This is most of an email sent from Houston to my husband N's first cousin, B. The email came from L, who is a middle-aged black woman, a (former, now) resident of New Orleans. L is a distant cousin of N's, like N descended from Justine O., a slave who whose master set her and their children up as his unofficial second family. We've known a good deal of the history of this woman and her descendants (I've written about this on SI), but the 'white' descendants, who left NO, and the 'black' descendants, who remained in NO, weren't in contact until N's brother's wife S (who was also a recipient of the email) got interested a few years ago in genealogy.
The slave Justine was the grandmother of N's maternal grandfather. N's mother and her two sisters and one brother, all born in NO, are designated on their birth certificates as "colored." (A minor but to me interesting sidelight is how many artists there are among Justine's descendants, among both the 'white' ones and the 'black' ones.)
This is most of L's email to N's cousin B and to his sister-in-law S:
>Thank you for the e-mail. We have P---- and her family out they are in
>Houston and we will see what will happen next. My family is out, my two
>older sisters survived on the bridge with no food or water for three days.
>If it were not for my sister L------ my older sister would not have
>survived. We have always teased her and told her she has the survival
>instincts of an alley cat well dam if they didn't pay off. She Is 56 years
>old and owned a beauty shop in New Orleans she swam in chest deep water 8
>blocks to see if her daughter was still in her apartment. She wasn't, she
>then swam back, had a guy who is a drunk but she would give him money to
>clean the shop show up in a boat looking for her. She used it to get two
>older ladies who have been friends of the family for years out, they were
>afraid to open their door when she called them they opened up. She asked
>the guy with the boat to get them to a shelter, one women is on dialysis the
>other has a pace maker and she figured if they were sick they would get them
>out, but she and my sister would take there chances on the bridge, she was
>packing a gun they heard too many horror stories about what was going on in
>the shelters. We don't know if the twins (the older women) got out alive.
>L------ is sunburned down to about a size 6, and with my sister in Orlando...
>Her daughter got out, hitch hiked to Texas and we got her to Orlando. She
>is going to need some help, she also spent time on an overpass. One man
>shoot himself in the head in front of her another jumped to his death off
>the bridge. She can't sleep because she keeps seeing the bodies in the
>water she had to swim through to make it to safety. P----- was with my
>mother in LaCombe, LA. At my sisters house they received no flood damage but
>do not have electricity. They have water because they bought a generator
>and she has a well. P----- will be driving out tomorrow with my mother we
>are hoping to get her to a place with electricity and air conditioning, the
>heat is doing her in she is 84. We hope his things were not looted. His
>apartment is on the second floor of the beauty shop, so we don't think it
>got water.
>S-----, [this part addressed to the genealogist]
>I am sending you this because I'm sure this deserves to be documented
>somewhere, there is a lot more stories of how the family survived, the test
>will be to survive the aftermath. I am working from here to get the family
>resettled and somewhere safe. My heart is broken the city I love is gone my
>family has been scattered but they are alive. We only hope the music the
>art the culture that was New Orleans does not die. The pictures on the news
>no way depicts what generous, and caring people live in the city, or the
>stories of neighbors saving neighbors. People do things out of desperation
>when they believe no one cares. I could write a book of the things I have
>heard as it was happening and after. My family has an international
>connection and I have been receiving calls and e-mails for all over the
>world they know the city is not what they have seen on TV. |
