Ruth Grace Moulon dies at 74; long known in New Orleans as Ruthie the Duck Girl

Ruthie, whose real name was Ruth Grace Moulon, was an eccentric who zoomed from bar to bar on roller-skates, often wearing a ratty fur coat or wedding gown and trailed by a string of her beloved ducks, died of cancer Sept. 6 at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge, to where she had been evacuated because of Hurricane Gustav.

She had been suffering from cancer of the mouth and lungs, said Carol Cunningham, a close friend who had watched over her for nearly 40 years.

"I've always looked at Ruthie like a little bird with a broken wing," Cunningham said. "She was always so dear to me."

Moulon, a lifelong New Orleanian, was born Jan. 19, 1934. She became a French Quarter fixture, achieving legendary status in a city that treasures people who live outside the mainstream. Along the way, she acquired a coterie of people including Cunningham who found places for her to live, paid her bills and made sure she got home at night.

A tiny woman with a constant grin, Moulon frequently sported a bridal gown and veil on her forays because, people said, she considered herself engaged to a man she met in New Orleans in 1963 when he was a sailor.

But when asked about marriage, she always answered: "I got engaged; that's enough!"

Moulon's daily routine consisted of roaming from one bar to another, mooching drinks and cigarettes. She could be sweet one minute and unleash a torrent of profanity the next.

"She's not out of touch with reality; she's just not interested," David Richmond, a photographer, told the Times-Picayune newspaper.

Miss Moulon's mother, who put her daughter's hair in sausage curls to make her look like Shirley Temple, came up with the idea that little Ruthie should be a duck girl, Cunningham said.

"She dressed her in evening dresses and bought her skates, and she skated through the Quarter with these little ducks following," Cunningham said.