting.”

 

When Jack’s program came to a close, they decided to spend the summer working at a friend’s restaurant and bar in a resort area in the South of France.  

 

As Jack remembers, “We stayed in this open room on mattresses and sleeping pads, and we’d stock the bar, sweep the place, play bartender - whatever there was to do there we did for about six weeks.  It was an adventure.”

 

But not always a FUN adventure.  “There were these rich kids who lived in this complex who were no good, did nothing all day, woke up at 2 pm  and would drink and do drugs and hang out,” Jack recalls.  “I’d let them borrow my car to go to Marseille and this one time they took the car and came back and told me it had been stolen - sorry.  It was the only thing we had that had any value to it.  We were a week from coming back to the U.S. … and I told the restaurant owner to take                                                                      out 200 francs of their pay to pay for the car.  And they were pissed and we came back to our

                                                                room and they had ransacked it and taken our passports.” 

 

                                                                Nevertheless, Gail was seemingly unphased.  “Gail would just take it in stride,” Jack recalls.  “I

                                                                don’t remember her losing her temper over anything - ever.  She was always just kind of at                                                                      peace with her life and fine with who she was.”

 

                                              A New Life in Houston

                                                                Jack and Gail had reason to get back to the states.  A professor she’d had in graduate school in Tennessee had moved to Rice University in Houston and was now offering Gail a full scholarship to come to Rice and obtain her PhD in Industrial Psychology.  Jack and Gail decided to go to Houston.

 

“I didn’t have anything lined up anyways so it seemed like a good opportunity,” remembers Jack. 
“So we flew back to New Orleans and then my uncle Rene gave me a green Buick that he didn’t use anymore…we had nothing to our name and literally just took some furniture from our rooms back at home.”

 

After borrowing a few thousand dollars from family and friends, “we drove to Houston and rented a place in the Montrose area which was a fairly bad part of town.  After being there for like a week, a guy came knocking at our door at 3 or 4 in the morning … talking crazy and asking for someone that didn’t live there and I finally talked him into leaving and Gail said, ‘Okay, we have to find an apartment somewhere in a better part of town.’  So we got an apartment in Allen House Apartments down on Allen Parkway for $500 a month.”

 

Gail started her graduate work at Rice and Jack used the law library at the University of Houston to work on his thesis for the program in France. Within a few months, they were close to running out of money when Jack ran into an old law school friend at a popular student bar he and Gail would frequent with their friends for the 25 cent beers.  Jack’s friend recommended a law firm that ended up being Jack’s first job.  

 

Now, they both had demanding work schedules – putting in 12 hour days and seeing each other more briefly at night.  Life accelerated.  They moved out of their apartment and rented a house and by late 1982, Gail was pregnant with Danielle.  

 

Jack remembers the joy this brought them, and the ways they made it work with their busy schedules.

 

“I remember - during the week Gail would be busy - and on the weekends I would take Danielle for long periods so that Gail could catch up on work.  I’d work on Saturdays and go for 4-5 hours and I would take Danielle to work with me.  Danielle wasn’t even a year a half old when Gail got pregnant with Lauren, and again we weren’t even trying.”  

 

By the time Lauren was born in April of 1985, Gail was still more than a year away from completing her PhD.  Amanda Wellford attended the program with Gail and lived next door to Jack and Gail with her husband Woody - and the four of them became very close.  She recollects this time.  

 

“We were all struggling. It was probably the only relationship I’ve ever had where the

four of us were all equally close and in the trenches together. Jack admired her and

you could tell they had passion for each other.  He admired her intellect.  They were

fun and he was fun.  We had a great time together.  Their marriage started getting

stressed at about the end of the graduate school experience.  Gail was trying to get

her PHD, Jack was working, and so lots of disagreements about who needs to be

doing what.  Who gets to go out and have fun and who stays home with the kids. 

There was stress in their world. She was a big overachiever…with an admirable,

\amazing work ethic.  And LOVED her family.  It was all equally important.  And it always seemed really hard.”  

 

 

Separation 

Despite all the challenges, Gail completed her PhD program in 1987, but achieving this milestone didn’t seem to alleviate the stress.  

 

Jack remembers this time in their lives.

 

“As Lauren became a year old, Gail became career focused.  She was done with her program.  And I felt like I had a lot of demands on my career.  And Gail felt like she had a lot of demands on her career and that began to put a lot of stress on us.  The kids were a blessing but it was career related where we couldn’t find a way to balance each other’s careers.  Neither one of us wanted to be the one to put the career on the back seat.  I wouldn’t have the person to support me that I wanted to have in my life.  And she was unhappy also but I don’t know why because we really didn’t … we were really still immature in a way because in a way we were still these 16 year olds.  And then all of a sudden we had this big reality slap in the face. We were really starting to drift apart and became more selfish in our lives.”  

 

By coincidence, Gail’s twin brother Gary was living in Houston as well, starting his own law career.  He was close with both Gail and Jack.

 

                                           “Eventually her and Jack started having problems,” Gary recalls. “In the past she was confident and                                                    found ways to just move on -but after years of seeming inseparable, they started to have problems and

                                            you could tell it bothered her and she started questioning herself.  She was so confident … and really                                                  for the very first time I saw that vulnerability in her.  I never took sides in the relationship because I                                                    was always close to Jack as well but it was the first time I ever saw her start to lose confidence and

                                            question herself.”

 

                                           Almost four decades later, Jack reflects on what happened.  “I think in a lot of ways Gail didn’t really want a divorce and I think I

                                           was probably the one pushing it more because I just didn’t see that she could provide the kind of support I wanted with the goals she had for herself. It was like we had a certain status when we got married and had these two kids and then our lives changed in terms of what we both wanted and we couldn’t be there for each other. I remember when we said it couldn’t work and I moved out and got an apartment.  It was really hard. It was awful for the kids and just terrible that we had been selfish to put them in that position.”

 

After spending their entire adult lives together and starting a family of their own, Jack and Gail were no longer a couple.  For the better part of a year, they split time with kids while the divorce proceedings progressed.  Jack remembers how shocked he was by what happened next.

 

“We got the divorce signed and in no time she said she was going to uproot and take the kids and go to Colorado.  And at the time I thought she was doing it to hurt me, but in retrospect I think she was just trying to do what was best for her career.  And she felt like I messed up her life and my feelings were not going to be a consideration.”

 

Gary remembers this time as well. 

 

“When she moved … she was having trouble explaining to me why she felt like she needed to go to Colorado but I felt like I knew her well enough to know she probably felt like she needed to re-establish her identity, and not be ‘Jack’s wife.’” 

 

Getting Past the Bitterness

Gail had gotten a job in Boulder, CO with a new design firm through a connection with one of her professors at Rice.  Her career quickly started to blossom but she had started another relationship - a friend of hers and Jack’s in Houston named Chris - who was coming to Boulder regularly to visit her.  When Chris’s work brought him to Alaska, Gail made a move that seemed to surprise everybody, and decided to leave her job at Microanalysis and Design and follow him to Anchorage with Danielle and Lauren.  

 

It was a bold move on Gail’s part, and one that many people in Gail’s family struggled to understand.  

 

“Now when Gail moved to Alaska it was like ‘oh my god’ and that was a big deal in the family,” Gail’s sister-in-law Bridget recalls.  

 

Gail’s sister Rene remembers her reaction to the news.  

 

“By the time Gail went to Alaska that really pissed me off, because it was like France - it was so far away.  Chris was the reason she went to Alaska because he waved his money in her face - and at that point she had none - and said, ‘come up here and I’ll take care of you.’”  

 

Gail’s relationship with Chris is not one that sat well with anyone in the family.  

 

“I think her intelligence threatened men – definitely Chris,” according to Rene. “Chris was arrogant … and he wasn’t even good-looking.” 

 

Gail’s daughter Danielle, although only five years old at the time, had a similar take.  

 

“Alaska was a weird time because we had a lot of fun but we were living with Chris and he was kind of an asshole. In the winter I tried to make a slide of snow in the front yard and he would get mad at me and say it would kill the grass.  Which doesn’t make any sense.”

 

In many ways, Alaska was a time of great adventure for Gail and her girls, but the relationship with Chris started to devolve quickly and this time Gail moved more decisively to get herself and her daughters out of that situation.  

 

Around the time Gail was considering her exit from the relationship, she received a letter from Jack.

 

As Jack recalls, “I basically talked to her about how we had really loved each other and cared for each other and had these wonderful kids.  And that we were both good people and it was a shame that the kids couldn’t have us both in their lives because we had made these selfish decisions.  And was there a way that I could have them for a year?  And I think she was in a bad spot because she realized that this Chris guy was a really bad guy.  And realized it was a bad environment for her and the kids and she agreed that they could come stay with me for a year. Which, you know, was really a monumental decision on her part.  For me, it was phenomenal because I had missed the kids.” 

 

While it must have been agonizing for Gail to be without her girls, it was a turning point in her co-parenting relationship with Jack.  And with a plan in place for them, Gail was able to move back to Colorado, get a job at US West in Denver, and re-stabilize her life in a way that her daughters would need.

 

She and Jack worked out a co-parenting arrangement to try and create a more stable situation for Danielle and Lauren.  They would take the girls for at least two years at a time, with the other parent doing holidays and summers during that period, so that they’d have a more consistent school experience and still spend quality time with both parents.

 

Jack remembers a time years later – after he had started dating his future wife, Catherine – when he realized how far things had come in his relationship with Gail.  

 

“I told Catherine I had kids and wanted her to meet them, and we went to Colorado to go skiing so she could meet the kids.  And Catherine and I actually spent the night at Gail’s house with the kids before we flew back. Catherine was besides herself - she couldn’t believe that Gail was fine with that.  But I think … we had come full circle and we were going to be the best we could be with each other from that point on, for the kids.”

 

Gail’s brother Johnny was struck by the relationship he saw develop between them from afar.  

 

“Jack’s a great guy, it just didn’t work.  But I think he is one of the best ex-husbands

I’ve ever seen. Over all thoseyears since, I never saw Gail complaining about Jack in

any way.  I think that’s part of why Danielle and Lauren are the way they are.  They

had two great parents who tried to make sure that everything was about them… 

Obviously, there’s so much I don’t know and didn’t see.  But I never saw that jealousy

or pettiness. Divorce is so hard on kids it’s unbelievable, but … I feel like they were

always making it about the kids and trying to do what’s best for the kids.” 

 

This was a lesson Gail wanted to impart with Johnny explicitly when he went through his own divorce.  

 

“Gail said, ‘Hey, let’s go have lunch.’  She told me that ‘You got do this, you have to get past any jealousy or bitterness.’”

 

A Breath of Fresh Air

In 1991, Gail was in Denver attending the “People’s Fair” downtown so that she could see a coworker who was playing with his band there.  

 

She sat down next to a man who was there to see the same band.  Mark recalls the moment well.

 

“I was there sitting on the ledge to see my friend in a band and I was there with a girl I was dating. She was sitting on one side of me and on the other side was Gail.  And we started talking and it turned out SHE was there to see someone in a band too, and it was the same person!  And she worked with him at US West.  And I worked with him at US West.  So we work at the same place?  So we just started talking and clicking and not long after that I was single again and asked Gail out.” 

 

There was an immediate connection for Gail and the impact on her life was palpable to her family.

 

As her brother Johnny remembers, “When she met Mark… it was a breath of fresh air to Gail.  Like, ‘hey - maybe life isn’t so bad.’  Mark truly was a great guy … and he kind of got Gail feeling better about life again.  Mark gave her an extra energy shot.” 

 

                                             Mark was ten years younger than Gail, but as he recalls, “the age difference was never a problem for                                                 me because she was just so full of life … a magnet to people and people were drawn to her. Obviously                                               beautiful and just a really wonderful human being. The age difference didn’t bother me for a second.”

 

                                             Lauren remembers the time when her mom started dating Mark.  “He would come over and would                                                   always bring a movie so we’d have a little movie night.  We liked him and we used to call him Batman                                               because he’d bring it over to watch.”  

 

                                             Things moved quickly and Lauren remembers being there the day Mark proposed.  

 

“We had driven up to this overlook and I remember Mark being like ‘I think I saw a cougar

over there, why don’t you guys go check it out’ and so we left them alone and then I heard

my mom yelp out of excitement,” Lauren remembers. “Then I remember being bratty and

wanting to go home and we were walking back to the car and they kept stopping to hug

and kiss each other and I kept complaining that I wanted to go home, and my mom was

like, ‘Honey - he just proposed to me!’  And I was like ‘so?’ because I had no idea what it

meant!  But I remember her being very happy.”

 

Gail and Mark both had a passion for the outdoors and while they were engaged they purchased 11.5 acres of land in the

mountains with the dream of building a family cabin. Their world seemed full of possibility.  

 

A Second Chance at Marriage

Lauren and Danielle were the maidens of honor at Gail and Mark’s wedding.  “The whole family showed up,” Lauren remembers.  “We stayed downtown in a hotel the night before the wedding and Uncle Charlie got out onto a lower level roof somehow and wrote ‘Gail’ in the snow.  And they did so much of the wedding themselves – paid for it themselves and did a lot to cut costs.  I remember being in the  basement and her teaching me how to use a hot glue gun so that we could create these fake plant centerpieces.  I remember her being really happy and really calm at her wedding.”

 

 The church they got married in was a few blocks from the restaurant where the reception was held, and there had been a                                                           big snowstorm that had covered the whole area with snow.  “We just walked from the church to                                                           the restaurant through the snow with my mom holding her dress up and I think she was just l                                                                laughing,” Lauren remembers.  “That was my mom.  She was the opposite of ‘high                                                                                        maintenance.’”

​

                                                           Gail’s sister-in-law Bridget also remembers a very happy wedding.  “We froze our asses off but                                                               we had a wonderful time…I remember Gail with the long hair and she loved her bohemian              wedding dress … Gail just seemed very happy.” 

 

Eleven months later, Gail gave birth to her third daughter, Helen.  And the year Helen was born was the year they started to build their cabin.

 

As Lauren remembers, “They would pack everything up for a weekend or even a week and we’d host one or two families … even while the cabin was being built because there were so many people Mark would have come up to help.”

 

“She was a wonderful cook too,” Mark recalls, “and fed a lot of people while we were building the cabin.  People would rave about the gumbo and the dirty rice.  We did a lot of camping out while we were building it.  And she was instrumental in feeding everyone and keeping everyone’s spirits up.”

 

For more than a decade, Mark and Gail built a life in Denver; the longest period of stability Gail would experience in her adult life.  She now had the space, support, and desire to pursue her own interests and passions - of which she had many.  

 

“One of her biggest was gardening,” remembers Mark.  “And she in fact became a master gardener - as in, she went to classes sponsored by the city of Denver and got a certification.  Her gardens at the house were just amazing.”

 

While she had always been a talented amateur artist, she devoted more time to it in Denver. Mark remembers all the time she spent drawing.  “A lot of pencil work - and eventually got into pottery and taking classes for that too. She loved American Indian art and culture.  As we decorated our cabin, that theme wove into a lot of what she placed there.”

 

It was also during this period that Gail reconnected to her faith – something that had previously played a major role in her life although she had always been private about it.  Marrying Mark, who was also a devout Catholic, reignited her devotion to Catholicism.  

 

According to Mark, she was “relieved to find a guy who could bring her back to the church and she really loved coming back.  She was deep into it.” 

 

Going off the Deep End

Gail and Mark had been together for fifteen years – married for thirteen – by the time Gail came back to New Orleans for Christmas in 2006.  But this time, Mark was not with her. 

 

Rene remembers this Christmas well.  “Mark wasn’t here because he had just gone to rehab for the first time.  She confided in me when he became addicted to drugs.”

 

Gail spoke with Gary and her brothers next.  

 

“Her life got back to some normality with Mark,” Gary recalls. “They got close and he was bright, and they had Helen. And things were going along fine and built the cabin and then Mark started having issues with drug addiction.  And we all gave her the same advice to open her own accounts and put everything in her name, and she did at first but she just always was forgiving and spent who knows how much on rehab and things.”

 

“Mark ended up going to rehab several times,” remembers Rene. “And throughout that time she really labored over what to do.  She really loved him and truly thought it was going to change because of the person he was before. It was so hard for all of us to see how this great guy turned into something so different.”

 

Mark gets overwhelmed with emotion remembering this time. 

 

“When I went off the deep end and started getting lost in my addiction – that woman just prayed and prayed and prayed.  And would just say the rosary and pray and pray all the time.  And it was just so special.  It was such a shame that I got lost - I mean never lost my faith but I completely lost my way -  and she just clung onto that rosary and prayed and prayed.  And as a result of all those prayers, I am talking to you now ... She just really never wanted to let go despite me losing myself and finally losing my life.”

 

Rene saw a different side of her sister come out in her relationship struggles.  “As soft as

she could be, she was aVERY STRONG person and she went through a lot relationship

wise,” Rene reflects.  “She never threw her hands up in the air and said, ‘I just give up.’  She

was very strong in her faith and that came back around when she met Mark. One time we

were about to go to the beach and I went in to get Gail and she was just sobbing and

holding her rosary, praying.” 

 

For some of her brothers, as the years of struggle went on, that faith and commitment to her marriage became

hard to watch. 

 

                                                                     “That’s the part of her personality I just never understood,” Gary acknowledges.  “How                                                                                confident and self-assured she was until she ran into an issue in a relationship like that and

                                                                      got blinded by hope that he was going to get through all this.”

 

                                                                     Charlie saw it as a part of Gail that perhaps had always been there.

 

                                                                    “Gail would just ALWAYS put other people ahead of her.  Going all the way back to being a                                                                   kid,” he remembers. 

                                                                    “And the saddest part of all of this is that towards the end, and she was fighting whether she should get a divorce or not get a divorce and I would call her after and she’d just be crying and she said you don’t know what it’s like to see a death of a marriage, and how she wasn’t ready to let this marriage go.  It was something that was just unbelievably hard for her.” 

 

Lauren also saw how much her mom was taking on while trying to navigate Mark’s addiction.  

 

“I remember we were all together and watching a movie about Edith Piaf with my mom and Mark.  And there’s some drug use in that movie and Mark was making a crockpot meal and he was like, ‘Oh, I’m heading out and going to go to a meeting,’ like a narcotic’s anonymous meeting.  And I was like, ‘Oh - should we wait for Mark to get back to eat?’  And she was like, ‘He’s not going to a meeting.  He’s never been to a meeting.  That movie probably triggered him and he’s going out to use. I should have known better’ … like she was blaming herself.” 

 

Mark saw two sides to Gail during his addiction – her faith and support but also a willingness to advocate for herself.  

 

“She was so supportive and had so much faith but she had things she wouldn’t stand for too,”

Mark recalls. “She had her outlets and used them.  I mean she filed for divorce while I was in

treatment, so she was sending all the right messages, I just couldn’t hear them at the time.  My

addiction had just taken over.  And I was way too confident in my ability to fix myself to take

on what other people were offering.  But she would get advice and counseling in terms of

whatever she needed, so she advocated for those things.”

 

By the time Gail filed for divorce in 2012, Mark’s struggle with addiction was now heavily overlapping with Gail’s early-onset Alzheimer’s.  Even though she wasn’t diagnosed yet, she had lost her job because of her memory issues.  And she was finally ready to accept her siblings’ help and relocate to New Orleans.  

 

“They loved her so much,” Mark recalls, “But she never wanted any of that, she just wanted me back from addiction.  She went through hell.  It’s the biggest regret of my life.”

 

"But she was an amazing person.  Just absolutely amazing.”