Tulane University's
Louisiana Research Collection

Members of the Landrum and Eldredge families lived in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Hulse and Eldredge families lived in New Orleans in the twentieth century. Dr. C. A. Landrum (1838-1909) was a physician and dentist who operated drug stores in DeFuniak Springs and Milton, Fla. His wife was Mary Landrum. Their son, Lt. C. A. Landrum (d. 1964), served in World War I. LaRC Manuscripts Collection 303, Landrum and Eldredge families papers, 1826-1960, contains personal, professional, and military papers of the Landrum and Eldredge and allied families in the southern United States. Included are handwritten and typed family correspondence, later-era notes and typed transcriptions of letters, genealogical information, speeches, certificates, leather-bound diaries, legal papers, real estate papers, financial documents, school papers, a drawing, photocopies of eighteenth-century maps, photographs, telegrams, inv...

Above is a translation and transcription of an unattributed wartime letter, written in French, presumably by a member of the American de Marigny family of New Orleans, during World War I.   These documents are in the de Marigny family papers, LaRC Manuscripts Collection 416, Box 1, Folder 4. The French original in the collection is itself a handwritten copy. Text of the letter's typed translation, from French into English: I am returning from the trenches/ where I suffered greatly/ I remained 48/ hours in muddy water/ up to my stomach, under a/ very violent firing from German cannons/ For a rest,/ we stay in the cellars/ of a ruined village,/ bombarded night and day./  Dead bodies everywhere a/ stench, it's a little like hell, nevertheless/ our troops an excellent morale,/ nothing seems to affect them.  This was/ is a massacre with/ all the refinements of/ cruelty that human intelligence/ has been able to discover./  The flooded lands where/ we ...

Claire Strauss was a student at Sophie B. Wright High School in New Orleans, during the nineteen-teens.   Her scrapbook of high school life is part of the Claire Strauss Meyer Papers , 1909-1920s, LaRC Manuscripts Collection 870.   Alongside invitations to baby showers and school papers, she kept memorabilia of the times relating to America’s involvement in World War I. This young girl’s unusual scrapbook includes mounted and loose papers and other objects such as numerous formal photographs, handwritten correspondence, drawings, dried pieces of plants and flowers and other keepsakes, a small mirror, a fur sample, wood samples, crystals from chemistry class, report cards, a prayer card from the Religious School of Congregation Temple Sinai, a spoon, a certificate, postcards, advertisements, World War I era buttons and patches, ribbons, flags, newspaper clippings and other small locally printed items, an invitation and program of her June 12, 1919, graduation...