Paying her annual Christmas visit to the young patients at Crippled Children's Hospital at 200 Henry Clay Avenue, 76-year-old Mrs. Stella Forcha gives presents to little Janies Landry, 3, of Slidell, and one-year-old Estelle Parker, New Orleans, who sits in her lap. Both children have birth defects. Since the hospital opened in 1955, Mrs. Forcha has made Easter and Christmas visits to patients there. Over that period, she has made and sold enough towels, aprons and other handcrafted to buy 17 new wheelchairs for the hospital, which she calls her only "hobby," Loaded with gifts and goodies, Mrs. Forcha arrived Tuesday at the hospital by taxi, but she took the bus back across town to he Banks Street home, "I'm saving that money for my next visit," she explained."

Photo is dated 1974.

Photo measures 8 x 10 inches.