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The story of Julia Brown stands today as one of the most well-known Louisiana voodoo legends. "Aunt Julia" was the community healer for the tiny town of Frenier, LA. Although she was their healer, many people believe she put a curse on the town. Frenier, located just east of New Orleans along the shores of Lake Ponchartrain, was completely wiped out by the Great Storm of 1915 on the day of Brown's funeral. It's rumored that Aunt Julia placed a voodoo curse on the town that leveled the community when she passed.
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Julia Brown, also known as Aunt Julia
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was the community healer for the tiny town of Frenier, Louisiana. Frenier was completely wiped out by the great storm of 1915
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on the day of Brown's funeral. And rumor has it, it was all because of a voodoo curse
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courtesy of Aunt Julia herself. So today, we're going to take a look
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at how after a hurricane devastated a Louisiana town, locals believed voodoo could be to blame
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The town of Frenier was originally known as Schlosser, named after the brothers Martin and
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Adam Schlosser, German immigrants who originally settled the area. The town was located just east
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of New Orleans, right along the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. The Schlosser brothers originally
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chose the area to harvest timber, and in time, over 25 other families joined them at their
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settlement. The timber industry, however, proved to be just a little too competitive, and the
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brothers found themselves unable to keep their business afloat. Luckily for all involved
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Frenier turned out to be an ideal environment for growing cabbage. Cabbage, of course
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is the chief ingredient in sauerkraut, a fact not lost on the German brothers. Sensing a good thing
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in the making, the Schlossers switched businesses, and after the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great
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Northern Railroad built a line through the area in 1854, the brothers began exporting sauerkraut
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north to Chicago. This time, their business was a huge success. In fact, the sauerkraut business
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would support pretty much the whole town for decades to come. Despite the change in luck
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however, life in Frenier still wasn't easy. The town had no electricity, no roads
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and most importantly for our story, no doctors. While not much is known for sure about Julia Brown, at the very least
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we can say she was definitely a real person. Many folk tales, legends, and stories are loosely
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based on real people, and indeed, Julia Brown's life was documented. According to census records
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Julia was born in or around 1845, and her maiden name was Bernard. At some point
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she married a man named Célicence Brown, and later she set up her modest healing practice
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on land granted to her husband by the government. We also know that Julia Brown inherited that land
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in 1914, not long before her passing, which was recorded on September 28, 1915. A newspaper article
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in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, written after her death, described her as a big property owner
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who was well in that section of Louisiana The religion known as Louisiana voodoo evolved from a traditional West African practice known as Vodun which means spirit in the Fong and Ewe languages spoken in Benin and
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Ghana. As a religion, Vodun is mainly concerned with sacrifice, ancestor worship, and ritual
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However, the Atlantic slave trade brought many Africans to the United States
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where their religious practices were discouraged and aggressively suppressed. Many of those enslaved Africans continued to adhere to their original beliefs, and over time
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a process of syncretism melded Vodun with Roman Catholic Christianity and Haitian Vodou
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The resulting belief system became known as Louisiana Vodou. Often confused with other
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religions like Haitian Vodou and Low Country Hoodoo, Louisiana Vodou entails healing
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protecting, and, in some rare cases, harming other people via the use of amulets and charms known as
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Grigri. While Voodoo has no formal theology or universally acknowledged deities, the names of
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numerous lesser deities were recorded during the 19th century. These include, but are not limited to
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Grandfather Rattlesnake, Voodoo Magnan, Papa Leba, Anzonquer, Monsieur Ansonquet, Charlo, Monsieur Dany, also known as Blanc Dany. Unfortunately, much like it is today, Voodoo
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was a widely misunderstood faith in the early 20th century. Although Voodoo priests are generally
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healers who believe in doing good in their communities, many perceive them to be practitioners
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of curses and black magic, an image that has been largely ingrained by modern pop culture
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This stereotype is particularly associated with the idea of the zombie, a form of the undead
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created by reanimating a corpse. The term zombie is believed to be ultimately derived from the
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Congo Bantu term, Nizambi, which means God. In pop culture, zombies are widely known from the
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movies of George Romero, which include Night of the Living Dead and a whole lot of other movies
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with the words Living Dead in the title. Interestingly, Romero's movies hardly ever
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employ the term zombie to refer to their monsters, and the director himself has expressed confusion
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over how the word became associated with what he had originally called simply ghouls
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According to folklore, Julia Brown was known for her predictions and premonitions
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and while some were mundane, many others were quite alarming. It is said that she frequently sat on her front porch
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and sang her premonitions in the form of songs. And as you might expect, these songs occasionally
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scared the bejesus out of the locals. For example, her most famous song was one of her last
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While nobody knows what the melody was, the lyrics allegedly went, one day I going to die and take the whole town with me And you thought your neighbors were weird This particular song is where many think the curse that destroyed Frenier originated from though not everyone thinks that was Brown intent
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According to a modern voodoo priestess, voodoo isn't as much about curses as it is about healing
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But she thinks it's possible Brown was actually protecting the town and trying to warn residents of the impending storm
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While such a counterintuitive interpretation can't be ruled out entirely, it's hard not to think that if she was trying to warn people
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it'd be easier to sing something like, a storm is coming to destroy the town
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pack your bags, go on a vacation, stay at a Holiday Inn, or a friend's house, maybe camp
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It's not as cryptic, but probably would have saved more lives. The legend of the curse notwithstanding
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Julia Brown appeared to care for her community in Frenier. Using natural remedies, herbs from the nearby woods
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and basic medical knowledge, she likely acted as the town healer, or traiteur
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as they're known in Louisiana tradition. Given the lack of doctors and other medical professionals
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she also possibly functioned as the town midwife. Although the residents of Frenier relied heavily upon her
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they reportedly began to take Brown for granted. They turned to her only when they needed her
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but avoided her most other times. It's actually unclear whether she was really a voodoo priestess or not
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but many residents apparently believe she at least dabbled in dark magic
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Despite the fact that they were mostly wary of Brown's predictions, a large portion of Freniere's population still showed up to her funeral
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Many attended out of fear, but others were there because of guilt. They wanted to pay their respects to make up for the various ways they had mistreated her in life
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But it may have been too late to make amends. According to the records, it was while they were all gathered at the funeral
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that all hell began to break loose. Whatever the intent behind Julia Brown's song may have been
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she was right about the storm. It began to rain on the night of September 28, 1915
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the same day Julia died, just as she predicted. By 5.30 PM on September 29, the full brunt of the
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hurricane hit Louisiana. The storm swept into the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean
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bringing winds reaching 130 miles per hour, over 8 inches of rainfall, and a 13-foot storm surge
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The weather cleared the following day, but by then, it was too late to save anyone. The storm
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had claimed the lives of an estimated 275 to 300 people and caused about $13 million worth of damage
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In Frenier and the surrounding towns of Ruddock and Napton, the storm was disastrous
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The storm surge flattened every building in the area, washed away railroad tracks, and knocked over cypress trees
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25 Frenier residents perished while attempting to weather the storm in the railroad depot when the building collapsed According to an October 2 1915 article in the New Orleans Times
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Brown's body had been abandoned mid-funeral when the storm hit. After it was over
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her body was located, but her casket was never found. The American South experienced two significant hurricanes within a month of each other in 1915
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The first hit Galveston, Texas in mid-August, and the New Orleans hurricane hit in late September
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The Galveston hurricane claimed 400 lives, while the Great Storm of 1915 slammed southern Louisiana
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for an entire day. 300 lives were lost in the New Orleans region. Some sources report that all but
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two of Frenier's residents perished, the two residents that just happened to be out of town
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that day. Both of these storms occurred during the Atlantic hurricane season, which lasts from
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June through November. But while those in New Orleans were warned a few days ahead of the
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storm's approach, there wasn't enough time for the warning to reach Frenier and surrounding towns
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Frenier was a very small village established along with the train stop between New Orleans and
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Ruddock, a logging town to the northwest of New Orleans. Ruddock's population numbered about 1,000
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people and was much larger than Frenier's, but it too was not prepared for a major hurricane
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It's hard to imagine today when modern technology effortlessly connects us to others in some of the
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most remote places on Earth. But without electricity or roads, there was simply no way
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to communicate the incoming storm to any of the small towns along Lake Pontchartrain. In fact
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it was a 5 to 10 mile trek through a swamp to get there from the nearby city of Laplace
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And given the weather, such a trip would have almost certainly been deadly. With no real
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warnings received, when the storm hit, it took up both Ruddock and Frenier. Hurricanes, of course
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remain a major danger to Louisiana to this very day. As recently as 2021, Hurricane Ida passed
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through the state, killing at least 12, leaving over 90% of New Orleans without power and causing
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untold billions of dollars in damages. Today, Frenier is a tiny fishing village
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encompassing a handful of houses and a restaurant. The isolated area is well-loved by residents and
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a popular spot for swamp tours and fishing. However, so much of the town was wiped out
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that it was simply never rebuilt, and it never returned to its former size after the 1915
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hurricane. Some locals believe Julia Brown's ghost still haunts the swamp near Freniere to this very
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day. Her ghostly visage has allegedly been sighted at the edge of the lake, cackling at passerbys
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Many people also visit the mass grave in Freniere Cemetery and have reported hearing
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an eerie voice singing her infamous song