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Society

City Personals
Mary Clay Brooks

Thanksgiving blessings

Christopher and Jenny Cupp and daughter, Emma Reed, Beverly Fitch and daughter, Shelby, and Sandor Viradi, all of Olive Branch, will be the Thanksgiving Day guests of Billy and Tammy Cupp. Joining them will be Becky Cupp.

J.J. and Stephen Tutor and children, Patsy, Mitch and Grace, of Hattiesburg, are the holiday guests of Martha Mitchell and Jamie Brigance, along with her sons, Stevie and Drew.

This Thanksgiving, be sure to look around your table and count your blessings, be it family, friends or the wonderful bounty set before you. This holiday season reflect on all the blessings you have been given. Someone said as the time draws near to write down a blessing every day and share those while having dinner. That should carry on throughout daily life, not just at Thanksgiving. Every day is a gift - untie the bow and enjoy it! Happy Thanksgiving to all of our wonderful readers, both near and far.

(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).

Birth announcement

Johnson

Eddie and Sarah Johnson of Barton are proud to announce the birth of their son, Harrison Scruggs Johnson, who was born Oct. 2, 2010, at Baptist Women’s Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. He weighed five pounds, 14 ounces, and was 20.5 inches long.

Maternal grandparents are Dexter and Patricia Farley of Collierville, Tenn. Paternal grandparents are Sammie and Sarah Johnson of Winona.

Great-grandparents are Pete and Sarah Farley of Barton. Harrison was named after his great-great-grandfather, the late Rollie Harrison Johnston of Barton, and Sammie Johnson of Winona.

“Strawberry Plains” on Holiday Christmas Tour

The Davis Home

“Strawberry Plains” was named because of the acres of wild strawberries on the place. It was burned by the Federal troops during the War Between the States but was renovated in 1970 by the late Margaret Shackleford and her sister, Margaret Finley, who willed it to the Audubon Society.

Eben Davis, who was one of the early settlers of Marshall County built the house in 1851. Davis was an altruistic person. He established a school for his own children and all of the children on the plantation.

He built a Methodist Church which burned years ago and gave the land for the Strawberry Methodist Church for the people on the plantation and it is still functioning today.

At the time the house was built, it was the finest house in the county. The plantation was self-sufficient with an ice house, flour mill, carriage house, blacksmith, cotton gin, stable, slave quarters and the school. There was lots of entertainment, with much of it coming from the plantation hands.

With the Civil War’s advent, this was changed forever. The place was harassed by the northern army who hated anyone named “Davis,” although Eben was not kin to Jefferson Davis. He was too old to go to war and on one occasion he had been beaten with the butt of a rifle by a Federal soldier.

He then moved to Alabama, where he had another plantation and left his wife, Martha Greenlee, to run “Strawberry Plains,” not realizing what she would have to go through. However, she turned out to be the original steel magnolia. She had never before even lifted her hand; everything was done for her.

She began running the plantation, then the Federals came in and stole all of her stock. She and her oldest son went to LaGrange, Tenn. (18 miles north of here in Tennessee) and demanded something to ride.

The Yankees called her “Old Secess” and compared her to a goose because every time they picked her clean, they would come back and she would be feathered up again.

Another time when money was running low, she salvaged a bale of cotton that she had burned to keep it from the Yankees; she compressed it by hitching a cow to the cotton presser. Then she ran it though the Yankee blockade where it brought $500.

Her most frightening experience came one day when a bunch of rough looking soldiers rode into her yard. She slipped a pistol into her pocket and went out to meet them. One of them made an obscene remark to her and she told him never to say that to her again, to which the ruffian said and “What will you do about it when it’s just you against all of us?” and repeated it again whereupon she pulled out the gun and shot him dead.

She held the others at bay until their commanding officer rode up. He said the lady did what she had to do and said the ruffian got what he deserved.

On the last raid to the house, the officer came to the door and told Mrs. Davis that her house was to be burned. She begged them not to as her children were sick and she had nowhere to go. He gave her fifteen minutes to salvage anything she could get out.

They chopped her fine rosewood piano and used it for kindling. The fire left only the walls of the house standing.

After the war Mrs. Davis and her children partially rebuilt the house and her sons and granddaughter lived in the house until the last one died in the 1950s.

Today Strawberry Plains is the headquarters of the Mississippi Audubon Society. Walter (Bubba) Hubbard is the director of the Audubon Society here in Mississippi. He is in charge of this fabulous 2000-acre Strawberry Plantation.

Tickets maybe purchased at 220 East College Ave. or bought over the phone, number is 662-252-3669.

Tickets maybe purchased in advance for $15 each for groups of 10 or more or $18 for single tickets or groups less than 10 before November 28. All tickets bought after November 28 are $22 each.

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