Selma Heraldo lived the entirety of her 88 years in a white, two-story house on 107th Street in Corona, Queens, and her life may have been very different had she not gained new next-door neighbors in 1943 — Louis Armstrong and his wife, Lucille.
Ms. Heraldo quickly became known as Louis Armstrong’s next-door neighbor, a good friend to the jazz great. After Armstrong died in 1971 and Lucille Armstrong died in 1983, and their house was transformed into theLouis Armstrong House Museum, Ms. Heraldo became the main local living link to the couple.
But now that link is gone. Ms. Heraldo died on Dec. 2 in her house, where she had lived alone for many years.
“It’s a hole in our hearts, and also a real loss programmatically,’’ said Michael Cogswell, the director of the museum. “As a museum director, having Selma here was something like being able to go to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, and meeting a next-door neighbor who remembers George and Martha.”
In fact, the Armstrongs learned about the house’s being for sale from Ms. Heraldo’s mother, Adele, whom Armstrong called Moms.
Ms. Heraldo was a fixture at every museum concert and event and was at the museum nearly every day, telling visitors first-hand stories about the Armstrongs. She never spoke on a formal schedule, and she never accepted payment. She also spoke at Armstrong conventions and colloquia, and at the Smithsonian Institution.
“We have 12,000 visitors a year, and thousands of them every year met Selma and remember her,” Mr. Cogswell said, adding that many visitors routinely sent her letters and gifts. They often forgot her name and would address the mail to “Next door neighbor, Louis Armstrong House.”
“Selma was the Queen of Corona,” said the saxophonist Jimmy Heath, 85, who lives in an apartment in Corona. “For her to be next door when Louis and Lucille lived there, she had some stories nobody else had. A lot of scholars study about this and that, but she would let the scholars know that, ‘I know something about Louis personally that you don’t.’ ’’
Ms. Heraldo’s role as a family friend, and not a star-struck admirer, made her invaluable to the museum, Mr. Cogswell said, noting that “She used to say about Louis that, ‘I never knew how famous he was until he died.’ ”
Ms. Heraldo’s funeral service was held Friday at the Corona Congregational Church, where Armstrong’s funeral was held. A recording of Armstrong’s joyful hit song “What a Wonderful World’’ was played, and Ms. Heraldo was buried in Flushing Cemetery, not far from Armstrong’s grave.
Ms. Heraldo worked for more than 30 years as a telephone operator and was active in neighborhood issues. She never married or had children, and she kept an eye on the Armstrong house when it was vacant during the 1980s and 1990s. She was appointed to the advisory board of the museum, which opened in 2003, and she served as a liaison for the community. Mr. Cogswell said that when a blackout in the summer of 2003 disabled the house’s alarm system and cameras, he and Ms. Heraldo slept in the house to keep an eye on things.
Armstrong gave Ms. Heraldo the nickname Little Dynamite. “She was short but had a real explosive personality,” Mr. Cogswell said.
One story Ms. Heraldo liked to tell, Mr. Cogswell recounted, was the time Armstrong came to her house and said, “Give me a glass of ice tea and an egg sandwich. I’m tired of this filet mignon and fancy food on the road.” - Read more on http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/feeling-the-loss-of-a-connection-to-louis/
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