Cheryl Gerber - Cherchez la Femme: New Orleans Women

The production of this book has been supported by a grant from the Goldring Family Foundation.

The essays were funded by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the Threadhead Cultural Foundation.

The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

www.upress.state.ms.us

Designed by Peter D. Halverson

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of University Presses.

Copyright 2020 by University Press of Mississippi

Photographs 2020 by Cheryl Gerber

All rights reserved

Manufactured in China

First printing 2020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gerber, Cheryl, author, photographer.

Title: Cherchez la femme : New Orleans women / Cheryl Gerber.

Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2020] | First printing 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019018114 (print) | LCCN 2019022345 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496825209 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: WomenLouisianaNew Orleans. | New Orleans (La.)Pictorial works. | New Orleans (La.)Social life and customsPictorial works. | New Orleans (La.)Social conditionsPictorial works. | City and town lifeLouisianaNew OrleansPictorial works.

Classification: LCC F379.N543 G458 2020 (print) | LCC F379.N543 (ebook) | DDC 305.409763/35dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018114

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022345

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

This book is dedicated to Bonnie Warren, the grand dame of the Pleasant Ladies Club, my mentor, my colleague, my friend, and my surrogate mother. I will forever be thankful to her for bringing me inside her circle of amazing New Orleans women.

CONTENTS

Anne Gisleson

Cheryl Gerber

Helen Freund

Alison Fensterstock

Geraldine Wyckoff

Kathy Finn

Sue Strachan

Constance Adler

Katy Reckdahl

Cherice Harrison-Nelson

Karen Trahan Leathem

Kim Vaz-Deville

Karen Celestan

Melanie Warner Spencer

Sisters Susan Gisleson, Kristin Gisleson Palmer, and Anne Gisleson, 2018

FOREWORD

S ISTERS

ANNE GISLESON

F or several years in the 1980s, all five of my sisters and I walked together under a solid canopy of oaks in blue plaid uniform skirts and Peter Pan collars to Ursuline Academy, a female stronghold along Claiborne Avenue wedged between State and Nashville. There were tiled galleries and courtyards for the nuns to pace and tall chain link fences for young fingers to grasp.