Vasconcellos...Better Days...Part 6

A Milk Delivery Cart in 1880



It was June 4, 1880 when P.J. Glynn began his census taking on Chestnut Street, eight blocks east of the Mississippi River.  His responsibility was listed as "Enumeration District 83" in the 12th Ward of Orleans Parish, in Louisiana.  It was a hot and balmy day of 94 degrees by the time P.J. arrived at Ferdinand and Sarah's (Cellos).  Ferdinand was proud to report that he was a Steamboat Captain, as five others in the neighborhood also reported.  The Cellos family had recovered from the miserable reconstruction period after the war and now they were living in a nice neighborhood with the merchants, cabinet makers, grocers, tin smiths, and the Superintendent of New Orleans Gas Company.  Although, they weren't the only up and coming families that lived close by, there were also lawyers, stock traders, and money brokers.

The neighborhood was considered one of the more established areas as most of the businessmen were in their late 40's or 50's.  Life expectancy was on the average 42 for men and 44 for women.  But these are averages and our family usually lived a long life considering the hardships.  But this area was beating the averages by far.  Most had large families and that was the case for Ferdinand (50) and Sarah (48) at the day the census was taken.  They had seven children, with the oldest daughter at 25 years of age and the youngest, Henry, age 3 (this would be Sally's (Sarah Cellos Malrose) father. 

Another sign of the affluence of this area was reflected by the fact that most had live-in help.  Ferdinand and Sarah had a live-in servant that was 50 that helped with the children and the housework.  The stock trader had seven children and he was doing so well that he could afford four servants, a cook, a gardener and a coachman.  The hardware dealer also was doing quite well with four extras to help their household.  It is interesting to note that the families that couldn't afford servants always had broaders living with them.

This was a contrast from the hard days of the Reconstruction Era when extended family members all helped one another out by living together to cut expenses and help each other to regain their health and occupations.  It was almost impossible during those hard years to establish a household on your own.  As such the older children had to find menial occupations: laborers, clerks and cotton weighers.  And some could not find work at all and just stayed "at home."

It is evident that the social norm of the time was to have the wife and mother in the home.  All married women without exception reported their occupation as "keeping house."  And all the children without exception were "at school."  All the children older than 8 years could read and write. 

Most of the prominent businessmen in this area were born in Louisiana but their parents were immigrants from Germany, Bavaria, Switzerland, Prussia, and France.  But I don't know why in 1880 that Ferdinand didn't report that his father was from Portugal.  Maybe it was because he was the only one in that district with Spanish heritage.  Many of these upper-class families were soon to be getting electricity.  And the family would often walk to the levee in the evenings to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of New Orleans in the 1880's.