Ruthie the Duck Girl, a French Quarter eccentric who zoomed from bar to bar on roller skates, often wearing a ratty fur coat and long skirt and trailed by a duck or two, died Sept. 6 at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. She was 74.
Ruthie, whose real name was Ruth Grace Moulon, had been suffering from cancer of the mouth and lungs when the residents of her Uptown New Orleans nursing home were evacuated to Baton Rouge as Hurricane Gustav approached, said Carol Cunningham, a close friend who watched over her for nearly 40 years.
"I've always looked at Ruthie like a little bird with a broken wing," Cunningham said. "She was always so dear to me."
If you have visited the French Quarter in New Orleans, you may well have spotted Ruthie, and you would not easily forget her. She zipped all over the Quarter on her roller skates. She was a typical New Orleans eccentric, my kind of woman.
From the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
To have seen Ruthie was never to be able to forget her.
ReplyDeleteMay she rest in peace and rise in glory (however could she not?)
Bets on which other blogger may use this one?
ReplyDeleteMay her ducks be with her in the heavenly kingdom.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt all of Ruthies ducks are now in a row...bless her kind energy.
ReplyDeletepeace be with her...
ReplyDeleteand may she fly, fly, fly.
ReplyDeleteFly, Ruthie, fly. Be at peace with the wind beneath your wings and your ducks behind you, all in a row. Or you could have them in a "v" formation. Now and forever. Amen.
ReplyDeleteOn skates of gold with ducks aplenty....
ReplyDeleteGo in peace and joy and love!
Speaking of French Quarter eccentrics, I just finished re-reading Jerry Strahan's Managing Ignatius: The Lunacy of Lucky Dogs and Life in New Orleans. Wonderful glimpse into a world I'll never be part of ;)
ReplyDeleteDavid, thanks for calling my attention to the book. Grandpère has the author's book on Andrew Jackson Higgins, the shipbuilder in New Orleans, who built both the LCVPs which were used to land at Normandy on D-Day in WWII and PT-boats.
ReplyDeleteDid I ever mention that I met John Kennedy Toole a few times? My good friend dated him several times. It was not until years after I read the book that I connected the guy I met long ago with the author of "Confederacy", because I knew him as Ken Toole.
Well dang! Small world, innit ? ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd I put Strahan's book on Higgins into my Amazon wishlist. I really enjoy reading about maritime history, and he's a darn good writer.