In The Flow of Time – April 27, 2025
So it works like this. I’m writing Part 1 but plotting the 2nd part of the story. I’m weird, I want (to the extent possible) the fiction to be based in fact. In Part 1, a young woman named Robinette is a major character. Robinette is Marie’s extended family “big sister.” They are very close. I have Marie and her brother-in-law help Robinette and her four children escape slavery by smuggling her to Mexico. It’s a great story arc. The escape is fiction. Robinette, and her legal/slavery trouble, is real. All that happens before 1820.
We are approaching 1830 in the story. For real, Robinette is in the 1840 and 1850 census as a free woman of color. The probably actual history, Robinette never left New Orleans and was emancipated. But in the story I have her run away to Mexico. Since Robinette, for real, is in the city, I want her to come back. I need to work that into the story. This is good, it’s part of the arc. She would be a huge part of Marie’s life since this is her “big sister.”
In the census records, one of her kids—Noemi—and several grandchildren live with her. Noemi’s children have the last name of Burt. What about Noemi? How do she and her children fit? Do they matter?
I still don’t know if Noemi will be important, but… I think she and her children will be part of the weave. It’s certainly possible. Turning that into a story is what I’m doing. So, a definite Maybe. Noemi is a little kid in Part 1. For real she’s living with her mother from well before 1840 to well after 1850. Decades. So…
Off I go into census records. Names, number of kids, ages, etc. Maybe it will be useful, but these are the foundation stones of fact on which I build. From what I find I build plausibility. I have only the last name for the father of Noemi’s children. I pick a likely “Burt” from out of the census records. He’s white, and that’s plausible. I need him gone before 1850. Their last child was born 1844. My Burt is in the 1840 census, he’s the right age, his name appears on the same census page as Robinette, and he’s gone by 1850. Perfect. All I have is the man’s initials, F.A. Burt.
But where did he live? That’s not in the census. Off into the city directories… I look for Burt. In 1832 there is an Alex F Burt who lives at 241 Magazine Street. That might work. I look for Robin (Robinette became Benedicte Robin). In 1832, she lives at…. 241 Magazine Street.
Inspired luck! The likely but random selection of a guesswork mate for Noemi turns out to be where Robinette lives in 1832. He shoots he scores. His name is Alex, and now I know where they lived. Sort of.
Street numbers change over time. What was 241 Magazine in 1832 is NOT that now. Guess what? I have a source that tells me how the numbers changed over time. So I can figure out where 241 Magazine street was in 1832. Toward the bottom left of the map, that’s the corner where Alex Burt lived. I’m guessing he was a wealthy white man – he has no occupation in the city directory, and this was, in 1832, the wealthy and white part of town. I have a map 🙂
None of that gives me a story. But I have place and time and names and dates… and with those threads I can maybe weave something.
