Remembering Theresa Elloie

Age 63, New Orleans
Passed away on March 24, 2020

She was 63 when she died Monday after a two-week bout with what was ultimately diagnosed as COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the virus, said her son, Leon Elloie.

Theresa Elloie was renowned for her business of making detailed pins and corsages for various occasions, including social aid and pleasure club parades, birthday parties, weddings and banquets — and big Saints games.

She also owned the Sportsman’s Corner bar at Second and Dryades streets, which she had inherited from her father, Louis Elloie, who opened the bar in the 1960s. The watering hole is home to one of the divisions of the Young Men Olympian Club and is a stop for most second-line parades in Uptown.

Louis Elloie was a devoted fan of Saints football, whose triumphs were relatively few and far between before his death in 2008. During the 2009 season, as the Saints surged to their first Super Bowl title, Theresa Elloie noticed church ushers wearing the team’s black and gold colors. So she created special Saints church corsages for them, with a sequined fleur-de-lis, three black silk flowers, a small white plastic Bible and two praying hands.

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For secular fans placing orders, she offered corsages with a football, helmet and goalposts atop gold and black ribbons, with the words “we kick” followed by the rear end of a miniature, bent-over plastic football player.

The corsages were a big hit with fans.

"Ms. Theresa's corsages and pins are different from everybody else's," said New Orleans rap icon Mia X, a daughter-in-law who wore one of the corsages last year to mourn the death of an uncle shortly before a Saints playoff game.

Rap icon Mia X pays tribute to uncle, a 'diehard' Saints fan, with black-and-gold funeral corsage

Rap icon Mia X pays tribute to uncle, a 'diehard' Saints fan, with black-and-gold funeral corsage

Leon Elloie said he wasn’t sure how his mother contracted COVID-19. She was hospitalized about 14 days before her death, he said. She had tested positive for COVID-19 and was being treated for it, he said.

Leon Elloie asked New Orleanians to comply with the social distancing measures that officials have implemented as they try to slow the spread of the contagion. As of Friday, 119 people who were known to have COVID-19 had died across Louisiana, including 57 in New Orleans.

Steven Elloie ran Sportsman’s Corner along with his mother, and he intends to continue doing so whenever bars — which are closed for now during the pandemic — can reopen, Leon Elloie said.

Besides her sons, Theresa Elloie’s survivors include grandchildren.

Katy Reckdahl contributed to this report by RAMON ANTONIO VARGAS

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