1920s - family view
From what my folks didn’t tell me, I imagine the 1920s was a preview of the sex, drug, and rock and roll of the ‘60s and ‘70s. I knew about my mother’s first party during the year-end holidays when 1923 turned into 1924. She and my dad met at that party. She also met her husband Willie, his brother Freddie, and Freddie’s wife Louise. Mother and Louise would soon become sisters-in-law and BFFs. My sister was one year old at the time. Our dad was married to Ida who was expecting my second sister. Thirty years later, Louise would become my godmother. And collectively, they would be overprotective and strict. I would be on a short leash and chaperoned until I was eighteen. At which time the leash would loosen, but never release.
Mother often talked about the good ol’ days. No longer cohabitating with Ida and Willie, she and Dad met at a sailor bar at the foot of Canal Street. New Orleans had the country’s second busiest port and despite prohibition, many nationalities opened bars along the wide thoroughfare. Dad’s family rarely crossed the river, but he rode the ferry to meet her at the Greek bar and she rode streetcars from uptown New Orleans.
He was born and raised in Algiers, rumored to be a hot spot for voodoo. Her family was leery of him. Her brothers thought his only redeeming quality was that he was a musician. His family saw no redeeming qualities in Mother. Her skin was too light and she lived on the east bank.
As they got to know each other better, he accompanied her to movies at an arcade near the river. When he wasn’t playing music, they enjoyed vaudeville shows at the Palace Theater on Iberville Street. Soon, she braved crossing the mighty Mississippi and walking through the streets of Algiers to watch him play. She was proud that everyone always knew when she appeared. When he saw her, he always missed a beat and was teased. He and his cousin played together, so their secret dating got out among his clan. Two of his seven sisters, Neola and Thelma, became good friends with Mother.
Dad saw his daughters often because they lived close by. Mother lived at home and her mother raised my brother, so she saw him daily.
One of Mother’s older sisters married into a musical upriver family from Lutcher. She introduced them to Dad, and the cousins began following them into seedier uptown areas around First Street and along the disreputable South Rampart Street. Mother gave no details about those years, but into the ‘50s and ‘60s, neither wanted my brothers to hang out along the strip because of its lingering seamy reputation. As much as she loved moving pictures, she avoided taking us to the Ritz on Rampart when we moved into a nearby neighborhood.