the french quarter of new orleans had been undergoing something of a revival since the early 19205 indeed , william faulkner , sherwood anderson , edmund wilson , and other famous writers lived there at various times we have no evidence to connect any individual person with stella , but she was very familiar with the bohemian life of the quarter , she frequented the coffee houses and the art galleries , and she brought the musicians home to first street to play for her and threw open her doors to penniless poets and painters very much as she had done in new york to the servants this meant chaos to the neighbors it meant scandal and noise but stella was no dissolute drunk , as her legal father had been on the contrary , for all her drinking , she is never described as being intoxicated , and there seems to have been considerable taste and thought at work in her during these years .