Katty Stewart, Elizabeth (Moosie) White, Walker Ellis and Walter Stauffer were socialites born in New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century. Among their ancestors were Confederate soldiers, plantation owners, self-made millionaires and even a U.S. President. This book tells the story of four flawed, socially connected people who used newspaper society columns to craft highly curated images of themselves. But the newspapers of the time did not include the more salacious, messy, complicated and secretive details of their lives.
This is also a social history of New Orleans during the Jazz Age, including descriptions of queer culture, the French Quarter, European travel, and life in the social circles of Kay Francis, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Waldo Peirce, Caresse and Harry Crosby, Gerald and Sara Murphy and many others. Full of humorous anecdotes, drama, romance and tragedy, this book is an insightful chronicle of a fascinating time in New Orleans’ LGBTQ history.

Lynn Kear is an award-winning biographer, playwright, and novelist. She lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Lynn Kear
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 232
Bibliographic Info: 34 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8985-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4752-4
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1
Prologue: That Time a Movie Star Visited New Orleans to See Katty Stewart 3
1. The Buckner House and the South 11
2. Society Columns 17
3. Katty and Moosie 22
4 Baby Dances 33
5. Let’s Not and Say We Did 36
6. Walker Mallam Ellis 41
7. Walter Joseph Stauffer 52
8. Walker and the French Quarter 64
9. A Trip to Europe 76
10. Debutantes 87
11. 1924 102
12. A Surprise Marriage 108
13. 1925 114
14. Oak Alley 117
15. The Lost Generation 124
16. 1927 130
17. Illusions 135
18. Kay and Katty in Hollywood 138
19. The Beginning of the End 146
20. The Wedding 150
21. The Marriage 156
22. The Houseboat 160
23. Restless 165
24. Walter Stauffer and New Orleans 175
25. 1940s 179
26. Everything Ends 185
27. The End 189
Epilogue 193
Chapter Notes 195
Bibliography 213
Index 217