In the 1870’s, when her four daughters were all nearly of age: Fanny and Carlotta variously working or caring for family members, Helen in Europe, and Lucy a teenager; Julie spent part of each winter in New Orleans with Morris rather than living in Hartford. New Orleans was clearly a very important part of their lives, yet it always seems to have a curiously insubstantial feel as captured here by a letter from Julie in 1875:

“One week from today I expect to set sail for New York…Already the orange blossoms and the pomegranate buds, and the thousand roses, and the Japan plums, and all the peculiar enjoyments of New Orleans begin to slide backwards into the part and I look forward to the hard work which awaits me at home.”

Julie clearly never saw New Orleans as a home. I strongly suspect that Lucy’s death in New Orleans a few years later ensured that any desire for a connection was entirely extinguished.
The distance was compounded in the next generation: Fanny, and Carlotta all spent a great deal of time in New Orleans, but Helen never did. Helen’s marriage to WWE ensured that the next generation was a solid part of New York City; and New Orleans faded into the past. It still pops up though, here and there in the house. Mostly in the artwork, sometimes in things relating to Fanny and Carlotta (whose letters I have yet to contemplate)