A Change of Name

I have been looking back through historic New Orleans records on FamilySearch, uncovering records that either were not previously available or records that I missed on prior searches. My latest search uncovered what happened to Leonora Barba, sister of Marguerite Barba. When I last wrote about Leonora in 2015, I wrote about her brief scandalous marriage to Frank Fuller in 1903, while she was living in New York City to be an actress. Leonora returned to New Orleans, and was living in the same home as her mother and sister at 708 Carondelet in the 1910 US Census. The 1910 Census record indicated that Leonora was divorced, but I didn't realize she had been twice-divorced by then. The FamilySearch scans of the Louisiana Parish Marriages, 1937-1957 revealed another previously overlooked marriage in 1908, which uncovered the rest of her story.

FamilySearch. New Orleans, 1908.

The image above shows the marriage of Berthold Marno Le Moult to Eleonor Barba on 23 September 1908. Berthold had only been in New Orleans for a year, as seen in this news clipping from September 1907 below.

New Orleans Times-Democrat, 8 Sept 1907.

This marriage appears to have been short-lived, as young Marno returned to Germany and remarried in 1911.

Leonora's third marriage stuck. She met Frank H. Jaubert, likely in New Orleans, and they married in Biloxi, Mississippi over Labor Day weekend in 1911. From this point on, she went by Eleonor (or Eleanor). Interestingly, their marriage record in Harrison County, Mississippi lists her full name as Leonor Barba Fuller and includes her signature.

Biloxi Sun Herald, 8 Sep 1911.

Eleonor appears on a list of US citizens returning from Cuba on the S.S. Atenas, arriving in New Orleans on 25 September 1916. I can picture them spending an anniversary trip in Cuba during the summer of 1916. Or perhaps Frank had regular business there. Frank appears on various New Orleans passenger records between 1916-1926, returning from trips to the Panama Canal Zone and Cuba.

Eleonor was listed on Frank's WWI draft registration card in 1917. This record shows them living in Shreveport, Louisiana. They appear together on a passenger list arriving into New Orleans on 7 September 1925 (see below), perhaps again for another anniversary trip. The S.S. Heredia departed Havana on 5 September 1925.

Source: Ancestry. New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1925.

Frank and Eleanor appear in the New Orleans voter registration records between 1935-1947. She wrote her name as Mrs. Frank H. Jaubert in the voter registration records (1935, 1939, 1940, 1945, 1947). In 1947, they were living in a stately home at 504 Chartres Street in the historic French Quarter. Eleanor's sister Marguerite later moved into the same address.

Frank Hastings Jaubert died in New Orleans on 28 April 1947. His obituary names her as Countess Leonor Barba Le Moult, which is interesting given how briefly she was married to Marno Le Moult.

New Orleans States, 29 Apr 1947.

Eleanor passed away on 10 November 1956. As far as I can tell, she had no children. It is nice to uncover this thread and highlight her story, even if it is tangentially connected to my own family history. I imagine my great-grandfather Harry had quite a few interactions with Leonora, later Eleanor, during his years in New Orleans.