To a Creole dinner at Mrs. King’s. Bouillabaisse better than we had in Marseilles. Creole cooking is delicious: a cross between Spanish and French cuisines. Branch King walked home with us. I like him. The King girls are all very bright.
To the stockyards. They say there has never been anything seen like the show of domestic animals. Chartres, a superb Percheron stallion, has a mane like Niagara Falls, hanging almost to the ground. Saw a string of gigantic Clydesdale yearling colts with feet big as soup plates; tiny harmless Galloway cattle with coats like a Newfoundland dog’s; hairy brown pigs from Kentucky; a white ox, the biggest I ever saw. As I was coaxing him to his feet, I read this warning:
“This ox is not to be drove up when he’s laying down, by order of the committee.”
January 6. To the old quarter of the town. Quaint houses of the French and Spanish time, very picturesque. Through a gloomy stone doorway, along a dark passage to an inner court with borders of violets in full bloom, palms, oranges, fig and banana trees. Through a cypress swamp of skeleton trees hung with the ghostly Spanish moss to lovely Lake Pontchartrain.
During the Exposition New Orleans became a cosmopolitan nerve center, as did Philadelphia in the Centennial of 1876 and Chicago during the World’s Fair of 1893. The vivid passionate city with its old Place d’Armes, wrought-iron balconies, hedges of Cherokee roses, broad-spreading live oaks, was crowded with travelers from all over the world. It was said that one of the by-products of the Exposition was the great number of intelligent and agreeable persons it brought to the city.
“January 7. Last evening to the fête of the Twelfth Night Revelers. Ballroom very handsome with giant palmettoes, flowers and hundreds of caged birds. With a wild burst of music, the masked Revelers stalked in, marched round the hall, at a signal broke ranks, each captured a partner and the ball opened with the ‘Masker’s Quadrille.’ My Reveler wore a terrific devil mask which did not hide his merry blue eyes. We all trooped to the end of the room, where on a raised dais stood a mammoth cake made up of many little boxes filled with goodies; one held besides a ring. The lucky girl who got it became the queen of the ball. Home very late escorted by some of the Revelers, who left us at our door and went off singing a pretty Creole song, Adieu, ma belle!”
The Mardi Gras festivities were splendid that season. The Queen of the Carnival was Miss Celeste Stauffer, a famous New Orleans belle. Among her many admirers was Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York, who some years afterward remembered her handsomely in his will. The King was Mr. Maury, a good-looking young Creole. The balls and pageants that marked the reign of the royal pair were admirable. They must have cost a deal of hard work as well as money, for the pains shown in every detail of costume, decoration, music, made one ache! At an earlier Carnival, the poor King was so active in his efforts to make memorable his rule of merriment that on the morning of Ash Wednesday he was found lifeless in his bed, having literally worked himself to death.
Among the season’s belles was Cora Urquhart, later Mrs. James Brown Potter. She was already “stage struck”, and her father, Colonel Urquhart, sympathized with her ambition to become an actress. She was a lovely creature, with such an appealing manner that while you talked with her she made you feel that she was dependent upon you for all that made that hour of life worth while. The New Orleans women are not like any others; they have a quality as unique as the salt of the Andalusian, a sort of veiled fire like an opal’s. We made several friends among them. I remember best of all Mrs. William W. King and her four interesting daughters, in their large comfortable house on South Rampart Street. Here I first felt the flavor and charm of Southern family life, which has a character all its own. Mrs. King was large of heart and friendly of manner, with such a glow of hospitality about her that I still have a warm feeling when I think of her and her kindness. She was the daughter of Branch Miller, one of the men who made New Orleans famous in his day for good eating and drinking and fine living. He was noted for his wit and brilliant conversation, so that his daughter and grand-daughters came by their gifts through inheritance. “Uncle” Tom Miller, Mrs. King’s brother, carried on the family traditions, and his dinners were as famous in New Orleans as Uncle Sam Ward’s in Washington.
North Rampart Street lay on the other side of Canal Street; it ran down to Esplanade Street, where lived Mrs. Slocumb with her daughter Cora, later the Countess of Brazza, and her sister, Mrs. Johnson. This house was very gay during the Exposition, and we enjoyed its frank hospitality to the full. Not far away was the home of Mr. George William Nott, the most genial of men. Madame Nott, his mother, and his lovely wife were among the interesting women of New Orleans. It was at this house that I first saw General de Trobriand, one of the romantic figures of the Civil War. He came in to make his daily visit to Madame Nott, carrying a bunch of blush roses. He and my mother were old acquaintances, and while they talked together in French, I studied the General. He was one of the most distinguished looking men I have ever known, every inch the French aristocrat, in spite of his smart uniform of an American Major General. Five or six years before this time, he paid New Orleans the compliment of choosing it for his home, on his retirement from active service. To find the Union General, who in 1875 had arrested the whole of the Louisiana Legislature during the dreadful Reconstruction period, now an honored and beloved resident of New Orleans, was piquant enough. I never saw his house in Rue Clouett, the French quarter of the city, though I met him again at Madame Nott’s and more than once enjoyed a bouquet of his famous roses.
Our life in New Orleans was like a changeable fabric, woven with black and gold threads. The dark strands were the grave cares, the hard work for the Woman’s Department, the gold weave the magic of the old city and its fascinating people. We soon found that the Management of the Exposition was in financial difficulties, and that the funds promised for the expenses of the Woman’s Department were not forthcoming. My mother, who had personally solicited the exhibits, felt morally responsible for their being properly displayed and safely returned to their owners; she therefore assumed the financial obligations of her department. The story has been told elsewhere of her valiant fight and final triumph. My part was to keep her from killing herself with work, by adding a little play from time to time, and to do my own task as Superintendent of the Literary Division. I soon established the library of the Woman’s Department in a quiet corner of our gallery, and here the lady commissioners and their guests rested and read the books, periodicals, and papers.