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Society

City Personals
Mary Clay Brooks

Graham Miller will be greatly missed

Sad news traveled throughout Holly Springs last week with the word that Graham Miller had earned his angel wings. When I think of Graham, I immediately think of someone who brought local business to our town. He believed in Holly Springs and its future, having three stores here - Linwood’s, Miller’s Shoe Store and the Bottom Dollar. He was the epitomy of a real gentleman, true to himself, his family and Holly Springs. How nice it was to be able to frequent his stores to purchase items you would normally have to travel out of town to get.

Going to Miller’s was always a fun thing to do. As a child, I remember going in there with Nonnie. She would visit with Graham and then find a pair of those two-toned pumps. As the years went by, she would still visit with Graham, only she would look for a lower heel shoe!

He always had such wonderful people working for him. It was a joy to pop in just to say hello to Graham! He carried a great variety of things that would suit any age person and if he did not have something, he would do his level best to get it in there.

When Miller’s closed, I remember seeing Graham’s little white truck up there nearly every day. I always wondered what he did while he was there. It was heart-warming to me because although the store was no longer open, Graham was still there.

I will miss Graham Miller and his wonderful attributes that he brought to Holly Springs. He leaves behind a fine legacy in his children, his grandchildren and his beautiful wife. He will be fondly carried in the hearts of those who loved him!

(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

Spring is coming – looking forward to Pilgrimage

“If winter come, can spring be far behind?” quote from the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822).

That saying is a reminder that it won’t be long before glorious spring will be bursting out. Right now just enjoy this winter rest. Harvey Payne is giving us his glass collection which consists of tumblers, vases, kitchen ware and bric-a-brac. This vaseline glass is so incredible as it is made with uranium. So now it is unlawful to put uranium in something simple like glassware. Harvey is buying a black light to show off the beautiful glass and is it incredibly showy.

Museuming is so much fun. If you haven’t been to the museum in the last year, you are misusing one of the world’s wonders.

My son, Scott, is an adventurer and a mountain climber. The higher the mountain peak the better he likes it. He sleeps up there and spends days getting to the top. He just climbed the highest peaks in South America. He has been asked to give the program for the Sierra Club, which has only one program a year and it will be this Saturday. Scott makes his living as a guide for mountain climbing. If you ever want to climb to the sky, sleep in a hanging bag, eat a small snack for all meals, just call Scotty.

When he was young, he made his fortune and now that he is older, he is known as the Old Man of Mountain climbing. He has been in The Los Angeles Times newspaper several times and it calls him an anomaly. Several clubs have met here at the museum lately because it is a perfect place to meet.

In the wintertime our guests from far away places aren’t here so we look for our local friends to keep us floating. We plan to be on the spring tour in April.

Easter is as late as it’s ever been this year, being the last Sunday in April. I only remember it being this late one other time. Snow is in the forecast. The deepest snow I ever remember was on the first day of spring, March 21, 1967; it snowed 18 inches.

I remember the snow covering the Japanese magnolia and the beautiful flowers peeping out. The redbirds in the snow were so lovely. One year it didn’t snow all year until March, then it snowed five times, each Monday in March. By April we were so tired of snow.

Once my husband moved me to Minnesota and as we arrived from Mississippi, the snow arrived from the North Pole! Later that week, I went to downtown Minneapolis and bought three fur coats with hats to match so I wouldn’t freeze.

We received this clipping from someone in Vicksburg. Kate Clark’s father was from Vicksburg. “At Christ Church, in Holly Springs, On Wednesday evening, January 25th, 1871, by Reverend J.T. Pickett, Mr. E. D. Clark, of Vicksburg, Miss., and Miss Carey Freeman of Holly Springs, daughter of Mrs. Kate W. Freeman, and grand daughter of B.W. Walthall, Esq. Attendants: Roswell N. Booth, Vicksburg, and Miss Maggie H. Glenn, Bardstown, Ky.; George M. Walthall, Water Valley, and Miss Lizzie Robinson, Louisville, Ky.; George K. Birchett, Vicksburg, and Miss Corinne Leggett, Holly Springs; M. Marshall, Vicksburg, and Miss __ Lea, Holly Springs; H.P. Brenham, Oxford, and Miss Ada Connelly, Holly Springs; G. Y. Freeman, Holly Springs, and Miss Linda Brenham, Oxford. The lovely bride was raised in our city and is one of the most beautiful and charming of our many fascinating ladies. She carries with her to her Vicksburg home the love and best wishes of hosts of warm friends who have admired her from her childhood. May her whole life be happy; the fortunate bridegroom has won the love and hand of a dear being who will be a helpmeet to him indeed; one who will double his joys, and divide with him the cares of life. May the joys be innumerable, and the cars few. Our prayers go with her, and for the happy couple we ask Heaven’s choicest blessings.”

E.D. Clark owned a plantation north of Vicksburg. He named it “the Carey Plantation” and that’s the name today. It was the invisible source of income that supported the Clark family until Miss Kate died in 1957 when she was 80.

E.D. Clark was a respected and well-known lawyer from Vicksburg. The president, Grover Cleveland, named him Under-Secretary of the Interior of the United States. He went to Washington to fulfill his duties and malaria that had been dorment in him, came out on him and in two weeks he died and never got to fulfill his duties. Then Carey came home to Holly Springs to live. In 1892, she moved to New York so Kate could study art under America’s leading artist, William Merritt Chase. Kate was there until 1923. After her mother and grandmother and teacher died, she came home to live forevermore.

She stored her paintings in New York. When she arrived home, she built a north-south gallery on the upstairs of her house.

She painted the Finley House, which was next door on the north and that’s all. She considered painting really hard work.

Her mother had gone with her to every art lesson and mother laid out the canvas, the paints, the brushes. All Kate had to do was sit down and paint. Her paintings are so fantastically beautiful.

In my favorite there is a country lane and it is so realistic that it looks like I could just walk into it. She even captured the wind as lots of her paintings portray the wind.

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