Paul, Emma, and Berthe Camors were all born in New Orleans just before the Civil War to Eliza Reidecher and Bertrand Camors.

Eliza was born in France. In many of the accounts of the Sisters, the missing link for the Camors family is their father, Bertrand. Elusive, he died early and seems to have been lost to most historical records.

However, we find Bertrand in Eliza’s will, Emma’s birth record, a few newspaper articles, and possible military records, which seem to point to his participation in the Civil War as a Confederate who did not return. There are two B. Camors listed in the rolls of Confederate soldiers, but I was unable to confirm if either were Bertrand.

Berthe is probably the namesake of Bertrand. Camors would have been the name on the Sisters’ birth or baptismal records, and it was the name that Paul always used. But it was not the name the Sisters used as children or adults before they were married. Nor was it their mother’s maiden name. It was their father’s name, but before the Sisters were 10 years old, they had abandoned it.

In the announcement for Paul’s wedding in 1886, he is Camors and Berthe, listed as one of the bridesmaids, is Parlongue. The announcement also mentions that Paul has worked for Henry (Henri) for some years.

Henri Parlongue, Jr. was a successful tailor who worked out of several shops in the French Quarter. His mother seems to have died early, but we do have a record of her in a census showing she was mulatto.

Henri is listed as mulatto also until her death. From then on, he’s listed as white, like his father Henri, Sr.

Henri was the second husband of Eliza Reidecher according to her will and many other records.

Henri and Eliza were officially married in 1872, but their daughters, Emma and Berthe, took the last name Parlongue sometime earlier than that. They were listed as Parlongue in numerous newspaper articles about their education, another detail that has gotten lost along the way. Some sources claim the Sisters were not educated and some claim they were educated in France.

They also used Parlongue as their maiden name when they were written about in the society pages before their marriages.

Instead of forsaking the name of their mulatto step-father in favor of their Confederate father, they seem to have done the exact opposite, down to being buried in the grave of their mulatto family. Their brother Paul is always referred to as Camors.

The sisters both married. Emma married Rafael Musso, who went by Ralph. More on Ralph in the next post. Berthe married twice. Berthe’s first father-in-law, Emile Angaud, was the owner of the property at 613 Royal Street where the Sisters made their shop’s home.

The Sisters were largely forgotten in their old age. After they closed their shop in 1906, the building was used for many types of shops, but in the 1920s it becomes a restaurant for the first time. In the mid-1920s, there were newspaper articles about the new owner applying for a permit for a jazz cabaret.

In 1927, it is listed as a restaurant in the New Orleans City Directory for the first time. In 1931-32, it was a restaurant known as Rue Royale Rendezvous, and in 1933, it was LeCafe Royal Inc. The first directory listing for the Court of the Two Sisters seems to be 1935, while the Sisters were still living across town, reviving the legends of their French Quarter shop. By 1937, it was written about as the “famous” restaurant Courtyard of the Two Sisters.

The 1938 New Orleans City Guide completed by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration mentions this location as a “sidewalk cafe” and refers to the sisters as Camors.

The present three-story brick edifice was built in 1832, but did not receive its popular name until more than fifty years later, when it was occupied by two sisters, Emma and Bertha Camors, who for twenty years carried on a ‘fancy and variety store.’ The ground floor of the building is now decorated so as to give one the impression of being a sidewalk cafe. At one time in the rear of the court there stood a fountain – a charming Cupid who blew sprays of water from the horn of a ram. A few years ago the fountain was uprooted and sold and is now installed in the patio at 731 Royal Street.

1938 New Orleans City Guide. © 2009, page 249.

Emma and Berthe outlived all of their husbands and other family (Emma had one son, but neither Berthe nor Paul seem to have had any children) and died within two months of each other in 1944, well into the run of Jimmie Cooper as proprietor of the newly famous restaurant. Their final home was a duplex on N. Dupre Street. Their kindly neighbor helped make sure they were buried properly.

They are buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 with the Parlongue family, with whom they identified while they were living, even if they are remembered as Camors today.

Next, did the Sisters close their shop in 1906 because of Italians?

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