Peninah Benjamin Kruttschnitt died on April 18, 1903, at her son Ernest’s home, according to her obituary in the Times Picayune. Remarkably, the stately residence at 1423 First Street is still standing, and it’s in very good condition. In fact, the eclectic house, with its Classical columns and Palladian windows, is one of the most beautiful […]
Johannes Kruttschnitt Was a 19th-Century Renaissance Man
Born in Brenz, Germany, Johannes Kruttschnitt came to this country in 1837, seeking (what else?) fame and fortune. He achieved both. A successful merchant, a published scientist, a civic leader, and the father of highly accomplished children, Kruttschnitt rose to become one the best-known, most-respected men in New Orleans in the late 19th Century. “Despite his modesty and self-seclusion, few […]
Marie Rose Pickering Thought Her Housekeeper Was the Better Person
Marie Rose Pickering wrote in a Brisbane, Australia newspaper in the late 1930s that her black housekeeper, who came once a week to polish floors, was way ahead of her “in the development of character and personality.” Marie admired how hard her housekeeper, Daisy, worked after walking five miles from the “blacks’ camp.” Marie Pickering went to Australia after her husband, Julius […]
Newspapers Speculated on Mysterious Woman at Ernest Kruttschnitt’s Funeral
Of all the people who attended the viewing of Ernest B. Kruttschnitt’s corpse, none was more shaken than an unknown woman, bent with age, who sobbed uncontrollably at his casket. A report in the Daily Picayune on April 18th, 1906, failed to identify this woman, though it did say she had acted as his mentor. “She stood at […]
Society Pages Describe Marie Gingras as French Down to Her Highly Polished Fingertips
Marie Gingras Pickering lived her life, warts and all, under the harsh magnifying glass of the San Francisco society pages, judging by the countless references made to her and her family in newspaper accounts during the early 1900s. A cursory search reveals that she hosted countless bridge and tea parties, always with elaborate flower decorations; served as a patroness of a […]
Meany Remembered as Brilliant Party Prankster
You know the kind of stories that reduce you to a senseless mass of convulsive laughter, where you involuntarily blurt out laughs like coughs, where your eyes stream with tears and you can’t speak? And just when you stop, you make eye contact with another person who also got the joke and start all over again? Those were the kind […]