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Eliza Jane Poitevant
She made Picayune a leading daily.
slurring remark about the ?old lady of Camp Street? (the Picayune?s address). He let it be widely known that he would be happy to discuss the matter over dueling pistols. There were no takers.
Within a few years, Eliza had paid off the debt, established the Picayune as a leading paper, and married George Nicholson, who was 57 to her 29. Ignoring a storm of criticism, she hired two former Yankee officers ns city editor and Sunday editor. Under her supervision, more illustrations brightened the pages. The ?weather frog? was introduced as forecaster ? a debonair figure with a cane and high silk hat. The Society Bee made his debut, to the expressed horror of old New Orleans society whose members, in spite of their protests that a woman?s name appears in a paper only when she is married and when she dies, preened when their names were mentioned. (?I
history
have a little item for you about the Smythes, and for heaven?s sake, don?t forget to put in tho ?y? and don?t say I told you.?)
The Picayune supported every good cause, from a society for protection of animals to the establishment of night schools.
The paper was also said to have opposed the lottery. But at one point, a source insisted, Mrs. Nicholson was not against it. She pointed out to Thomas Rapier, the editor, the assistance given by the lottery syndicato to people flooded out when the river overflowed, and to Syndicate help in shoring up levees. Then she delivered her coup de grace to Rapier, who had loathed any form of gambling since the day when, ns a young man, he had lost money in his first poker game. ?Besides,? she said, ?you know what a fine man my neighbor, John Morris, is, and he is interested in the lottery. Anything he?s connected with must be all right.?
In February, 1896, George Nicholson died. His devoted widow contracted pneumonia and followed him in death 11 days later. She was 47.
THE TIMES-P
INSTANT Wl
To find out if you have woi check the box below. If you Security number (in the ex? card) you are a winner.


Pearl Rivers Penning page in publishing history -part2
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