Leona Grandison, whose Candlelight Lounge in historic Treme helped keep New Orleans' culture of live music alive for more than 35 years, died last week after a battle with the novel coronavirus, the Coroner's Office confirmed. She was 69.

Grandison, affectionately known as Ms. Chine to her friends and family, opened Candlelight in 1985 with her brother, Landry Grandison, at 925 North Robertson Street in Treme, a neighborhood where at least 30 other bars operated at the time.

Today, the yellow building, emblazoned with images of brass band leaders and music notes, is one of the last lounges standing. On April 9, it lost the owner who neighbors and friends say helped make the bar feel like home.

"Chine did keep it very much a local barroom. The culture was never compromised," said her neighbor John Richardson, the owner of the nearby Tuba Fats Square, which along with Candlelight has become a haven for jazz musicians in the area.

"She was a larger than life lady, and we are sad to see her go," he said.

Remembering those we've lost to coronavirus in southeast Louisiana From lost neighbors to friends, brothers and sisters, parents and children, and more, coronavirus has seemingly impacted everyone in some way.

Born in 1951 in the Treme, Grandison got into the business of neighborhood entertainment after the owner of a Saint Ann Street pool hall, Mae West, or "Mom," as she was known, saw a kindred spirit in Grandison and asked her to run the place.

"She trusted me. She told me, 'I know nobody can do something with this place the way you could,'" Grandison told researchers at Tulane City Center and Cornerstones in 2014.

Leona and Landry Grandison learned the business at the Saint Ann hall for 12 years before the chance to run Candlelight arrived. The siblings had been frequent patrons at that bar, then known as Grease's Lounge, every Sunday. When the owner’s lease was up, he passed it to Grandison, another gift the Treme hostess said came from God.

The name Candlelight was "something that just came to me," Grandison said. She purchased the building some time later.

The barroom was always an epicenter for live music: jazz, the blues, second lines. Regulars brought their friends. People would stop by for the latest news on happenings in the community.

In the kitchen, Grandison would whip up homemade biscuits and pancakes in the mornings, and beans on Wednesday nights.

But then came Hurricane Katrina, and with it, the scattering of the neighborhood. "The economy’s bad. People don’t have the money to come out like they used to," Grandison said.

To keep the lounge afloat, relative Benny Jones Sr., founder and leader of the Treme Brass Band, began playing on Wednesday nights, he told researchers. Years later, Grandison's cousin, Corey Henry, of Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet, began playing there on Monday nights.

In recent years, Candlelight attracted a sizable clientele, and was frequently touted by tourists and locals alike as a must-stop on the live music circuit in New Orleans.

Grandison tested positive for the coronavirus at some point after it began its grim march across New Orleans, a coroner's spokesman said this week. She died April 9.

Relatives and friends soon began expressing their grief on social media. A memorial table with her picture and a book for mourners to sign their condolences has been set up outside of Candlelight. A note nearby advises those wishing to pay their respects that a proper funeral and second line would come as soon as the disease ebbed and life in New Orleans returned to normal.

"Sad day for the fam. Love you my beautiful cuzz," Henry wrote on Facebook the morning of Grandison's death. "Gonna miss that beautiful smile of yours."

Dina Day, who moved to the Treme in 2008 to open the Candlelight Hostel down the street from Grandison’s bar, said Grandison always had a bowl of red beans for Day's two children when they were hungry.

"She was the glue that holds the corner together," Day said.

Charlie Brown, a member of the Treme Sidewalk Steppers, said that generosity is what many will miss about Grandison.

"When we get everything back together, we are going to have many tributes of her," Brown said. "Not only the family is going to miss her, but New Orleans is going to miss her."