Amelie Dalier

Amelie Dalier 1923-2005
Sandra Richard 1946-2005

John Burke
Staff writer

Amelie Dalier and Sandra Richard were more like sisters than aunt and niece.

The 82-year-old Dalier and 58-year-old Richard shared a first-floor apartment on Cleveland Avenue in Mid-City.

Dalier, though retired, remained active, immersing herself in volunteer work. She was active in the Golden Agers, St. Anthony Altar Society and enjoyed ballroom dancing. During World War II, she worked as a volunteer hostess at the USO center on Canal and Carondelet streets, jitterbugging with the enlisted men.

A nostalgia buff, she enjoyed watching classic films. "Anything old, she liked," said her brother, Paul "Bert" Dalier.

Amelie often told friends and family about the time she met the legendary crooner Johnny Ray during a vacation in Las Vegas. "She tripped, and Johnny Ray helped her up," her brother said.

She was the daughter of Joseph and Amelie Dalier, both pharmacists. One of six children, she grew up in the family home on Banks Street across from the Dixie Brewery. After graduating from Rabouin Vocational High School, she went to work for her father in his pharmacy.

In 1951, a year after Amelie's younger brother Dan, a Marine reservist, died in a mortar attack during the Korean conflict, her father sold Dalier's Pharmacy. Amelie Dalier moved to Baton Rouge, where she stayed for about 10 years.

After her return to New Orleans, she went to work at Hite's Pharmacy on South Jefferson Davis Parkway and was still working there two decades later when her niece, Sandra Richard, began working there as a cashier. They worked together for several years until Dalier retired.

Richard eventually left Hite's. A sports fan, she loved to watch Saints games on television. During the baseball season, she could be found frequently at the Zephyrs games.

"She knew a lot about sports -- more than most men," said Miyong Gowing, owner of the Jax Brewery shop "Accessorize It" where Richard worked part-time.

As Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast, Dalier's sister-in-law, Claire Dalier, urged the women to leave their apartment. Neither Dalier nor Richard owned a car, so evacuating would not be easy. They decided to stick it out.

"The good Lord is going to take care of us," Claire Dalier recalls her sister-in-law saying.

The bodies of the two women were recovered several weeks later in their first-floor apartment, where they apparently drowned as flood waters swept through the city. Their remains were sent to the state's temporary morgue at St. Gabriel and await positive identification through dental records or DNA.

"The marshal told me they had their IDs on them," Claire Dalier said, "so maybe they were trying to get out."

Published in The Times-Picayune.