| Louisiana Division/City Archives | New Orleans Public Library |
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| EVA WERNER
Eva Werner was an undertaker at 211 Tchoupitoulas Street. Her story illustrates some of the problems facing an entrepreneurial woman during the antebellum period in New Orleans. The undertaking business was started by her first husband, William Schmidt, and she inherited it on his death in 1848. She married Michael Kelly in the following year, and they operated the business together for several years. He was a drunkard and wife beater, and Werner filed for separation from bed and board in 1853. That suit went all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which confirmed Werner’s separation from Kelly and ordered a partition of their community property. It rejected her claim that the entire business was her separate property. |
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Mrs. Werner bought out her husband’s interest in the business after the court proceedings had been finalized. She advertised her purchase of the firm in the Daily Picayune.
(Daily Picayune, September 3, 1854) |
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But the matter was not fully closed yet. An employee of Mrs. Werner, William C. Fluer, claimed ownership of the business later in 1854. There were charges and countercharges made in the suit that Fluer brought in Fourth District Court. In the document shown here, Michael Kelly asserts that the property belonged to his wife and that the whole suit was an attempt to defraud him. The outcome of the proceedings is unclear. We found no record of her presence in New Orleans after 1856.
(William C. Fluer vs. Michael Kelly et al. Orleans Parish Fourth District Court, #8115) |