That annual ritual of acknowledging the disaster and flood of Hurricane Katrina. Here we are. I spent the first 18 years after Katrina avoiding any media related to it. Now, guests regularly ask me about it on tours. It’s always a different question, but Katrina is the still one of most significant events in New Orleans history, especially recent memory. My recommendation for paying homage is the Flooded House Museum in Gentilly.
I live in Gentilly, one of the neighborhoods that the levee failure completely destroyed. We bought our home in 2013, eight years after Katrina flooded the neighborhood. It felt like a lifetime ago already then, but half the houses on our block were either still blighted or were just empty lots. We still have never repaired our garage, so it still has the the rust mark showing us exactly how high the water was. Our house only flooded once in its nearly 100 years of history.
In Gentilly, levees.org converted one of the destroyed homes into the Flooded House Museum and Levee Exhibit. It sits at the site of the one of the levee failures, the one that flooded my home. You look through the windows of the house to see the scene a family would have returned to after the disaster. There is also an exhibit that explains exactly what happened, why it happened, and what’s been done to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
This museum is quite literally in the middle of a middle class New Orleans neighborhood, and it’s an extremely heavy topic. So it’s a different kind of experience than I typically recommend in New Orleans. A deep New Orleans experience. If you’re interested in learning more about both the human impact and the science behind the levees, I highly recommend the free Flooded House Museum in Gentilly.
Museum Review: Historic New Orleans Collection – Captive State
If you only have time for one museum in New Orleans, my recommendation will always be the Historic New Orleans Collection. In the center of the French Quarter, in a historic location with a public courtyard, well-curated, free, and most importantly air conditioned, it is a necessary New Orleans experience. If you want to understand Louisiana on a deeper level, do not miss the current exhibit Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration running until January 19, 2025.
They offer a guided tour of the exhibit a few times a week. I did the tour on a Friday. My guide, Kurt, was thoughtful, calm, and engaging. Our group of five included two New Orleanians, one person from Montreal, another from Toronto via London, and a fifth who was late and didn’t introduce himself. Kurt pointed out some of the finer points the exhibit is trying to make.
The exhibit opens with this startling graph.
The central thesis is clear: mass incarceration and slavery are linked, intrinsically. Using laws, the state constitution, and data about the prison and jail populations, the historians have painted a very clear and irrefutable picture of how we got to be the most incarcerated place on earth through regulations around leasing enslaved people for profit which evolved into leasing incarcerated people for profit. The incarcerated people in Louisiana and New Orleans are disproportionately Black; there is a higher percentage of Black people in prison or jail than make up the population. This fact isn’t just true in Louisiana as the Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that 38.8 percent of the prison population is Black while the Census Bureau reports that only 13.7 percent of the population is Black.
Enslaved people and incarcerated people have built and maintained every aspect of New Orleans since the 1700s, including levee repair, city waste and drainage, street cleaning and maintenance, pothole repair, building the Carondelet canal, and cemetery maintenance.
New Orleans is the most American city for many reasons, in my opinion, and one of them is the prominent role of the American institution of race-based slavery. Another is that Louisiana is the most incarcerated place in the most incarcerated nation. We are in a Captive State. We are the Captive State. The America we know was shaped by hundreds of years of oppression, and New Orleans sits at the epicenter of that oppression to this day. The most American city is not necessarily a good title to hold.
We look in horror on the truths of slavery in the United States from centuries ago, yet tend to look away from the horror happening in front of us now. This is largely because incarceration has been increasingly hidden from public view even as they build and maintain the infrastructure we rely on. Everyone who drove into New Orleans from the airport passed the notorious Orleans Parish Prison on the interstate. Yet, very few realize what they see.
The historians at the Historic New Orleans Collection are working to shine a bright, glaring light on the American problem of mass incarceration in Louisiana in particular, and how easily we draw a direct line from slavery to mass incarceration. The tour guide expressly stated his objective was to get more people talking about this problem in a respectful way. I hope to expand the scope of their bright light by encouraging as many people as possible to see the exhibit for yourself.
Truth in advertising alert: I had to return for a second visit about a week later to see the second floor. Here you’ll find images of people in hospice care while incarcerated. It was too much to take in at once. Every room of the exhibit includes a content warning before you begin. I hope you will take the time to see this exhibit and share what you learn with those you love.
Good Bones: The Fascinating History of 1331 First Street
To some it is known as the Morris-Israel House because of its previous owners. In 2020, Zion Williamson famously purchased the mansion at 1331 First Street for his mother, Sharonda Anderson, giving it a new era in history.
The home has been undergoing somewhat controversial renovations since. The controversy is primarily because it has been there since 1869. The longevity of some buildings seems to be so mind boggling to some humans that we insist they remain the same forever.
Apparently the Irish architectect, Samuel Jamison, who designed this particular roof ensured that you can’t see it from the street. This is the reason for originally denying approval for the renovations. I do not think one single tour guide or tourist has noticed in any of the 15.5 decades since Jamison built that roof that it disappeared from sight. I have yet to understand why this was such a good feature of the old mansion at First and Coliseum that had to remain indefinitely.
This home was built by a racist man, as best I can tell, and was the seat of the queen of the most exclusive carnival society for several decades after that. It seems that this home might need to be rid of some of its buried bones.
The Times-Picayune November 30, 1869 p. 1.
Speaking of bones…
After a mention of actual bones found in the house by some lovely folks on a recent tour, I went down a rabbit hole. The newspaper was surprisingly fruitful with information about the address. There have been four eras of this home before Zion bought it, and one of them did involve found bones. Shall we?
Part 1: The Beginning 1860-1924
It took nine years to build1, which was greatly delayed by the Civil War, for Joseph Chandler Morris2 and his family. They were residents of New Orleans for 53 years, according to his obituary in 1903.
The Times-Democrat Tue, Aug 04, 1903 · Page 5The Times-Picayune. August 6, 1903 p. 6.The Times-Picayune July 17, 1921 p. 42The Times-Picayune January 8, 1922 p. 4.
The first newspaper references I could find for the address are want ads for house staff in 1895, all of which specify the race of the staff they prefer. Morris’s biographical section of his obituary begins, “Born in Massachusetts and coming here when a young man, Mr. Morris became thoroughly Southernized in his sympathies.” I recently described my own father as a natural Southerner, but I was referring to his love of the outdoors, hunting and fishing. Since Morris lived in a mansion in the Garden District instead of a raised home in the swamp, like my father, I assume his sympathies were not for wild game.
The home remained in J. C. Morris’s family for two more decades with many more racially specific want ads piled up. It became known as the Chassaignac residence because of Morris’s daughter, Jennie, who married Dr. Charles Chassaignac. In 1921, it was listed for sale. The sale ads continued for a couple of years before the contents of the home were finally put up for auction in 1924. Before the auction happened, the home sold privately. The home’s first era lasted 55 years.
Part 2: The de Monte Leone Era 1924
New Orleans Item March 8, 1924 p. 36.
In 1924, for about six months, Dr. Paul de Monte Leone lived in the home. He hosted weekly free lectures about psychology and the occult. He claimed to be a psychologist who trained in Tibet. I have not figured out if he owned the home or just lived there. I haven’t found a real estate transfer with his name. His departure from the home coincides with the auction in 1924.
I did find that Dr. de Monte Leone was arrested for “operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of liquor” in September 1924, during Prohibition. He was also sued by Mrs. Anna Dann for $1,000. She had invested into his Leonic Institute, a proposed school for “mental defectives”. Anna worked without pay with the promise of a share of the profits. She claimed the suit grew out of dissatisfaction with the project, and he refused to return her money. The lawsuit in October 1924 is the last I found Dr. Paul de Monte Leone in New Orleans. I went to the City Archives to try to find the civil case docket, but I only found a handwritten note about how a bunch of missing pages were in the clerk’s desk drawer. Dr. Monte Leone made the same type of impact in St. Louis and Texas3.
The Times-Picayune November 23, 1924 p. 38.The New Orleans States November 23, 1924 p. 15.The Times-Picayune November 26, 1924 p. 32.The Times Picayune January 31, 1926 p. 31.
Between 1924 and 1926 the home was let as apartments with the owner living on the first floor, Mrs. Paul/Pearl McCain/McCranie.
Part 3: The Hopkins Era 1926-1966
The New Orleans Item September 8, 1926 p. 11.
It became a single family home again in 1926 when the Hopkins family became residents. Dr. Ralph Hopkins4 was a physician who trained at Tulane and served as director of the Louisiana Leper Home in Carville, Louisiana, from 1902-1920. He was also a Confederate and a member of the Boston Club. His daughters were queens of the most prominent Carnival krewes.
New Orleans States January 15, 1935 p. 17.
Many queens reigned over the property, as this mansion became known as the location for the queens’ dinners after the Comus balls for many years. They hosted many debutante teas within the walls of 1331 First during the 41 years the Hopkinses owned the home. Dr. Hopkins died in 1945, and Mrs. Hopkins continued hosting for several years. She didn’t die until 1982, but the house passed out of the family in 1967.
Part 4: The Israel-Aron Era 1967-2015
The Times Picayune April 9, 1967 p. 114.The Times Picayune October 18,1967 p. 11.
Mrs. Marian Hopkins sold the house to Merryl Silverstein Israel Aron5 and her first husband, Sam Israel, Jr., in 1967. Merryl was a golf champion and a New Orleans native6. The couple immediately began renovating, as many people who take up residence in the Garden District do. The renovations became news when human bones were bizarrely found in the floor of the second story. “The bones and the top portion of a skull, with a crop of reddish brown hair still clinging to it, were found beneath second-story floor boards that were pulled up in a unoccupied three-story brick and wood residence at 1331 First,” The Times-Picayune March 9, 1968 p. 22.
The Times Picayune March 9, 1968 p. 22.
The homicide detective on the case estimated that the “remains may be as much as 60 years old,” which would put the remains in the home with the Hopkins family the entire time but safely outside the bounds of suspects. George Hopkins explained that the home was used as a “boarding house” before his parents bought it for the news article. It seems to me that of the eras of this home’s history, the era of many tenants sharing space is the least likely to have hosted a secret like bones in the ceiling.
The next article with the address is April 11, 1969, when Sam Israel, Jr., a member of the Tulane Board, held a reception there. They opened it to the public a few weeks later as a stop on a walking tour of historic mansions to benefit the Louisiana Landmarks Society. The Times Picayune wrote up the renovation on September 14, 1969, with no mention of the bones.
The later articles about the home occasionally mention the bones with the story becoming more embellished. Eventually, the bones are found in a secret room, not the floor of the second story, and blamed on a Voodoo ritual performed by the servants, according to legend. Sometimes an entire skeleton is found7. Sometimes the home is referred to as the “house of the Voodoo ritual”. I submitted a public records request to see how the homicide investigation ended. The response was quick.
Record request #24-11633 has been closed. The closure reason supplied was:
On behalf of the custodial department(s), our office has responded to your request and considers this request closed.
Law Department City of New Orleans 1300 Perdido St., Ste. 5E03 New Orleans, LA 70112 504-658-9800
So I submitted a request at the Archives.
Thank you for reaching out to the City Archives. I will work on researching this request in the next few days. Because there is no name/ case number/ or date connected to the original incident, it may take some time to uncover information.
The information at that link is the reason I submitted a public records request in the first place. It doesn’t appear that an investigation from 1968 is archived yet, which is exactly what the City Archives said when they told me to ask NOPD:
I haven’t been able to find any more information about the Homicide Investigation that you requested. As you mentioned, the homicide report is outside of the scope of our collection. You can try contacting NOPD directly, but I am unsure of their record holdings from that time period.
The public records request I made is asking NOPD. So NOPD told me to ask the City Archives and the City Archives told me to ask NOPD…
At age 84 in 1997, Merryl chose to donate her home to Tulane University with the condition that she lived there until she died. She died in 2015 at age 102, effectively ending the 48 year era for her family. Tulane sold the house back to her family in 2016, but it sat empty until 20208.
Part 5: The New Era
In 2020, Zion and his mother gained ownership of the mansion, a fitting next chapter in the life of this old house. His aim seems to be to remove everything but the bones of the house thereby ensuring that no skeletons remain in these closets or walls or even ceilings. Of course, the Garden District geezers tried to stop his renovations…because they would be able to see the roof. He received approval to move forward with his modified plan in 2021, so Zion will make his mark on this house with his mom as the reigning queen of 1331 First9. I hope you’ll join me in rebranding it the Williamson-Anderson House.
