From 1821 until the end of the Civil War, many enslaved individuals worked in the house cooking and serving meals, cleaning, attending family members, and caring for the children. Venus, an enslaved cook, Martha Ann, an enslaved laundress, and others unidentified lived in cabins behind the house. The exception was the Prud’homme children’s enslaved nanny or nurse who lived in this room on the lower level of the house. The brick for the walls were handmade and kiln-fired, probably on the plantation.
The floor was most likely dirt. The palings enclosing the ground-floor rooms likely would not have been here at the time, making an open porch/workspace around the central rooms like the gallery upstairs. In addition to a door that led outside, the Nanny’s Room had a staircase leading to a trap door which opened into the upstairs bedroom. At any hour of the day or night the enslaved nanny could be summoned to care for the Prud’homme children.
In 1845 Celeste was an enslaved nurse on the plantation and may have lived in this room. After the Civil War, the family hired nannies to look after the children. These nannies, including Marie Wilson and Carrie Helaire, did not live in the Nanny’s Room. The trap door was covered over with new flooring in the 1950s.
Cane River Creole National Historical Park
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service