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Natalie Scott papers / Manuscripts Collection 123 / finding aid / page 2
Biographical note
Natalie Vivian Scott was bom on July 18, 1890 in Bristol, Virginia, to Nathaniel Craves Scott and Martha Vivian Fauver. Her father subsequently brought his family to New Orleans, where he worked as a railroad contractor. Scott graduated from Newcomb College in 1909, an active and popular student. She continued her studies there and earned a Master?s degree in 1914, writing her thesis on Zuripidos, Seneca, and Corneille.
During World War I Scott volunteered for the Red Cross. She went to France in 1917; for her service in a field hospital she earned the Croix de Guerre. She returned to New Orleans after the war intent on becoming a journalist. She wrote a light society column for the New Orleans States, but covered some hard news stories as well, such as the murder trial of Andrew J. Whitfield in 1920.
Through the twenties, she was friendly with the literary group that centered in the French Quarter. Its more notable members included William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Lyle Saxon and William Spratling. Scott was rather close to the last two. The collection includes a condolence letter from Saxon to Scott on the death of her brother Nauman (1926) and Spratling?s portrait of John Dos Passos signed by both artist and subject.
Miss Scott and Spratling collaborated on a book in 1927, Old Plantation Houses in Louisiana. It was through Spratling that she became interested in Mexico. He had moved there first and received and encouraged work in silver in Taxco. She made her first trip there on horseback in the late twenties and moved to Taxco in 1930. While entertaining a constant stream of visitors and tenants, she organized a group medical clinic and a day nursery for children under school age whose mothers worked and were unable to care for them during the day.
With World War II, Miss Scott rejoined the Red Cross, seeing North Africa,
Germany, and the Philippines. She continued to serve the Red Cross in Korea, returning home to Taxco in 1947. She came to New Orleans in 1950 to raise funds for a new dormitory for Newcomb College and Tulane. Thereafter until her death, she devoted her energy to the day nursery in Taxco: the building was named in her honor. She died November 18, 1957, and is buried in Taxco.