Although he didn't have much formal education, he had a keen eye and was known to be good with numbers which helped him gain employment as a bookkeeper with the Insurance Oil Company, and later with the Louisiana Lottery Company. In 1880, he married one Emma Schwartz, a Dutch Immigrant from the Irish Channel. They bought a house on St. Louis Street, and soon had a child by the name of Irene, but the tranquility of married life did not last long for Emma died of Typhoid the following year, and he had Irene placed in the St. Vincent's Infant Asylum.
