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Society

City Personals
Mary Clay Brooks

Cathryn Miller Douglas celebrates birthday

Mark and Maia Miller spent Saturday night in Starkville with Bradley and Cathryn Douglas.

Mindy and Ellen Gresham and Graham and Sassy Miller drove over on Sunday for brunch with the group. They were celebrating Cathryn’s birthday - Happy birthday, Mrs. Douglas!

Randy Douglas and son, William, of Demopolis, Ala., were the weekend guests of his parents, Leigh and Dick Douglas.

Cade Cupp, son of Walker and Heather Cupp of Collierville, Tenn., was the spend-the-night guest of his grandmother, Becky Cupp, on Saturday.

Happy belated birthday to Tammy Cupp, who celebrated on Friday.

Walter Griffen from Starkville was the out-of-town guest of Suzanne DeBardeleben. He enjoyed a tour of Holly Springs and cocktails and dinner at White Pillars, home of Mrs. Bob Gilstrap.

(To put your news in City Personals, please e-mail maryclayb@yahoo.com; mail to City Personals, The South Reporter, P.O. Box 278, Holly Springs, MS 38635 or call 662-252-4261.

You may also e-mail your City Personal news to south@dixie-net.com).

Fason-White vows said in July ceremony

Charita Lorene White and Derrick Maurice Fason were united in holy matrimony on July 21, 2007 at 4 p.m. at St. John United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tenn.

They spent their honeymoon in Las Vegas, Nev.

Charita is the daughter of Daniel and Florean White of Holly Springs.

Derrick is the son of the late Herman Ross and Nelsie Fason, the stepson of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Brown of Memphis, Tenn.

The couple resides in Memphis, Tenn.

Museuming
Lois Swanee
Museum Curator

Holly Springs is a city filled with culture....

Holly Springs does have an incredible cultural heritage! What is a place without culture? Holly Springs and Marshall County are a place filled with culture and the arts, as they are prevalent here.

Holly Springs is a city of museums and galleries. We had no museum at all until 1970 when the Marshall County Historical Museum was created to keep and show the treasures of the county. The families of Holly Springs and Marshall County gave all the artifacts, as the museum had no money to buy anything. Before that, in 1962, the Kate Clark Art Gallery opened and it is unique as it is the only museum with only one woman’s work in it. Kate Clark’s incredible work is shown here. Kate Clark left everything she had to Holly Springs, including 1,050 beautiful paintings. Her work is so incredible.

After she died, the townspeople were enthralled with seeing these unbelievable paintings. She lived in Holly Springs most of her life except for the years she spent in New York at William Chase’s Art School.

She died with no family and left it all to Holly Springs with the stipulation that the work not be sold as the paintings were like the children she never had.

The Ida B. Wells Museum began in the early nineties and was created as the black community was expressing its own culture through the art gallery. It was housed in a grand antebellum home, which was on the path of destruction, so the beautiful house was saved at the same time. Holly Springs started off with at least 150 antebellum homes and only 60 are left.

This art gallery began in the Victorian Queen Anne house two lots down from the present gallery. This beautiful house was built about 1875 and is one of four Victorian houses in town, so it was saved at the same time. This museum honors Ida B. Wells, the Civil Rights worker who was born on the property in July of 1862 as a slave. However, the Emancipation Proclamation in August of 1862 freed her. She was only a slave one month.

The next museum helped save the antebellum Catholic Church and it is named “The Church of the Yellow Fever Martyrs” after the Catholic nuns who, while as nurses during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, gave their lives. The courthouse had been opened as a hospital for Yellow Fever victims but people were being struck with this plague so fast that there weren’t enough people to bury the victims and not enough caskets to bury them in, so they were buried in four mass graves in the southeast corner of the cemetery. Bodies of the victims were moved to the courthouse lawn and lay in rows in the yard of the courthouse. About 20 years ago, the graves were mowed down as it had been forgotten who was buried in them.

This museum is unique as it has most of the original pews. The original bell in the belfry is beautiful. I only heard it ring once but at least it is there and saved.

Rust College has a unique African Dreams Museum on its campus in the Administration Building, which is unique itself as it is an exact copy of Independence Hall in Philadelphia and is so picturesque sitting majestically up on Rust Hill. Rust was the first school for freed men beginning in 1866 as soon as the Civil War ended. The artifacts in this art gallery were given by an individual a few years ago and were his lifetime collection of African art. This gallery is open to the public sometimes.

Paul McLeod is a local genius who was born in Hudsonville. In his life he became an Elvis Presley impersonator. He could sing as well as Elvis but he didn’t have Colonel Parker to promote him. He married a girl who looked just like Priscilla. He bought his antebellum house, built in 1840 and uses it to hold his unique Elvis Presley collection. He is open around the clock and visiting Paul is a unique experience you will never forget. This museum is made up of his collections of Elvis memorabilia. He has a son named “Elvis Aaron Presley McLeod.” This museum has visitors from all over the world and had more visitors than anyone else in town.

Marshall County was settled in the 1830s by cultured, educated, second and third sons of Virginians and Carolinians who were also rich. Holly Springs was incorporated in 1837 and that year started off with 36 doctors, 40 lawyers and ten schools where two years before had been nothing but wilderness. Holly Springs was like the capitol of north Mississippi as our legal bar of lawyers was so outstanding. These men had been successful back east and when they moved here they excelled in their greatness. One governor of Mississippi was from Marshall County and nine members of the Confederate Congress were from here, and so were 11 Confederate generals.

In the decades following the Civil War, John Phillip Sousa gave concerts here with his band. Tom Thumb, the world’s smallest man, was shown here in the upstairs room over Craft & Wynne. You could see him for 25 cents.

Prosciutto-Wrapped Figs with Gorgonzola and Walnuts

9 fresh figs, halved

18 (1x5 inch) paper thin strips

prosciutto (about 3 ounces)

3 tablespoons Gorgonzola cheese

18 walnut pieces

Preheat broiler. Cover large rimmed baking sheet with foil. Wrap each fig half with 1 prosciutto strip; place on prepared sheet. Broil until prosciutto chars slightly on edges, about 2 minutes. Turn figs; broil about 2 minutes longer, watching closely to prevent burning.

Place 1/2 teaspoon Gorgonzola atop each fig. Top each with walnut piece. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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