The St. Mary Street House

 

Belle Tisdale Booksh and her mother Eliza Pratt Tisdale
at the St. Mary Street House in New Orleans
 

The front porch of the house where Sam and Belle and their family lived at 1311 St. Mary Street was the place where many family photos were taken. I was surprised to find  by searching Google Maps that the house is still standing and looks much the same.

They are first listed as living there in the 1907 Voter Registration list and then on the 1910 US Census: New Orleans, Ward 10, Orleans Parish, Louisiana. The family is listed as Samuel W., age 57, Belle M. 55, Samuel W. Jr. 29, Charles L. [Leonard], 27, Wilton T. [my grandfather] 24, and Vera B. [also known as Belle] 19.

Olivia Lee Tisdale, Arabella Vera Booksh,
Belle Tisdale Booksh and Eliza Pratt Tisdale c1910

The family is also listed at that address in the Marriage document of son Sam Jr. to Thelma Regina Ventress 28 October 1912

Sam Booksh Jr. and wife Thelma Ventress with Leonard and Vera c1912

Samuel Walker Booksh Sr. c1915

By the 1920 census the family had moved to 1831 Bayou Road. The family had increased to include Sam Sr., Belle, Vera and her husband John Posey Ventress (brother of Sam Jr.'s wife Thelma), Charles Leonard and his wife Armelle, and Aunt Lee.Tisdale.

Olivia South Carolina Tisdale

Olivia South Carolina Tisdale c1890

Olivia (pronounced  O LEE vee ah) was always known to me as Aunt Lee.  Her niece, my Great Aunt Vera  Booksh Ventress, told me lots of stories about her. She was born 8 February 1864, the seventh child of Eliza Helen and Benjamin Franklin Tisdale. She never married and was an independent woman supporting herself as a nurse.

She had a busy social life and I found lots of newspaper clippings that mentioned her. One is a column called "Woman's World and Work" in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on June 5, 1895. It says:

"Everyone who attended the recent great festival for the benefit of the House of the Good Shepherd will remembrer the ladies' riding race, which was one of the exciting features of this memorable event. The young ladies who risked their lives in their noble efforts to aid an institution sheltering their less fortunate sisters were Misses Lee Tisdale and Adele Kemp. They are daring equestriennes, and graceful ones as well, and their riding excited unbounded enthusiasm. The committee on sports in charge of this programme, in order to testify their appreciation and that of many friends for the services rendered the cause by Misses Tisdale and Kemp, presented them a few days ago with beautiful souvenirs, and an accompanying letter of thanks, which they will preserve among their precious mementoes."

During the next few years the newspapers were full of stories of  the war in Cuba. In 1895 Cuban Nationalists had begun a revolution against Spanish rule. In January 1898 the United States Navy sent the battleship USS Maine to Havana to protect U. S. citizens. The Maine was sunk by a mine explosion in the harbor on February 15. The United States Congress passed a joint resolution acknowledging Cuban independence and authorized president William  McKinley to use military measures to end fighting in Cuba. Spain rejected the U.S. ultimatum and severed diplomatic relations. A naval blockade of Cuba was implemented and a call went out for 125,000 military volunteers. Spain declared war on the U.S. and Congress voted to go to war against Spain on April 25, 1898.

It wasn't just soldiers that were off to Cuba. Aunt Lee was a nurse and she went to Cuba with the American Red Cross. It wasn't a very long war but it had big consequences. A cease-fire was signed on August 12, 1898 amd the war officially ended four months later when the Treaty of Paris was signed on December 10, 1898. Besides guaranteeing the independence of Cuba, the treaty also forced Spain to cede Guam and Puerto Rico to the U.S. and to agree to sell the Philippines to the U.S. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on February 6, 1899 by a margin of one vote.

Aunt Lee returned to New Orleans and continued her life a nurse. I ended up with her red velvet photo album full of photos of family and friends, identified for me by my Great Aunt Vera. I have already used several of them in this blog. On page one of the album is a photo of a soldier that Aunt Lee met during her time in Cuba.

Aunt Lee's Photo Album
Cabinet Card Photos of Ira Roberts and Leonard Sisman

On the back of his photo Leonard Sisman wrote this message:

    Like a plank of driftwood 

tossed o'er the watery main

another plank encounters, 

meets touches and parts again &

so on drifting ever o'er life's 

tempestuous sea,

we meet [...?.. & ..?..] 

parting eternally

                Very Truly Yours

                Leonard Sisman

                    _____2 US Vol Inf.

                                          Cuba

                                1899

THE PANIC OF 1893

The Panic of 1893 was a severe financial crisis and economic depression marked by bank failures, busines closures and hgh unemployment. Begining in February 1893, the effects continued to be felt in every sector of the economy until 1897. It was the most serious economic depresion in the United States until the Great Depression in the 1930s.

What effects this depression had on the Samuel Walker Booksh family are unknown but it was in early 1893 that the family moved from the Baton Rouge area to New Orleans. Great Grandpa Sam had been elected Registrar of Voters of East Baton Rouge Parish in October 1892. His term was to run until September 1894. (Baton Rouge Newsletter:East Baton Rouge Parish Elected Officials, Vol. IV No. 1 (Jan 1984), La. Genealogical & Historical Society).  

His mother-in-law, Eliza Pratt Tisdale, wrote on November 5, 1893 that she was moving to live with Sam and Belle on St. Andrew Street in New Orleans. Did The Panic of 1893 cause them to move from East Baton Rouge Parish to New Orleans? 

 The family at the time consisted of Sam and Belle and their four children:

    Samuel Walker Booksh Jr., born 4 March 1881, age 12

    Charles Leonard Booksh, born 3 January 1883, age 10

    Wilton Tisdale Booksh, born 7 February 1886, age 7

    Arabella Guinevere Booksh, born 13 August 1889 age 4    

  (The entry in the Booksh Family Bible has a note by her name saying “She will be our last.”)

Samuel Walker Booksh c 1910

Arabella Guinevere c1895
known as Belle and Vera

In a newspaper article in the Times-Picayune on  3 September 1930 Sam's picture appeared with an article titled "U.S. Watchman at Custonhouse Quits on Pension."

     "After 27 years of continuous service as a watchman for the United States customhouse, Samuel W. Booksh, 77 years old, has retired. In honor of his long service, a score of friends and employees of the customhouse assembled in the marble hall of the institution at noon Tuesday and presented him with a basket of flowers and a check...."

     "A native of Louisiana, Mr. Booksh was appointed to federal service in 1893 during President            Cleveland's administration..."

The 1894 New Orleans City Directory has Samuel W. Booksh working as a watchman at the Custom House and residing at 147 St. Andrew Street. (Soard's New Orleans City Directory, Vol. 31, p.173)  The 1895, 1897, and 1898 directories show their address as 815 St. Andrew. This doesn't necessarily mean they moved. It could have been a renumbering of the streets. In the 1899 City Directory the family is listed at 1365 Constance Street.  

The 1900 Census shows them living in the same house as as Eliza Tisdale at 1365 Constance Street.  By 1910, according to the Census, Sam and Belle were living at 1311 St. Mary Street. By 1920 they are listed at 1831 Bayou Road. This was the same house he was  living in when he died  3 November 1930.

For a complete biography of Samuel Walker Booksh see blogpost of July 2, 2019.