NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans hatter and World War II veteran will be bestowed France’s highest award for his service in the war.
Next week at the National World War II Museum, 99-year-old Samuel Meyer of Meyer the Hatter hat shop in Downtown New Orleans will receive the French National Order of the Legion of Honor to the rank of Chevalier. The Legion of Honor is the highest military and civil decoration awarded in France.
On Tuesday, the Ambassador of France to the United States, Laurent Bili, will present Meyer with the award on behalf of the President of France.
Meyer is honored with the award for his work as an aircraft armorer, responsible for loading P-38 fighter planes with bullets, and bombs, which helped liberate Nazi-occupied France during the war.
“Meyer was drafted into service at 18 years old. Boarding the train in New Orleans on St. Patrick’s Day 1943, he departed for training that took him to Florida, Massachusetts, and Colorado. Corporal Meyer served in the 485th Fighter Squadron, 370th Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force,” said the National World War II Museum on their website.
Meyer The Hatter
Mayer has been selling Stetsons, fedoras, pork-pie hats, straw hats, top hats, and many other fashionable hats at his St. Charles Avenue shop when it opened its doors in 1894. He tells The Times-Picayune that as far back as he remembers Stetsons would sell for $5; now they sell for about $200.
Today, the shop is a staple in New Orleans and a monument to the way the world once was, where men and women wore hats daily to now being a place of fashion trend for the classes.
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