Meet the Gumbo team

 Growing up in her family's Creole restaurant located in the culturally-rich Tremé neighborhood, laid the foundation for Dianne “Gumbo Marie” Honoré's work as an award winning Historic Interpreter, Creole culture activist, registered teaching artist and event producer. She founded the Black Storyville Baby Dolls™, the Amazons Benevolent Society™, and Unheard Voices of Louisiana™.  Annually on Mardi Gras Day, she masks as Big Queen of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters Tribe for which she meticulously creates one-of-a-kind "suits" from thousands of beads and feathers.  She has curated numerous history-related music and food events, tours, and exhibits over several decades including the My Color, My People and Black Storyville tours, Creole food tours for Culinary Backstreets, and the Golden Crown exhibit and symposium celebrating the 150 legacy of Big Chief Darryl Montana.  In addition to appearances on the Harry Connick, Jr show, Flip my Food, BET, and Good Morning America she hosted a live television show focused on New Orleans history and current events. She developed an "exhibit-store" called "Gumbo Marie" where rotating exhibits were curated on Louisiana history, classes held and locally crafted products were sold to support the exhibit space. Annually she produces  "Baking for Breast Cancer" in conjunction with The Amazons Benevolent Society™ who raise funds for local cancer fighters. She also teaches beginner and advanced beading classes to senior adults at the Louisiana State Museum's Cabildo. 

Dianne was awarded the 2013 Recognition Award by the Louisiana Research Association for outstanding contributions to society through Truthful Historical Storytelling and in 2018 she received the Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame "Capturing the Spirit" Award for work in the community and cultural preservation efforts. In 2023 she was crowned the Historic French Market's Creole Tomato Festival Queen for her contributions to community. She was named a Creative Assembly Cohort 2023-24 by the New Orleans Museum of Art. Her work and advocacy for healthcare disparities and cancer patients has been recognized by several organizations including the New Orleans Musicians Clinic Foundation and Krewe de Pink who supports Tulane Cancer Center. Her Baby Doll costumes and Black Masking Indian suits have been exhibited at the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac in Paris, France. Dianne is the Standards and Education Chair on the board of the Tour Guide Association of New Orleans and the Community Engagement Chair on the board of the Historic Faubourg Tremé Association. 

Her Louisiana Creole ancestry dates back to ca.1738 New Orleans with the birth of her 6th generation grandmother Catiche Destrehan who was a Louisiana Creole. Her lineage includes a plethora of Louisiana notables. Spending much of her young life in the French Quarter and her family's Creole restaurant she embodies a passion for her heritage and serving others. As a child, she fondly remembers meeting a Voodoo practitioner at the back gates of school, 2 blocks from Marie Laveau's former home, and receiving a blessing with bones and pennies. She also recalls dancing in the numerous second lines that passed her home in Treme, spending time in local cemeteries, and studying music as a child at St. Louis Cathedral Academy. She notes that New Orleans music roots go far deeper than Jazz! Jackson Square was her Sunday playground and Congo Square was part of her neighborhood. 

By embracing and learning from history as well as being a 3 time cancer survivor and professional nurse, Dianne along with Unheard Voices co-founder Dr. Ronald Schumann  developed a ground breaking  program called "Healing through History."  It was successfully released in 2020 over 8 weeks. 

Dr. Ronnie Schumann is a native of the River Parishes, having grown up in LaPlace and Destrehan.  He co-founded Unheard Voices of Louisiana™. His passion for Louisiana history was sparked through a program for elementary students called Education Through Historic Preservation. At 8 yrs old he was introduced to a world of colorful characters: casket girls, Creole heiresses, French explorers, Spanish priests, and Voodoo queen Marie Laveau. He began work as a historical interpreter at Destrehan Plantation in 2000 and studied to became a licensed New Orleans tour guide while still in high school. Since then he has lived across the southeast and worked in a variety of cultural tourism roles while ultimately earning a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of South Carolina. He served as an administrative docent and special programs coordinator at Oakleigh Historic Complex in Mobile, Alabama and he currently serves as a resident scholar and living history performer at Historic Rosedale Plantation in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ronnie is currently working on a project called Unmapping Rosedale, which aims to trace descendants (both free and enslaved) and neighboring families from the antebellum years to present-day using historic land deeds, archival records, computerized mapping (GIS) technologies, and newly collected oral histories.  

Researching his own family tree, Ronnie has discovered that his 8th great grandfather, Conrad Friedrich, was among the original German Coast settlers from the 1720s.  Another branch traces to Louisiana’s first ranchers, the Acadians, who settled at La Vacherie in 1764.  Italians, Irish, Germans, southern Scots-Irish, and Pennsylvania Dutch stock are all represented in his lineage as well—proof of Louisiana as a true cultural gumbo pot!  

Today, Dr. Schumann works as an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Management and Disaster Science at the University of North Texas.  His dissertation research on long-term recovery in coastal Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and won the Gilbert White Award through the American Association of Geographers.  Schumann’s current research investigates locations where cultural preservation, social memory, and place attachment conflict with efforts to reduce risks to natural hazards.