Social life in old New Orleans

Far more vivid than the twilight of the days in which I dwell, there rises before my inner eye the vision, aglow in Southern sunshine, of the days that are gone, never to return...

There also were stately walks to be taken twice a day for recreation; walks down on the “Strand,” or some back street that led away from college campus and flirtatious students....

I hear a rumor that furniture covered with horse-hair cloth is about to come to the fore again. Everybody in my early day had black haircloth furniture; maybe that was one reaso...

Our shopping trip would be incomplete if we failed to call on an old Scotch couple who had a lace store under Col. Winthrop’s residence on Royal Street. The store had a door and...

Well, I must return to cap trimmings to tell of a bride. She must have been in the neighborhood of seventy, for she made what her friends called a suitable match with a widower...

Emma Shields was a noted beauty. I recall a plaster bust of Queen Victoria, idealized beyond all reason or recognition, one of my brothers kept on a shelf in his room. He adored...

I think I can safely say I possess the first daguerreotype ever taken in New Orleans. An artist came there about 1840 and opened a studio (artist and studio sound rather grand w...

I wonder how many old ladies start to go through an unused hall closet, to make room for an accumulation of pasteboard boxes too good to throw away, and hampers too strong to di...

Leonard Mathews lived in one of the “13 Buildings.” He was agent of the Sun Insurance Company. There were young people in that house, too. Mary Jane Mathews married Mr. Hugh Wil...

Félicie and I, with a whole escort of followers, explored the spacious grounds, considered the finest in Louisiana. There was a miniature river, meandering in and out and around...

Queer, inquisitive folks lighted upon us now and then. I recall a party of Philadelphians who arrived at the adjacent town with a note of introduction to the president of the ba...

Nothing now remained to be searched but the plain unpainted bed. It was neatly made up, the coarse brown blankets securely tucked in all around. Charlotte whisked that off and d...

All the Breckinridges, Wards, Flournoys, Johnsons and Hunts in Kentucky were more or less financially interested in the superb racer. Those who did not own one drop of Lexington...

Marse Green, who did things by fits and starts, and did them very thoroughly, too, when he started, had announced to his daughters on the morning of my visit that they must be r...

Not a Confederate who was stranded in Havana in the ’60’s but can recall with grateful feelings the only hotel there kept by an American woman and kept on American lines. Every...

Mamma would be hospitable, would have us see the faded old house, which had been a grand mansion in its day. We saw evidences of that in the very large rooms, the tarnished gild...

After her return to the United States Mrs. McHatton was married to Dwight Ripley, July 9, 1873, and the remainder of her life was passed in the North. In 1887 Mrs. Ripley publis...