“Have you perhaps already tasted his ham omelette? » Jacqueline Aubard died at the age of 92 on Wednesday 1is January 2025. Many Indriens, especially among the old ones, knew the omelette of the woman who ran, from 1970 to 2014, Chez-Jacqueline, at “Rollins”, in Gournay.
And for good reason in this bistro on the edge of the D927, between Argenton and La Châtre, “there was only that on the menuremembers David Aubard, his grandson. The menu was cold cuts, ham and cheese omelette with a pitcher of wine. It was the cheapest meal in the canton. »
“If I leave my business, there will be no one to take it over”
The one who grew up in a house next to his grandmother's bar assures us: “People came from Châteauroux to eat the ham omelette. » Because everything was homemade. “She raised her chickens and pigs and made terrine, ham… Until the veterinary services told her to stop, for traceability reasons. »
Jacqueline Aubard, in 1993, welcomes customers at the counter of Chez Jacqueline.
© (Aubard Family Photo)
After forty-four years of service, alone in the kitchen and in the dining room, at the age of 82, Jacqueline Aubard left the business, reluctantly, forced by health problems. “She didn’t want to retire. If she hadn't had her health problem, she would still be there. »
Car “She was a worker. She got up every day at 6 a.m., went to bed at midnight, Monday to Sundayunderlines the grandson. She never went on vacation. » The truckers stopped there, the workers too, “people on their vacation route, regulars for their rosé…”
“And on Sundays, people came to play belote. » Customers only, “I’m not even sure my grandmother knew how to play it”. His life was his work, and also his children: Claude, the eldest, and Isabelle and Jean-Louis, two young people housed because “She was a foster family. She always considered them her children. »
A dual role that she assumed largely alone, “after the death of her husband Roger, a farmer, in 1988, she never started her life again”. But she wouldn't have changed for anything in the world. “His bar was his home. At the retirement home, where she had been for two years, the caregivers spoke to her about her bar. It was the only way to get his attention. »
“What I like about my job is contact with peopleexplained Jacqueline Aubard in our columns, on January 30, 2010. If I leave my business, there will be no one to take it over. » In fact, no one took her back when she stopped in 2014. With her departure, Wednesday 1is January 2025, it is also a certain conception of rural life in Berry which has died out.
Funeral of Jacqueline Aubard, Wednesday January 8, at 2:30 p.m., at the Gournay church.
