Farewell to Mary LeBlanc

Our friend Mary LeBlanc has recently decided to retire from her volunteer service to the Louisiana Research Collection. In October 1973, Mary started working as a Howard-Tilton Memorial Library staff member in Special Collections, continuing for all those years through 2005. Since then, she kindly volunteered her time to process newly-acquired Carnival ephemera for inclusion in LaRC’s very deep and multi-faceted Carnival Collection. Over her career in the library, she worked closely with Bill Meneray, Lee Miller, and a very long list of co-workers.

Mary’s sociable manner and love of New Orleans will be fondly remembered. In fact, we look forward to her visits! Carole Hampshire, a long-time Special Collections colleague and good friend of Mary’s, said, “…there are many wonderful things that can be said about Mary—enough to fill her own manuscript collection! Mary deserves her own krewe, along with her own tiara and doubloon, which will be hot collector’s items. We will miss her tremendously here, and her effects on this department are beyond description.”

Caption: Mary LeBlanc and friends, 1988. Photograph from the cover of Vol. 5, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct. 1988) Tulane Significa, Newsletter of the Tulane University Libraries. Thanks to University Archivist Ann Case for identifying and providing this.

Posted by Susanna Powers