Society

Ed and Anne Francisco of Norcross, Ga. announce the birth of a grandson in Denver, Co. The parents are John and Megan Francisco. He has been named our grandson Jack McCarroll Francisco. Jack is the great-grandson of Edgar and Ruth Francisco, formerly of McCarroll Place in Holly Springs.

(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).

Miss Haven Hale and Ken Daniels to wed June 27 at Temperance Hill Baptist Church

Mr. and Mrs. Kerry Alan Hale of Potts Camp announce the engagement and forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Haven Kay Hale, to Ken Wesley Daniels, son of Mr. and Mrs. James Gary Daniels of Potts Camp.

The bride-elect is the granddaughter of Knowlton and Betty Shaw of Holly Springs and the late Ervin Ray Smith of Waterford and the late Mr. and Mrs. John Hale of Potts Camp.

She is a 2000 graduate of Potts Camp High School. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education from Mississippi University for Women in 2004 where she was a member of the Troubadour Social Club, Masker Honorary Social Club, and was elected as Miss MUW. She graduated from the University of Mississippi in 2007 with a master’s degree in school counseling. She is currently a sixth-grade counselor at Southaven Middle School in DeSoto County.

The prospective groom is the grandson of Boyd and Geraldine Moore of Holly Springs and James and Louise Jennings of Potts Camp and the late James Daniels of Potts Camp.

He is a 1999 graduate of Potts Camp High School. He received an associate’s degree in electrical engineering in 2001 from Northeast Community College. In 2006, he received an associate’s degree in telecommunication technology from Northwest Community College. He is employed by Tennessee Valley Authority as a telecommunication technician in Huntsville, Ala.

The couple will exchange vows at 7 p.m. on June 27, 2009 at Temperance Hill Baptist Church in Potts Camp. A reception will follow at the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kerry Alan Hale.

Invitations are being sent to out-of-town guests. All friends and family are invited to attend.

Tammye Kirkland of Falkner is pleased to announce the engagement and forthcoming marriage of her daughter Krystle Dawn Duncan to Ricky Lee Clayton Jr., son of Ricky and Deborah Clayton of Potts Camp.

Krystle is the granddaughter of Donald Henderson of Holly Springs and Gayle Jordan of Ashland.

She is a graduate of Falkner High School and is currently a sophomore at Southern Miss, where she is studying marine biology and chemistry.

Ricky is the grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Clayton of Potts Camp and Sam and Katherine Weaver of Tullahoma, Tenn.

He is a graduate of Potts Camp High School and is attending the University of Southern Mississippi, studying biology and chemistry.

Miss Anamaree Kress to wed Zachary Walker May 23 at Southwind Church of Christ

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kress of Tulsa, Okla., announce the engagement and approaching marriage of their daughter Anamaree Kristine to Zachary Harris Walker of Germantown, Tenn. The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Danny H. Walker of Batesville.

Mr. Walker is the grandson of Irene Walker of Tillatoba and the late C.B. Walker, and of Joan McAlexander of Holly Springs and the late Grady McAlexander.

The bride-elect is a graduate of Jenks High School. She is a recent graduate of Oklahoma State University with a bachelor’s degree in animal science. In June she will begin working for Krone North America in Memphis.

The prospective groom is a 1999 graduate of South Panola High School. He attended Northwest Community College and graduated from Mississippi State University with degrees in landscape architecture and landscape contracting. He is a landscape designer with Morgreen Nursery & Landscape in Collierville, Tenn.

The wedding will take place on May 23, 2009 at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, at the Southwind Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., with a reception following.

Once, long ago, in 1892, the Mississippi Synodical College was formed from the Maury Institute. It was a school for town girls, plus a boarding school if needed. The school’s curriculum went from high school through junior college. The school was owned and operated by the Presbyterian Church.

The Walter sisters, Irene, Anne, Lillian, Pearl and Minnie were all alumni. In 1900 the famous architect from St. Louis, Theodore Link, came to Holly Springs to do restoration on the Walter Place, Featherston and Polk Houses. At the same time he designed a park in between the houses, but after his employer, Oscar Johnson (Red Banks native who married Irene Walter) died at age 51, in 1916, the estate was sold and the park forgotten.

Five years ago, Mike Lynn, who bought the Walter Place and Cottages, decided to make a park and uncovered Theodore Link’s magic garden, 100 years later. Plants that had been dormant for 100 years were still there covered up with dirt and soil. It was truly a miracle to see the old garden merging with the new.

The Walter sisters asked Link if he would design and build a new school on the school property, which they would pay for. The first thing done in 1903 was the frame antebellum house of the Hull family was moved to the back of the lot to the corner of Randolph and Falconer. The house was similar in style to the Fort Daniel House and had 18 columns around three sides of the house. There it was used as class rooms for the school and stood until 1950 when it was razed. The school closed in 1939 in the Great Depression and merged with Bellhaven in Jackson that year.

The only remains of the house are the five-room cellar rooms which are still underneath the new 1903 building. It is truly a cellar with dirt floors and walls. The building Theodore Link built is today our three-story, twenty-one room museum home. In 1970 when we created a museum here the supervisors let us use the building for the next 32 years. By this time the roof had begun to give way so we moved and the supervisors got a grant from the Archives and have made the building magnificent again.

The first building Theodore Link built was a corridor from the Watson House to our museum building. Even the corridor was great. It was two-story with dormitory rooms upstairs. It had an octagon shaped room off of it that was used as a parlor for the girls when they had company. I think the rest of it was used as a dining area. In what is now our museum building, on the first floor were double parlors, two offices and a center hall with stairs leading upstairs. Upstairs were two floors used as dormitory rooms. In the renovations a secret room was found but I can’t tell you where it is or it won’t be a secret. Theodore Link was always full of surprises.

Theodore Link designed the Mississippi State Capital, the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis train station and part of the World’s Far in 1904. We are indeed fortunate to have had his phenomenal touch on Holly Springs and we need to treasure what he has done for this place.

At the north end of the entrance hall of our magnificent museum building, were double doors leading into an auditorium. It had an organ in it and of course, a stage and I remember the floor sloped downward. When I was a child, I was painfully shy and my mother gave me “elocution” lessons to teach me to recite orally (the lessons didn’t work. The malady is still with me and pops up at inopportune times even today.) Miss Pearl Strickland Badow was my teacher and she had me, age five, up on that stage trying to recite “The Bogey Man.” I was dressed in flannel pajamas and holding a lighted candle! It is a wonder that I didn’t catch on fire but the Lord evidently was taking care of me even then. Anyway, in 1945, the beautiful little auditorium was torn away to leave an empty lot. It left an inside wall as an outside wall and moisture was coming into the museum building because the north wall was never built to withstand the elements.

When the county was rebuilding the wall, generous Warren Buffet gave us $20,000 worth of bricks to rebuild the wall. What a generous man! We were lucky to had have his blessing, too.

When the Marshall Historical Society created the museum in March of 1970, we did it without a penny. All the work was volunteer. Everybody went home and gathered absolutely beautiful artifacts from their trunks and attics and that’s why we are so fabulous. Someone came to me at that time wanting to sell the cutest little portable cotton gin painted green with a magnolia on it, but they wanted $200 for it. I wish we had known to just ask the Cotton Council (which no longest exists) for the $200 but we didn’t know. Consequently, we didn’t get the gin. We missed other great things too. For instance, one night at eleven o’clock, the phone rang and the man at the other end said, “I am dying and if you come out tonight I’ll give you great treasures, but you have to come and move them tonight.” I had young children at home and no access to a moving van or lifters, so we missed that one, too. We missed getting magnificent furniture because the ceilings in the museum were only ten feet tall. I used to know Bennie Munroe, twice bicycle champion of the world and he would have given me his bike if I had asked him, but I didn’t.

Now, we are almost ready to move back into the building. When we open the storage unit, I plan to be there with a mask on my face so I won’t breathe that six-year old air and a hankie to wipe away the tears. I need help, too, so please volunteer. We plan to take a few things out, let them air out for half a day, then place them into the museum. I don’t want the new museum having smell sickness. However, with all the rain, the things need airing but not washing, so we have to wait until the monsoons are over. Besides, I melt in the rain myself.

The building now has a three-star *** elevator, which is absolutely fantastic and useful, too. Inside the elevator is a telephone which is connected to the police station just in case we need it. The elevator is big, plush and magically glides smoothly up and down miraculously saving time, energy and lots of steps.

If you care to help, we need all help; physical, financial, mental (we are open to suggestions) and please pray for us as we move and prepare to move. Moving is always horrendous.

When it is all over, we will have a magnificent museum of which everyone should be proud. Everything costs a lot more than it used to, but we are financially strapped.

We are tax deductible, the same as your church, if you make the checks to “Marshall County Historical Museum.” We would thank you so much. It’s your museum too, if you make it so. Come and visit us soon at the Square Museum. We are great here too. 111 Van Dorn Avenue, Holly Springs, MS, 38635. 662-252-3669,

Jim Power, a native of Red Banks, has written another book, this one chronicling the tour of duty during the Civil War of Major Thomas B. Webber, CSA. Power describes Webber as a “strong-willed, somewhat snobbish individual,” who suffered from neuralgia and could be considered a misfit. He went AWOL before coming back and forming Company F that would join John Hunt Morgan’s 2nd Kentucky Calvary. Many of Company F were from Holly Springs and are listed in the back of the book -- many marked as “dead.” Major Webber, despite his infirmities, was known for his abilities, fearlessness and leadership. After one raid, where most of his men were captured, but not before rendering outstanding service, his men began to call him the “Iron Man.” With excerpts from the diaries scattered throughout the book, the hardships and reality of the war are easily pictured. Power’s background as a veteran of combat in an armored infantry in World War II, where his unit was often 50 miles in advance of the rest of the troops, gave him a special insight in the trials that Company F underwent, deep in unsafe territory. Power has a degree in history from the University of Mississippi and is also the author of “And It Came To Pass,” a memoir of his mother, Octie Power of Red Banks, and life in rural Mississippi during the 1920s and ’30s; and “A Respectable Minority in the South During the Civil War,” the story of many Southerners, primarily Mississippians, who remained loyal to the Union. “The Iron Man and the Mississippi Company of Morgan’s Raiders” is not only a must-read for history enthusiasts, the accessible, easy-to-read style brings the soldiers to life for all readers. The book will be available, signed by Jim Powers, at the genealogy meeting May 22, 10 a.m. at the Marshall County Library. Or you may order from the publisher, AuthorHouse, by calling 800-839-8640 or visiting their website, www.authorhouse.com.


Thursday, May 21, 2009
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