Grew up in New Orleans and can trace
his paternal ancestors back to 1720 in Louisiana."My
father's group, the Illinois club, was started in the 1880's,
and one of its big activities was putting on an annual cotillion
for the daughters of many of the old families."
Doley also attended Xavier University
and the private, Xavier Prep before that.
The first person of color (Creole)
to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange,
Doley now runs
an investment firm that has offices in New York and New Orleans.
He is also the owner of Villa Lewaro, the twenty-thousand-square-foot
mansion that was built by Madam C.J. Walker after she became
the first woman millionaire in 1908. He is one of the many Creole New Orleans success stories that became famous elsewhere
but still holds tightly to his native city.
" Few people
realize that Andrew Young and Bryant Gumbel are from New Orleans,"
says Doley, who met Gumbel many years ago at a childhood birthday
party and remembers when Young was a student at Dillard and
later joined Central Congregational Church as assistant pastor.
"Even if we later move to other
cities," explains Doley," the culture of Creole New
Orleans is so strong that we end up returning to the community
or finding others around us who share these roots."
