Wednesday was voodoo queen Marie Laveau’s birthday. She turned 224 years old. Sure, Laveau died at age 79 in 1881 and was entombed in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. But she’s still around in spirit. At least that’s what flamboyant French Quarter occultist Mary “Bloody Mary” Millan believes.
In a double shotgun house at 1020-1022 St. Ann St. Wednesday, Bloody Mary led a half-dozen tourists in an enthusiastic rendition of “Happy Birthday.” A cake was cut and Champagne foamed onto the floor. The sparkling wine wasn’t wasted, Bloody Mary said, because the otherworldly beings that wander the place expect their share. “They always get libations,” she said.
Bloody Mary, who runs the nearby Haunted Museum on North Rampart Street, rents half of the St. Ann double shotgun where Laveau’s home once stood. She uses the place as an art studio and office, where she’s working on a book about Laveau.
Trouble is, she said, for the past few months, the ghostly activities in the house have been so distracting she hasn’t been able to get much work done. Sure enough, on Wednesday, a tall, strapping dude from New Mexico, who’d signed up for Bloody Mary’s Marie Laveau birthday tour, said he’d heard a disembodied male voice murmuring in the back patio of the St. Ann house.
A painting of Voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau in the window at the French Quarter home of Jody “Cajun Queen” Boudreaux. The location of the house in the 1000-block of St. Ann Street was once the site where Voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau lived in New Orleans. A fire damaged the rear half of the building on Monday, May 19, 2025. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Spirits, Bloody Mary explained, always get riled up when there’s construction or renovation in an old house. Or, in this case, a fire. Back on May 19, the other half of the St. Ann shotgun house caught fire. The blaze blackened and blistered the walls before the fire department arrived to drown it out.
Bloody Mary has reason to believe Marie was looking out for her that night. When she arrived on St. Ann Street in the wee hours, she found the other side of the shotgun badly scorched. “I rushed over here not knowing what to expect,” she said. The neighbor’s half “had burned badly, and it smelled badly,” but when Bloody Mary entered her side, “nothing was touched.”
Psychics have assured her, Bloody Mary said, “that the whole place should have went (up) and that it was a miracle.”
Mary ‘Bloody Mary’ Millan pours a few drops of Champagne on a shrine dedicated to legendary voodoo queen Marie Laveau in a French Quarter house built at the site of Laveau’s 19th-century home
Cynics might say that gypsum wallboard and good luck prevented the fire from spreading. But Bloody Mary points to the altar to the voodoo queen that she installed on the shotgun’s shared wall when she rented the place. During Laveau’s birthday party, she reverently set a slice of cake on the shrine and sprinkled a few drops of Champagne.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com ’
