GRSNO Meeting - Newsboys of New Orleans

Pat Bedenbaugh will present a brief history of the newsboys of New Orleans at 7 p.m., Monday, Nov. 17, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public. Registration is not required.

1870s in New Orleans – It was a time of loss and suffering following the end of the Civil War. Yellow fever epidemics and mass immigration of the poor filled New Orleans with orphans and half-orphans. The newsboys were among those numbers. Many of those newsboys were family breadwinners. Pat Bedenbaugh’s grandfather was among them. His obituary said he was cast “upon the streets” at the age of 4 and lived in the newsboys’ home until he married.  That obituary started her search to learn about the home.

 Barefoot Boys is a brief history of the newsboys of New Orleans in the 1870s to the early 1900s.  The story outlines the efforts made to get the newsboys off the streets and into a clean safe place to live and learn. The Sisters of Mercy, with the help of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, established the home and school. This is their story.

Bedenbaugh is a native of New Orleans. She graduated from Dominican High School and McNeese University. She became interested in genealogy when she started researching the heritage of her Irish and Sicilian grandparents. During that early research, she met Sheila Larmann thanks to the Friends of St. Alphonsus in the Irish Channel. Sheila always had a wealth of information for Pat about the Irish in New Orleans.

In the St. Alphonsus museum, Bedenbaugh found a picture of the newsboys. Her grandfather was in the middle of that picture. Her subsequent research led her to write a brief history of the newsboys’ home for St. Alphonsus in about 1990. She is still researching the home, the people who helped them, and the boys who lived there.

The Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans was established in 1960 to foster an interest in family research and to encourage preservation of genealogical records in New Orleans, and in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast south. Since January, 1962 the Society has published a quarterly, New Orleans Genesis, which is available to its members. 

Program inquiries should be directed to Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.