If you’re sitting on the couch in the parlor room of MaMere’s, you’ve already noticed the wallpaper of the central hallway, the parlor and the dining room. The William Morris reproduction wallpaper in these rooms came from Bradbury & Bradbury of San Francisco.
William Morris, in short, was an English textile designer, artist, writer, poet and socialist associated with the English Arts and Crafts Movement. In America, the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, who was born during Morris’ lifetime, gained renown for bringing the elements and lines of nature inside as well.
Sitting on the couch, you’ll see the portrait of a young Berthe’ Adele Aimont (Memere) on the wall facing you. Her youngest daughter, Kate, was charcoal portrait artist at Jackson Square in the New Orleans French Quarter for 40 years until the airlift during the aftermath of Katrina ended her life as she knew it. Aunt Kate did this pastel of her mother from an old black and white portrait taken after her wedding.
Adjacent to this portrait, hangs a picture of Berthe’ as a student in the Ursuline Convent. The convent dates from 1752 and is the only remaining building from the French colonial period in the United States. It was a rare survival of the disastrous 18th-century fires that destroyed the rest of the French Quarter. It now serves as the archive and museum for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and houses documents as old as 1718.
To your right hangs a black and white photo of the bend in the Mississippi River that gives New Orleans its “Crescent City” moniker. This scene is still much the same as it was when the picture was taken in 1945, the year WWII ended. Memere’s youngest son, Lucien (my daddy) was stationed in Okinawa where he piloted POW transport boats from the outer islands. When the war ended, Lucien packed up his belongings and headed back to his mother’s rooming house at 1418 Bourbon Street. The photos on the ancient Chinese desk are the two young daughters of the Okinawan woman who did laundry for the occupying G.I.’s. The beautiful silk doll was made for him by the oldest, Miyako. They were in Japan visiting her grandparents when war broke out and so were stranded there.
The smaller black and white photo was taken the year before the Great Depression in 1928 and depicts Canal Street in its heyday. Surprisingly enough, except for the make and model of the automobiles, Canal Street looks much the same even today.
By 1928, Berthe’ (Memere) had long since left her job at Maison Blanche on Canal Street but the building in which she worked, and met her husband in, is still there. The original Maison Blanche was demolished and rebuilt in 1908-09. It stands today as part of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. After Hurricane Katrina, the Ritz-Carlton reopened on December 4, 2006 to the tune of a $106 million refurbishment.
The framed poster print is of Ignatius of Loyola. The original is an 8’ x 10’ oil on canvas which hangs in Jesuit High School on Baronne Street (In 1911, the high school and college divisions of the College of Immaculate Conception, founded in 1847, were split and the college division relocated to St. Charles Avenue, eventually becoming Loyola University). The stunning original, used in 1991 to commemorate the 5ooth year of Ignatius, was painted by acclaimed New Orleans artist Oscar “Bill” Rabensteiner (class of 1936) when he was just 18 years old. He was a childhood friend of Memere’s children and later married her oldest daughter, my Aunt Coco.
The quartet of pen and inks depict the various architectural styles and scenes that have been a part of the fabric of New Orleans for centuries. It is my sincere hope that during your stay here at MaMere’s, you will experience a bit of the hospitality, ease and timeless beauty of that city which will always be home to me.