Vida Sonnier Bernard

New Iberia - A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Peter's Catholic Church at 1:30pm on Thursday, November 13, 2025, for Vida Sonnier Bernard, 99, who passed away on Sunday, November 9, 2025, at Belle Teche Nursing Home. 

Interment will follow at Holy Family Cemetery. 

Msgr. Jeff DeBlanc will be the Celebrant. 

Visitation will be at Pellerin Funeral Home on Thursday from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm. 

A rosary will be prayed at 12:00 pm on Thursday. 

A resident of New Iberia since 1943, Vida was born in 1925, in Iota, Louisiana, to Willie B. Sonnier and Cora Fruge Sonnier.

Vida loved to reminisce about the memorable characters and simple life of her birthplace. But her family lived in many small towns as her father followed opportunity in the oilfields of Southwest Louisiana. She graduated from Abbeville High School in 1943 and shortly afterward moved with her family to New Iberia.

Vida quickly made friends as she worked downtown in retail at Wormser’s Department Store, then as a dental assistant.

On May 26, 1946, she married Wade J. Bernard, Jr., of St. Martinville, and subsequently had three boys.

After her children were older, she returned to school, training as a stenographer at New Iberia’s Trade School. That led to her career as a social worker for the Louisiana State Department of Health and Human Services.

After she and Wade retired, they enjoyed traveling throughout the U.S. and Canada as well as in Europe. Following his death in 1991, Vida continued to enjoy bus tours with friends.

She also felt the need to return something to her beloved spiritual home, St. Peter’s Catholic Church, where for nearly thirty years she recorded weddings, funerals, baptisms, and confirmations, all in her beautiful longhand penmanship. She was pleased to know that one hundred years hence, her handwritten records would still be consulted.

It was a matter of pride to her family that in 2016 Bishop Douglas Deshotel awarded Vida his annual diocesan Devoted Service Award. She was then 90 years old.

To the very end Vida continued to impress family and friends with her grit, good humor, and determination to make it to the age of 100. Her life on earth ended only days away from her goal. As far as her family is concerned, she made it!

We her family pray in faith that Vida, like all her ancestors and us who will follow her, may see with joy the face of God Our Father, who created and loves us all.

Vida is survived by two sons, David (and wife Debbie), of New Iberia, and Richard Wayne (and wife Molly), of Oklahoma City; one grandchild, Avery (and husband Stefan Benoit), of Geismer, and their daughter, Sutton; her brother Donald “Duck” Sonnier (and his wife Linda), of Santa Fe, TX; and many nieces and nephews.

Vida was preceded in death by her husband, Wade; by her son Bart, who is survived by his partner Gary Hartman; by her parents, Willie B. and Cora Sonnier; by her brother Earl Charles Sonnier; and by her sister, Elise Gautreaux.

The family would like to thank the staffs at Azalea Estates and Belle Teche Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for the loving care and personal attention they showered on Vida.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages gifts to St. Peter’s Catholic Church, 108 East St. Peter Street, New Iberia, LA 70560, (337) 369-3816.

Pellerin Funeral Home, 502 Jefferson Terrace Blvd., New Iberia, LA 70560 (33-365-3331).