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Authors: Elizabeth Eagan-Cox
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another article. This one says his name was Doctor Black Jack.”
I choked on my cookie, spat it out and then gasped, “Yikes! He was a witch doctor.”
Chapter 13
“What?” Alex asked.
“I’ve heard of him. When I was in college in New Orleans, he was Marie Laveau’s son, and as a voodoo practitioner, he was a witch doctor. Witch doctors are not as powerful as voodoo queens, men generally are not as powerful as women. A witch doctor’s specialty is healing, most have the good sense to leave hexes and spells to the voodoo queen in whose section of the city they practice their conjuring. Not that they cannot summon bad juju , it’s just that they are no match for a voodoo queen.”
Alex was staring at me, he blinked twice. “I don’t know you at all. All this time, almost a year now and I thought I had a really good understanding about who you are. Shannon, you talk about all this mumbo jumbo stuff as if it is real.”
“It is real, for voodoo believers and practitioners. And this is real history, who is to say that there were not voodoo practitioners here in San Diego, and there probably still is. In most American cities voodoo is a subculture. But not in Louisiana and in other parts of the Deep South. I know for a fact there are open voodoo communities in Charleston, South Carolina and in Savannah, Georgia and Natchez, Mississippi. And if I know it, I bet most Southerners do too, it is part of the whole history and culture of the region. Get over it Alex, I’m not a practitioner, but I respect it as a cultural choice. And besides, we are getting off topic.”
“As you wish. I’ll follow your lead. What do we do now?”
“I need to research Doctor Black Jack. That means I’m going to contact some of my friends in New Orleans and see if they can do some favors for me. I’ll do that tomorrow. For now, tell me about this Miss Ruby Red. I suspect she is connected in some way to this mystery.”
“Yeah, well I got that flyer about her, the one that was at the museum.” Alex unfolded the flyer and read out loud. “Old west etiquette. In bidding a fond farewell to the tempestuous years of the rowdy and often lawless mid-1800s, Californians welcomed the latter part of the century with Victorian flair. For San Diego residents the genteel formality of introducing oneself was not lost in t he hustle and bustle of the land boom era, when the city limits of San Diego were busting out of its boundaries. As did their Midwest and Eastern counterparts, San Diegans abided by strict standards of social grace, and their essential tool was their calling card.
“To the socially savvy of yesteryear, a calling card was as vital a form of communication as a telephone is to us today. Calling cards came into fashion in the 1870s and were formal requirements for personal and professional introductions when social rituals mandated the exchange of names. Even under a blazing sun and standing in a dusty street in Old Town, a person of refinement was never without a calling card in hand to place into the welcoming palm of a new acquaintance.
“Proper use of calling cards required particular rules. For instance, only a person’s name could appear on the card, thus leaving the disclosure of any other information to the discretion of the individual. And while custom did not dictate the exact size of a calling card, it was customary for cards to be about the same size as our modern business cards are today. By the late 1800s, calling cards had garnered such high favor, that even the more notorious members of society had taken a fashion to them.
“Reportedly, one such celebrity was the stage entertainer, Ruby Red. Miss Ruby, as she was called, was a flamboyant red-haired beauty, and self-proclaimed gentlemen’s escort. Ruby designed her own cards of the finest ivory linen paper stock. Each card was trimmed in a crimson ink border and the center was engraved in crimson ink with the singular name of Ruby. From the music
I choked on my cookie, spat it out and then gasped, “Yikes! He was a witch doctor.”
Chapter 13
“What?” Alex asked.
“I’ve heard of him. When I was in college in New Orleans, he was Marie Laveau’s son, and as a voodoo practitioner, he was a witch doctor. Witch doctors are not as powerful as voodoo queens, men generally are not as powerful as women. A witch doctor’s specialty is healing, most have the good sense to leave hexes and spells to the voodoo queen in whose section of the city they practice their conjuring. Not that they cannot summon bad juju , it’s just that they are no match for a voodoo queen.”
Alex was staring at me, he blinked twice. “I don’t know you at all. All this time, almost a year now and I thought I had a really good understanding about who you are. Shannon, you talk about all this mumbo jumbo stuff as if it is real.”
“It is real, for voodoo believers and practitioners. And this is real history, who is to say that there were not voodoo practitioners here in San Diego, and there probably still is. In most American cities voodoo is a subculture. But not in Louisiana and in other parts of the Deep South. I know for a fact there are open voodoo communities in Charleston, South Carolina and in Savannah, Georgia and Natchez, Mississippi. And if I know it, I bet most Southerners do too, it is part of the whole history and culture of the region. Get over it Alex, I’m not a practitioner, but I respect it as a cultural choice. And besides, we are getting off topic.”
“As you wish. I’ll follow your lead. What do we do now?”
“I need to research Doctor Black Jack. That means I’m going to contact some of my friends in New Orleans and see if they can do some favors for me. I’ll do that tomorrow. For now, tell me about this Miss Ruby Red. I suspect she is connected in some way to this mystery.”
“Yeah, well I got that flyer about her, the one that was at the museum.” Alex unfolded the flyer and read out loud. “Old west etiquette. In bidding a fond farewell to the tempestuous years of the rowdy and often lawless mid-1800s, Californians welcomed the latter part of the century with Victorian flair. For San Diego residents the genteel formality of introducing oneself was not lost in t he hustle and bustle of the land boom era, when the city limits of San Diego were busting out of its boundaries. As did their Midwest and Eastern counterparts, San Diegans abided by strict standards of social grace, and their essential tool was their calling card.
“To the socially savvy of yesteryear, a calling card was as vital a form of communication as a telephone is to us today. Calling cards came into fashion in the 1870s and were formal requirements for personal and professional introductions when social rituals mandated the exchange of names. Even under a blazing sun and standing in a dusty street in Old Town, a person of refinement was never without a calling card in hand to place into the welcoming palm of a new acquaintance.
“Proper use of calling cards required particular rules. For instance, only a person’s name could appear on the card, thus leaving the disclosure of any other information to the discretion of the individual. And while custom did not dictate the exact size of a calling card, it was customary for cards to be about the same size as our modern business cards are today. By the late 1800s, calling cards had garnered such high favor, that even the more notorious members of society had taken a fashion to them.
“Reportedly, one such celebrity was the stage entertainer, Ruby Red. Miss Ruby, as she was called, was a flamboyant red-haired beauty, and self-proclaimed gentlemen’s escort. Ruby designed her own cards of the finest ivory linen paper stock. Each card was trimmed in a crimson ink border and the center was engraved in crimson ink with the singular name of Ruby. From the music
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