Recently, my e-friend, Augusta, sent me the link to a book that had been put together in 1903, containing photographs of New Orleans that some visitors to the city had taken. |
"Avis de Deces" |
The notices above are from 1904...and times actually were changing. Two of the notices are in English and only one is in French. |
One of the things that interested me most was the photo of the death notice above. I'd always thought that it was probably the custom in most cities at that time to post death notices in public places as a way of letting people know. |
If that's so, then I assume the reason they thought this notice was worthy of a photo was that it was in French. Being new to the city, they may have been surprised to find death notices posted in French a hundred years after the Louisiana purchase! |
(I could have told them - even a hundred years later - that New Orleanians don't take quickly to change, we like to work our way very slowly into a different way of doing things. :-) |
But the thing that interested me about this particular notice was the funeral home listed at the bottom: F. Laudumiey. |
When I was in high school, one of my best friends was from this family. Her father worked in the family business and, up until she was about ten years old, she actually lived above the funeral home on N. Rampart Street. |
One day, in English class, she was passing me a note about the time she'd seen a ghost in their apartment. The teacher inter- cepted it and, instead of being irritated that we were passing notes, he asked her to share her story with the class. She regaled us with ghost stories the rest of the period. |
Laudumiey Funeral Home is no longer in the building on North Rampart Street. The name was changed to Tharp- Sontheimer-Laudumiey and they're at different locations now. |
The last time I went by the old building on N. Rampart, it was empty and I noticed that it was for lease. I thought of my friend. I thought of the ghosts. I wondered if they were lonely. -- Nancy |
The former Laudumiey building on N. Rampart Street. The ghosts have the building all to themselves. |
The link to this page is: http://old-new-orleans.com/NO_Avis.html Back to Old New Orleans Whispers - Home |