Natalie Vivian Scott was once described by author Sherwood Anderson as “the best newspaperwoman in America.” She became a vital force in the creative salon of intellectuals who gathered in the French Quarter during the 1920s. This was a time that saw the reawakening of this original section of New Orleans life, thanks to the efforts of Scott and her colleagues.
She was widely recognized as a literary and cultural dynamo of the early twentieth century; however, her accomplishments can hardly be pigeonholed into these two categories. As a Red Cross nurse and translator during World War’s I and II, Scott was awarded the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest medal for bravery. She received this medal after rescuing patients from the continuously bombed and debris-filled upper floors of the medical building she worked in.
Scott was a celebrated writer and journalist in Mexico and the United States. Opening the Kitigawa House, a pension for artists and writers in Mexico, she continued her literary influence. Her indomitable and charitable spirit led her to create a peasant school and medical cooperative in impoverished Taxco, Mexico. A location that she eventually made her home until her death in 1957.
This incredible account of her passions, causes, and adventures is one of a real New Orleans lady—a lady whose comfort in the role of a Southern woman belied the adventurous and varied life she led.