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Society

City Personals
Mary Clay Brooks

Dunn Boatwright celebrates birthday with swimming party at his home

Dunn Boatwright celebrated his birthday Saturday with a swimming party at his home. Grace and Chad Brownlee hosted the event, which was attended by Dunn’s friends. They all enjoyed grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and spending Dunn’s birthday with him.

A big welcome home to Wynne Boatwright, who was injured in a horrific car accident a couple of weeks ago. Glad to see she is on the mend and being taken care of by those who love her best! Here’s to a speedy recovery!

(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).

Museuming
Lois Swaney Shipp
Museum Curator

Holly Springs to the Year 1878

In 1931, William Baskerville Hamilton was the English teacher at Holly High at the same time he was getting his master’s degree from the University of Mississippi.

At that time he was working to capture the elusive history of Holly Springs, which had never been written down. He began to collect stories of what happened here and wrote it down along with his sources of information.

When the Marshall County Historial Museum opened in 1970, I had a copy of that thesis and we published it to sell to the public.

This book tells the stark truth of early Holly Springs with no frills. So when it was published in 1931, people didn’t like the stark truth about their ancestors and this book wasn’t popular nor publicized. Now the books are on sale at the museum for just $7 each. You need one for your library. The name of it is, “ Holly Springs to the Year 1878.”

Museuming
Lois Swaney Shipp
Museum Curator

The sounds of the South

I love to sit in my prayer garden at twilight time and listen to the concert taking place in the trees. The tree frogs and locusts are in harmony, then all of a sudden, they rest and there’s absolute silence. Then the 7 o’clock railroad whistle comes through and it sounds lonely. The engineer is tooting his horn to tell the people “I’m coming through!” At daybreak, the sounds in my garden are very peaceful and wonderful and completely different. The birds are singing, each one his own tune. My garden is at the end of the season but still beautiful. We planted two tomato plants and haven’t received a tomato yet, but now the plants are taller than I am.

In days long ago, the sounds were different. The compress whistle whistled each morning at 7 o’clock and again in the afternoon announcing “It’s time to go to work or school, or wake up,” or “It’s closing time! Day is over!” The sounds of wagons with horses clomping along are over. Horn sounds you hardly ever hear anymore. I remember Bertha Shumaker, age about 90, speeding through town in her big car pressing on the horn. That horn meant “Get out of the way or you’ll be sorry.” She was a lovely lady but a dangerous driver.

When I lived on College Avenue, Charlie and Speedy, my boy cousins, and their mamas came from out of town to see us. We all were about 10-12. One of them saw the bell on the Catholic Church next door. He said, “Does that bell ever ring?” My reply was, “Never.” Then he said, “Well let’s climb it and see if it will ring!” So we climbed up my mother’s apple tree she had planted by the church and then I remember running down the peaked roof of the church and pushing that huge bell, which looked a lot bigger up there than it did from the ground. “Dong, dong!” Wow, could it ever ring! Then from the roof, I saw Mrs. McDermott running from her house to the church and knew we had to get off the roof. Living up to his name, Speedy made it down first, then I was second and the limb broke with me and there was Charlie, left on the roof to face Mrs. McDermott. That’s the only time I ever heard that bell ring even to this day.

The Hurdle family gave glorious bell chimes that played beautiful hymns to the Baptist church. I don’t know why I don’t ever hear them. However, Rust College chimes I hear if the day is still and quiet, and it’s melodious. I used to live in the last house in Memphis toward Holly Springs and when the fire or police sirens would blow, coyotes, who lived nearby, would all howl. That was a scary sound and sometimes they were up close to my house. One of my unused chimneys has a tin cover on it and I listen for the rain at night to petter-patter on my chimney top.

The first night my daughter owned the Walter Place my ever-so-generous Jorja asked her family to all spend the night there. In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a deep “who! who!,” then a little “who! who!,” then a medium “who! who!” Nobody had lived there for 50 years and a family of owls was inhabiting the hollow tree in the yard over there. Today, each afternoon, the frogs in her pond give a concert, and it’s great.

Beethoven, one of the greatest composers and musicians in the world realized in the 1790s that he was losing his sense of hearing, but he continued to write his incredible music even when he was totally deaf.

Hearing is so precious. To hear a beautiful melody is a real treat to be appreciated.

Labor Day - School never started until the day after Labor Day. The holiday celebrates the end of summer. I used to think “the glorious days of summer,” but as I get older the heat is excessive and oppressive and not so glorious!

At the Marshall County Historical Museum, at last we have a little ’possum, but it’s only three inches long and it’s made of porcelain. My daughter Melody sent it to us, so we will have a ’possum. The little beast is gray, has three babies on her back and has a pink nose, mouth and feet.

Then, this morning in the mail I received another ’possum — this one stuffed! — from Melody.

Come see us at the museum. We are awesome as a ‘possum.

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