Mrs. Estelle Gottschalk Hubbard stands among the quiet architects of healthcare in twentieth-century New Orleans. A registered nurse and community leader, Mrs. Hubbard recognized a glaring gap in the city’s medical landscape: Black patients suffering from terminal illness had nowhere to go. In an era when segregation defined not only where people lived and worked but also where—and whether—they could receive care, the absence of a dedicated facility for the terminally ill left countless families to shoulder overwhelming burdens alone.
In 1945, the city’s Touro-Shakespeare Home in Algiers and the New Orleans Home for Incurables on Henry Clay Avenue both only admitted white patients. The Lafon Old Folk’s Home of the Holy Family and the Lafon Protestant Home, both cared for Black elderly, but did not have facilities for those with chronic disabilities or noncontagious diseases.
Phyllis Wheatley Sanitarium & Flint Medical College, 1566 Canal Street
Estelle Hubbard was approaching the fiftieth anniversary of her entry into the nursing profession when she embarked upon a new endeavor, founding the Colored Home for Incurables on 7 September 1945. She raised the funds needed to begin the home – which started in a single shotgun house – by hosting duck dinners and benefit parties. On 4 June 1946, she incorporated the New Orleans Home for Colored Incurables. She opened the home at 117 Victoria Street (now 3608 Victoria Street) on 11 December 1946. The site, which measured 60 by 101 feet, was located just off of the Old Gentilly Road, past Dowman Road, in what was then still a sparsely settled area. In the early years, the home benefited from personnel and support of the Community Health Association (Visiting Nurses Association). In 1948, the New Orleans division of the American Cancer Society donated $3,000 for an addition to the home. Another $1,325 towards the purchase of equipment was contributed by the New Orleans Insurance Executives Council through Dr. Rivers Frederick. All of the home’s patients were referred to it from Charity Hospital or the Department of Public Welfare. Mrs. Hubbard died on 6 May 1948, eight months after retiring from a more than twenty-five-year career with the City Board of Health.
The institution she built was continued by its board of directors which renamed the home the Estelle Hubbard Memorial Home in her honor. On 7 May 1950, a photograph of the foundress, Mrs. Hubbard, was unveiled by the board of directors. In 1950, the home affiliated with the Community Chest (predecessor to the United Way), which became a major source of financial support. The home was intended to always be under the supervision of a registered nurse. The first superintendent was Ernestine Jones, who was replaced by Augustine Mitchell in 1950. The longest serving superintendent was Mrs. Ida M. Governor. The last superintendent was Mrs. Marilyn Cooper McGhee.
Estelle Hubbard Home residents at Thanksgiving Program (24 November 1971) sponsored by Vera Cruz Chapter No. 165, Order of the Eastern Star, Prince Hall Affiliation.
From its founding through the 1950s, the home had a capacity of approximately twenty patients. These patients were ministered to twice a month by a Catholic priest and every Sunday by a Protestant minister. One of the ongoing needs of the home was a regular program of activities for the residents. At various times throughout the year, the home’s Forget-Me-Not Auxiliary, which was founded in 1952, sponsored holiday parties and garden parties for the residents.
In 1964, the home bought the former Robinson Infirmary at 3300 Hamilton Street in Hollygrove (operated by Dr. Paul T. Robinson as a private hospital and later guest house until he migrated to California). The new facility was dedicated on Sunday, 7 June 1964. The move enabled the home to double its capacity. The gardens at the new campus were maintained by volunteers from the Evergreen Garden Club. By 1972, the home’s total number of residents had grown to thirty-five and its annual budget was nearly $53,000.00, made up in large part from appropriations of $180.00 per patient from the Department of Public Welfare. In 1966, reflective of legal and societal changes, the home formally announced that it was open to patients of all races and began receiving some white residents.
Board of Directors of the Estelle Hubbard Memorial Home (1962)
A number of business, civic, and social leaders served on the board of directors during the home’s existence. These directors included Elizabeth Haynes, Anna Combre, Josephine Davidson, Marian H. Henry, Ethel Henry, Elmer Lele, Velma Houston, Alma Gougis, Amelia Crowden, Eola Lyons Baker, Elvina Bertrand, Myrtle Beevers, John W. Beevers, James Debose, Robert A. McLean, Joseph W. Mason, Preston N. King, Archie Benjamin, Bernice Carkum, Helen Soupenne, Theodore Williams, Thomas Fields, Mary Carter, Jacqueline Henry, August Weber, James W. Lee, Mrs. A. Chalk, Dalton J. Williams, Joseph O. Misshore, Jr.; Ronald Mosely, Arthur J. Chapital, Dr. Henry E. Braden, McKinley Parfait, John W. Ormond, Marie Ormond, and John Daniels. The home’s physicians included Dr. Thaddeus Taylor and Dr. Ernest Cherrie. The longtime bookkeeper was George J. McKenna.
The home continued to serve those with long-term illnesses and disabilities until 1975. By that time, several larger nonprofit and for-profit facilities had come into existence to serve that population. The property at 3300 Hamilton Street was sold to the City of New Orleans in 1976 for $53,000. Since that time, it has been used as the Carrollton Hollygrove Senior Center.
Estelle Hubbard Memorial Home, 330 Hamilton Street (now Carrollton Hollygrove Senior Center)
Estelle Gottschalk was born in New Orleans in approximately 1873. Her father, William Louis Gottschalk, was born in Indiana but lived in New Orleans, until he moved to Mobile in 1884. Like his father, Andreas Gottschalk who immigrated from Altona, Holstien, Germany, William was a jeweler and watchmaker. Estelle’s mother, Amelia Jamison, was a native of Louisiana, who died of tuberculosis on 24 June 1881, after having had six children with William Gottschalk.
Estelle Gottschalk Hubbard (1874-1948)
On 25 August 1894, Estelle Gottschalk was married to Arthur Gabriel Hubbard (son of William Hubbard and Prudence Francois) by Father Prim of St. Mary’s Church on Chartres Street. That same year, she became one of the founding members of the Phyllis Wheatley Club, an organization of progressive and civic-minded women founded by educator Sylvanie Francoz Williams. The following year, the club shepherded the Phyllis Wheatley Sanitarium and Training School for Negro Nurses into being. Estelle Hubbard and her sister-in-law, Mary (St. Charles) Gottschalk, were members of the first graduating class, which was under the instruction of Dr. James Turner Newman, one of the city’s pioneering Black physicians.
On 28 January 1895, Estelle and Arthur’s only child, Norma Hubbard (later Mrs. Thomas Ferguson & Mrs. Arthur Taylor), was born. When Norma was fifteen, her mother filed for divorce citing cruel treatment at the hands of her husband. The divorce was granted on 5 May 1910.
Mrs. Hubbard spent her entire career as a nurse and midwife. She is said to have founded the first “well-baby clinic” in the area and operated a public health clinic in a part of her home at 2019 North Roman Street. She was a charter member and past president of the Louisiana State Colored Graduate Registered Nurses Association, which began in 1920. She was also active in the Ladies’ St. Roch Benevolent Association and a very active member of the Thompson Chapel Methodist Church on St. Roch Avenue.
In 1947, she was honored by Zeta Phi Beta Sorority as its “Woman of the Year.” Estelle Gottschalk Hubbard died on 6 May 1948. She was buried from Thompson Chapel and interred in St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery. She was survived by her daughter, Norma (Hubbard) Ferguson Taylor; her cousin whom she reared, George Chase; and her foster child, Peter Durand. On Sunday, 18 July 1948, by the Reverend T.R.W. Harris, pastor and district superintendent, unveiled a memorial to her in Thompson Chapel. After her death, the nursing home she founded was renamed the Estelle Hubbard Memorial Home for Incurables in her honor. As a result of her vision and commitment, the home provided invaluable service to those with long-term illnesses and disabilities for thirty years.
Hubbard Tomb, St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery No. 2 (right Piety Street aisle)
Jari C. Honora
Sources: “The Phyllis Wheatley Sanitarium,” The Daily Picayune, 26 November 1896, 3; “To Unveil Memorial,” The Times-Picayune, 17 July 1948, 10; “Hold Funeral Rites for Estelle Hubbard,” The Louisiana Weekly, 15 May 1948, 1; “A Picture of the Late Mrs. Estelle Hubbard,” New Orleans Item, 5 May 1950, 6; “Cancer Fund Unit Schedules Meeting,” New Orleans Item, 3 April 1948, 12; “Funds Donated for Cancer Wing,” New Orleans Item, 17 February 1948, “Nurse’s Funeral Slated Tomorrow,” New Orleans Item, 8 May 1948, 2; “Estelle Hubbard Final Rites Set,” The Times-Picayune, 8 May 1948, 2; “Negro Incurables Cared for in Home,” New Orleans Item, 10 February 1947, 12; “Hubbard Home Elects Board and Officers,” The Louisiana Weekly, 8 February 1969, 9; “Estelle Hubbard Home to Open in New Quarters Sun.” The Louisiana Weekly, 6 June 1964, 5; “Hubbard Home to Celebrate Anniversary,” The Louisiana Weekly, 7 July 1962, 5; Souvenir Program : Forty-First Annual Session of the National Medical Association […], August 11-17, 1935, Dillard University, New Orleans, Louisiana (Historic New Orleans Collection, object no. 92-48-L.78.203).
