Without formal training, Cheri McDaniel became Baton Rouge’s first female homebuilder nearly six decades ago

(Cheri McDaniel has defied expectations her entire life, ascending from Depression-era poverty to become Baton Rouge’s first female homebuilder in the late 1950s and beating cancer in her 80s. Photography by Don Kadair) The powder-blue sign and dainty script reading “Cheri Homes Inc., Built with a Woman’s Touch” was the last thing anyone in Baton