 Ruthie Grace Moulon Origin of the Duck Girl The Ducks Mr. & Mrs. Moulon Henry Moulon Mary Louise Moulon Gary Moody Ruthie's Friends Birthday Bash 2000 Birthday Bash 2001 Articles The ENO Store
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On Easter of ’55, Henry gave
Ruthie a new duck. This was Ruthie’s fifth or sixth duck. Her last one,
Lieutenant Blass, named after a policeman friend, died of old age. "He
started getting bad, and began to bite me all the time. All the ducks turn bad
after they get old, and then I have to give them away," Ruthie told the
Times Picayune.
Ruthie named her new duck,
Jimmy Cronin, after a policeman with whom Ruthie was very fond of. They met at
the French Market coffee stand where Ruthie would go to visit her brother at
work, and every duck since then has been named after Jimmy.
Ruthie, who often renamed her friends, would call her ducks a number of variations of the name. Her ducks were also known as "Jimmy Corona" and "Jimmy Cronie." If Ruthie received a female duck, or what she perceived was a female duck (she never could tell the difference unless they laid eggs), she would name her duck, "Miss Cronie."
Jimmy Cronin & Ruthie
Part of the Duck Girl
"act" was Ruthie’s special animal sense that enable her to train
ducks to follow her. The whole Moulon family supported and groomed Ruthie to be
the Duck Girl. At times Ruthie would have only one pet duck, and at other times,
there were a dozen! Mrs. Moulon, who was raised in the country, even allowed
Ruthie’s ducks in the house.
Carol Cunningham remembers being invited into the Moulon’s shotgun double home by Mrs. Moulon, "They had the old coil springs on the floor, and it was for the duck. And she told me that the duck could go to the bathroom on the commode and she brought me in to show me… It didn’t happen."
But Mrs. Moulon wasn’t
always too thrilled to have the ducks in the house. Artist Myrl D’Arcy tells
another story of visiting the Moulon’s Royal Street home: "I go in the
house, and the mother is fighting with Ruthie over a duck… The duck’s living
in the bathtub, and the mother wanted to take a bath . Ruthie didn’t want the
mother to take the duck out of the bathtub because it would upset the
duck." Others corroborated that Ruthie and her mother often fought about
having the ducks in the house.
THE LEGACY OF "JIMMY CRONIN" LIVES ON IN CITY PARK
People have always wondered what happened to all the ducks Ruthie owned through the years. On Easter Sunday, Ruthie was often presented with baby ducklings. But eventually, they would disappear. Rumors abound that Ruthie’s ducks have ended up as Thanksgiving dinner for several French Quarter residents. But there is probably not any truth to those rumors.
Somebody Please Spare That Duck! (Undated newspaper article found – possibly early 1960s)
Ruthie Moulon, the Vieux Carre’s Duck Girl, has lost her duck. Her main worry is this: Somebody may be fattening it up for a Thanksgiving feast. The Duck Girl, as much a part of the French Quarter as iron grillwork, said she discovered her pet missing from the fenced yard at 2301 Royal this morning.
The duck’s name, like others that have followed her through the Quarter streets in the past, is Miss Cronie, "Because it’s a little girl duck." The Duck Girl said the new Miss Cronie, given to her three years ago after a predecessor was hit by a car, is a "French duck that understands little English." It is mostly white with black feathers on the back and thrives on a diet of macaroni soup and corn.
The streets of the French
Quarter are no place for a duck. The hot concrete burns their feet. The dirty
cardboard boxes Ruthie carries them in gives them no room to stretch their
necks. There’s the threat of being flattened by an automobile or bus. And
Ruthie has been known to feed them deep fried shrimp, spaghetti, and even
cigarette butts! And so it was no surprise to artist Myrl D’Arcy the day
Ruthie was drinking at Touche and left to go to the bathroom. "Watch my
duck," Ruthie said to the bartender. Two horrified environmentalist girls
sitting in the bar, scooped up the duck from the cardboard box, got in a cab,
and took it to City Park where they released it in the lagoon. Ruthie returned
from the ladies’ room to discover her duck missing. She was furious. The
police were called and Ruthie reported the kidnapping.
Sometimes Ruthie’s ducks actually survive the streets of New Orleans to become really big ducks. The ducks can be a little unmanageable and cranky when they get older. They’re also not as cute. And worse, it’s harder for Ruthie to sneak into Pat O’Briens’ with the duck hidden in her fur coat. Officer David Michel, with his partner Harold Rich, once talked Ruthie into actually letting her large white duck free in City Park. They all three went down to release the duck in the lagoon. David Michel remembers, "When she let the duck go, it was apparently a male duck, and the first female duck it came in contact with, it got its… urges off. And Ruthie turned to me and said, ‘I always thought that duck was a girl.’"
Jimmie Cronin is one famous duck in New Orleans. He should be right up there in the Animal Hall Of Fame with Lassie. Maybe he could be a costumed character to rival Donald Duck for the new Jazzland theme park. No one knows exactly how many "Jimmie Cronins" there have been, but if you go to City Park, you’re sure to find more than few descendents swimming through its mossy lagoons.
