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Corinne de Montluzin Lewis [Louise Corinne Ernestine Reine Viallier de Montluzin du Sauzay Lewis]
August 31, 1870 - March 22, 1945
Corinne de Montluzin was the youngest of the six children of Ludovic Adrien de Montluzin and Reine Helluy. Since her parents were French and since her mother resolutely refused to speak English, only French was spoken at home, and she was as comfortable in that as in English. She attended St. Joseph?s Academy, a girls? school run by an order of French nuns in Bay St. Louis, and later studied in Paris. She made her debut in New Orleans, though her home was in Bay St. Louis. She was vivacious and dramatic, even contriving to look stylish in the long black riding dress she wore when she posed for a photographer before a bicycle ride with her brother Rene.
When she was still a teenaged girl, her mother took her to Paris for an extended visit with her French family. There she met a young second cousin, Georges Delattre, and they fell deeply in love. When she had to return to America, it was heartbreaking for both of them. She always kept the letter that he wrote to her after her ship sailed. In it he told her that even if they never saw each other again, even if they both married other people, he would always love her quand meme (anyway). As many years passed, she would now and then receive a card signed simply ?Quand meme!?
Corinne was married twice, first to A. M. Benedic and, after his death, to Hampden [Hamptom?] S. Lewis, whom she likewise survived. Dr. Lewis was a local physician, and she used to ride with him in his buggy when he made house calls. By nature romantic, she was also very superstitious. In fact, when the funeral service of one of her husbands was being held in the family home at 208 North Beach Boulevard, she insisted that the pallbearers carry his coffin out through a long French window onto the porch, believing that it would have been very bad luck for the house if the front door had been used for such a purpose.
Her last years were spent in New Orleans, where she had many friends, but she was buried in the family tomb in Cedar Rest Cemetery in Bay St. Louis.
[Account prepared by Emily Hosmer de Montluzin and Emily Lorraine de Montluzin, June 2013]