Letters

The story by Carolyn Kolb was special. I have good memories of the times about which she relates and also knew a number of people who worked at the paper. My sister-in-law Deirdre Burke Provosty and her sister in law Jacqueline Provosty Avegno both wrote for the society page. My wife Sheela and I lived in New Orleans then (we moved to my home town Thibodaux in 1973), and during the late ’60s I taught at Metairie Park Country Day and had Iris Kelso speak to one of my classes. It also was fun to have good coverage of the bayou region.

We will miss the daily here. Its demise is an incredible, stupid fate for us. Maybe the daily Advocate will pick up on the job, at least to some extent.

In your reply to Mr. Thomas J. Roberts’ question, I believe you have a small error in your last sentence. I grew up in Lake Vista in the 1950s-’60s and know the Lakefront area very well. The two military hospitals, U.S.A. Army (aka Lagarde) and General Hospital and the U.S. Naval (aka Musser-Gorden) Hospital, that you mention were located where present-day Lakeshore is, not Lake Vista. If you aren’t aware of this, the Orleans Canal separates these two subdivisions that were developed by the Orleans Levee Board in the 1940s-’60s. Lake Vista is the oldest one.

In fact, while attending the 90th birthday party of my old neighbor on Warbler Street (she still lives in the same house in Lake Vista), she told me that she met her late husband in the United States Naval Hospital towards the end of World War II. She was a nurse in that hospital and he was a U.S. Navy pilot who had suffered a minor injury. Coincidentally, she had told me that both of the hospitals you mentioned were located in Lakeshore.

Canal Boulevard separated the two hospitals just like it separates West Lakeshore and East Lakeshore today.

I believe one or both of these hospitals morphed into the VA Hospital after World War II. After a new VA Hospital was opened downtown, the Lakeshore subdivision was developed.