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Joseph Alfred de Montluzin [Joseph Alfred Viallier de Montluzin du Sauzay]
December 22, 1850 - February 5, 1928
Joseph Alfred de Montluzin du Sauzay was bom in France in the city of Luneville in the province of Lorraine. He came to America in 1856 at the age of five, traveling three months by sailing ship with his mother Reine and his younger sister Jeanne to join his father, Ludovic Adrien de Montluzin, and his older brother Ferdinand, who had emigrated the year before. By the time Alfred arrived, his father had become a teacher at Jefferson College in Convent, Louisiana, and had established a home for his reassembled family.
After his father founded his own school, Ecole Classique et Commerciale, on Conti Street in New Orleans, Alfred for a time assisted him as a teacher.
In later years, after the family moved from New Orleans to Bay St. Louis, L. A. de Montluzin, who was a chemist, opened an apothecary shop, the fifth one in Mississippi. Alfred and his younger brother Rene worked there with him and after his death for the rest of their lives. Alfred was a dutiful son and brother, but he rather enjoyed provoking spirited political debates at the dinner table?in his excitable family a dubious sport and one which frequently led his father, a peace-loving idealist with a weak stomach, to throw down his napkin and leave the table in exasperation.
Alfred was a genial, convivial man with countless friends both on the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans. He often spent weeks at a time in New Orleans, particularly during the season at the French Opera House; and during those weeks his brother Rene always tried to maintain the profit at the shop, for Alfred was generous to a fault. ?Mr. Alfred always gives me lagniappel? people would say, especially at the candy counter.
When he was 77, he lost a good friend and insisted on attending his funeral. It was a cold, rainy February day, and he stood, like all the other men, bareheaded for a long time at the grave side. He developed influenza as a result and died a few days later. His funeral service was conducted at the family home at 208 North Beach Boulevard, and he was buried in the family tomb in Cedar Rest Cemetery. All the business places on the beach front were closed during that afternoon?a recognition never heretofore paid to a private citizen.
[Account prepared by Emily Hosmer de Montluzin and Emily Lorraine de Montluzin, June 2013]


de Montluzin Family Joseph-Alfred-de-Montluzin-December-22-1850--February-5-1928
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