2 minutes ago, AC1830 said:

And Adam acted as if he knew what that secret was. What his expressions.

 

Great information about Marie yet different Marie, My Love 

Or his expression was guilt or shame as to how he felt about Marie before Joe was born and he kept it from his pa 

40 minutes ago, Broken Flower said:

Or his expression was guilt or shame as to how he felt about Marie before Joe was born and he kept it from his pa 

 

Perhaps a bit of both? I'm inclined towards what @AC1830 surmises but I can also see young Adam having very mixed feelings about Marie's arrival. The expression he makes indicates either, or both. It's certainly a notable look he has in that scene.

9 hours ago, CareBear said:

Perhaps a bit of both? I'm inclined towards what @AC1830 surmises but I can also see young Adam having very mixed feelings about Marie's arrival. The expression he makes indicates either, or both. It's certainly a notable look he has in that scene.

Yes, I've always felt this, that when it is said that she treated Adam and Hoss as if they were her own, Adam's face looks as if he somewhat disagrees with this.

I just watched the scene and it does look like Adam's face reflects some negative feelings that he may have held during that time - a bit of shame and guilt, perhaps. 

 

Ben also says to Joe, "I've told you a great deal about your mother. You never really knew her." 

 

Lastly, Ben says Marie came from a "certain notorious section of New Orleans, a section the sailors called 'the Flats'.  Does anyone have any idea what this might have been in the 1840's? The only history I could dig up was a reference to The Flats, a collection of low-income apartments built in the mid 20th century. 

15 hours ago, Oxgirl said:

Yes, I've always felt this, that when it is said that she treated Adam and Hoss as if they were her own, Adam's face looks as if he somewhat disagrees with this.

Interesting... I never felt as though he disagreed.  To me, it seemed more as though he gave her a hard time and regretted it.  It's fascinating how different peoples' experience colors perceptions.

1 hour ago, AC1830 said:

 

Lastly, Ben says Marie came from a "certain notorious section of New Orleans, a section the sailors called 'the Flats'.  Does anyone have any idea what this might have been in the 1840's? The only history I could dig up was a reference to The Flats, a collection of low-income apartments built in the mid 20th century. 

 

This is a big guess here on my part. Ben's reference might refer to an area near the waterfront where sailors tended to find lodging. It would've been a dodgy place, think Barbary Coast sort of dodgy. You'd find cheap rent (by hour, day, longer term; think flat like flat rate), along with all your vices. If Marie was short on funds at any point and living in the vicinity of such an area, or even in that area itself, the reputational damage would be significant. 

 

"The Flats" doesn't appear to be an official designation of any sort, but nicknaming places isn't unusual. It could be associated with the sort of boats docked in the area most frequently or the flatter area by the Mississippi/Gulf that made it an ideal place for businesses associated with the port. Outside of vice or maritime related businesses, women weren't associated with dock/port work and respectable women wouldn't populate that area, beyond seeing off family on voyages.

 

So, that's my theory. Some sort of circumstances would've led Marie to this area for work or to live or both, a place with an unsavory reputation.  Not only that, but she was known to be married but abandoned by her husband, and doing work that was questionable in terms of respectability. Her reputation is destroyed by mere association with the location.

2 hours ago, AC1830 said:

I just watched the scene and it does look like Adam's face reflects some negative feelings that he may have held during that time - a bit of shame and guilt, perhaps. 

 

Ben also says to Joe, "I've told you a great deal about your mother. You never really knew her." 

 

Lastly, Ben says Marie came from a "certain notorious section of New Orleans, a section the sailors called 'the Flats'.  Does anyone have any idea what this might have been in the 1840's? The only history I could dig up was a reference to The Flats, a collection of low-income apartments built in the mid 20th century. 

I’ve not been able to figure this one out. “The Flats” seems to suggest a location along a waterfront. I think Marie would have been born around 1820 so New Orleans was a thriving port city. When Ben meets her around 1840, she’s living in a nice townhome in the city, but it could have been Jean’s or belonged to her cousin Edouard. 
 

Levees were in place along the Mississippi River and the area between the toe of the levee and the river is called the batture. Before the Louisiana Purchase, the batture was treated as public ground; after the Americans set up shop the batture became private property. So I don’t think Marie’s family would have lived on the batture. 

 

Perhaps they lived along Bayou St. John, Lake Pontchartrain, or another waterway.
 

We learn in Marie My Love that Marie grew up in an orphanage run by the Ursuline nuns but there’s no clue as to how old she was when her parents died or if they perhaps gave her up because they fell into poverty. There were numerous yellow fever epidemics so her parents could have died from that, leaving her in the care of the nuns.

 

This is the main reason I like Marie—she can be anything ff writers want her to be. 

@patina and @CareBear Thank you for your excellent suggestions of what Ben could have meant. It does lead to some interesting thoughts about her 'sullied' reputation - not of her own making. And it leaves open so many options for her background as Patina mentioned. 

@patina Thanks for your input from someone who lives in the area/state! You make a great point about the townhouse in Marie, My Love. I wonder when, exactly, she began living there? Another mystery! As you so rightly point out, the things we don't know make her interesting for fanfic writers. I have read many wonderful versions of Marie.

1 minute ago, AC1830 said:

@patina and @CareBear Thank you for your excellent suggestions of what Ben could have meant. It does lead to some interesting thoughts about her 'sullied' reputation - not of her own making. And it leaves open so many options for her background as Patina mentioned. 

 

It's fun when we all put our heads together and try to sort things out. Whether its inconsistent background stories or the wacky chronology, it's always neat to see.