It turns out that Julia Brown was a natural person: census records show that she was born Julia Bernard in Louisiana around 1845 and married a labourer named Celestin Brown in 1880. About 20 years later, the federal government granted her husband a 40-acre parcel of land, which likely passed to Julia after his death around 1914.

Official census and property records do not mention Brown's voodoo practices, which is unsurprising. Modern New Orleans voodoo priestess, Bloody Mary, told Mental Floss that she found mentions of a voodoo priestess or queen named Brown who worked in New Orleans in the 1860s before moving to Frenier. Mary notes that, since there were no doctors in towns, Brown likely served as a local healer (or traiteur, a folk healer in Louisiana traditions) and midwife, using any knowledge and materials she could find to care for the residents.

Brown's song is also documented. In an oral history report by a long-time resident of the area, Helen Schlosser Burg, it is recorded that "Aunt Julia Brown...always sat on her porch and played her guitar and sang songs that she would make up. The words to one of the songs she sang said that when she died, she would take the whole town with her."

There is even one newspaper report from 1915 describing Brown's funeral on the day of the storm. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune on October 2nd, 1915: "Brown was buried in a cheap coffin, and when the storm came, the grave caved in, and her body was partly exposed."