When I returned to New Orleans July 2001 , it was a dream of mine to one day be a tour guide. I love the history of this city, it's culture, food and music. Fast forward to last year and I finally get around to getting a tour guide license and go to work for a ghost tour company.
My 'mentors' , trainers and fellow guides whom claim to be historians and researchers taught me many things.
They taught me the story of Madame Delphine Lalaurie.
The mutilations and torture, sex change operations and horrific experiments. A young girl running from the whipping hand of Madame Lalarie and falling to her death, A grand ball followed by an angry mob chasing the Madame with fever. Bones found under the floor boards in the early 1970's , on record at a local university. It's all there , documented, verifiable, as they claim the research has been done. I believed them, then started looking for myself. The little research that I did immediately began to fill me with doubts as to the authenticity of the tale.
Frustration set in.
I was becoming very uncomfortable with the tales I have been told and with the help of my partner Jane we came up with this new concept in New Orleans walking tours. But the stories we had were not rounding things out as we were envisioning.
Inspiration.
I came across a copy of 'Mr. New Orleans' , the biography of Frenchy Brouillette.
It was the piece I was looking for.
The tale of the New Orleans underworld in the mid 1900's.
Mobsters, Madame's and the men who killed Kennedy.
We knew this was the missing key and launched Strange True Tours.
Validation.
Last week it came to my attention a new book about the life of Madame Delphine Lalaurie.
A book signing was upcoming and I had to be there!
The authors Victoria & Lorelei heard the tale I was taught and decided to explore further than anyone else before. They wrote 'Mad Madame Lalaurie'
They have debunked many of the so called 'truths' surrounding the life of Delphine and for that I can't thank them enough.
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