Dorothea “Torchy” Wilde papers
HNOC expands its LGBTQ+ holdings with the papers of a nightlife fixture who chronicled the Quarter’s denizens.
Writer and entertainer Dorothea Vernon Wilde (1924–1997) was born in New Orleans and attended high school at L. E. Rabouin. By 1947 she had adopted the moniker “Torchy” and found work in the French Quarter. Starting in 1948, she collaborated with poet and artist Kay “Kaja” Johnson on “All Around the Quarter,” a regular column that ran in the weekly newspaper The Old French Quarter News until the publication’s last issue on March 9, 1951. Wilde was also a contributor to the publications New Orleans Blue Book: Digest of New Orleans Entertainment and This Week in New Orleans. She shared a Metairie home with her friend Alice Brady (1927–2012), a well-known French Quarter bar owner. This small but rich collection was preserved by their housekeeper after Brady’s death. Within the collection are many samples of Wilde’s writings in both draft and published form. Also included are manuscript poems and correspondence, as well as an incomplete book manuscript and its supporting research notes.
Items of particular interest are an edited typescript poem by Johnson and notes from an interview with Louis T. Dansee, a photographer born in 1884 who regaled Wilde and Johnson with tales of Storyville. The collection also contains many photographs from the 1940s into the 1990s that document Wilde’s life, including a group of promotional photographs and snapshots from the late 1940s of famed burlesque dancer and Wilde’s reputed romantic partner Stacy “Stormy” Lawrence (ca. 1925–1982), as well as a series of snapshots of Wilde and a friend in the countryside and at the zoo from 1950. There are also many snapshots of Torchy later in her life with various friends.
Among other items of note in the collection is a copy of the Louisiana State Criminal Code of 1957 with the address of a bail bondsman written on its cover; the page explaining homosexuality in the section “Crimes against Nature” is bookmarked. Another gem is a sheet of paper on which the phone numbers of various people, including brothel owner Norma Wallace, are written. HNOC already holds several related collections, most notably the 417 Thirba Street Collection (MSS 786), which includes material related to Wilde’s early life and family. Discovered in the attic of Brady and Wilde’s former home by its new owner, the Thirba Street material was acquired by HNOC in 2016.
By Nina Bozak, curator of rare books, and Aimee Everrett, curator
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