
Thursday, February 17, 2011
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Society

City Personals
Mary Clay Brooks

Shelby Fitch participates in beauty review

Congratulations to the Marshall Academy Patriots basketball team on their sweep of the North-Half AA tournament! Bad weather could not stop the Patriots from bringing home the title! They will continue their quest later this week in Brookhaven. Good luck, boys!


(Left) Caitlyn Brooks leisurely walks up the hill after sledding down. (Right) Andrew Yeats gets turned around going down the hill on a saucer.

Mary Catherine Hutchens and Darcie Gibson soar down the hill.

Mother Nature decided to pay us what was hopefully her last visit for the winter. The cemetery hill was packed with children and adults alike sledding. With the sun beaming down, the hill became very slick, allowing more distance and speed! It was a fun-filled day for all of those who met up on the famous hill. Others were spotted sledding down Spring Hollow hill, which has a steeper pitch.

Becky Cupp, Margaret Ann Barruel and Tammy Cupp went to cheer on Shelby Fitch, daughter of Beverly Fitch, in her school beauty review over the weekend.

(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

Local artist displays work at Mississippi Museum of Art

If ever we have had perfect weather, it’s the last few days. Don’t put away your winter clothes just yet as the almanac says we are due eight snows this winter and we have only had six. The almanac doesn’t lie.

At the museum we are enjoying the daily drama happening every day. A man named David Greer writes from Ohio that he was kin to the Greers here. He discovered us because of Eddie Francisco’s new claim to fame with his acquaintance with William Faulkner back in the 1930’s.

It seems that Edgar Francisco and William Faulkner were childhood friends as their mothers were friends and they went to each other’s birthday parties in the 1890’s. The friendship lasted until they were old except William would teach little Eddie bad words, thinking it was funny and Eddie’s mom, Ruth Bitzer (Rev. Bitzer’s daughter) didn’t think it was funny.

William Faulkner used Edgar’s grandfather’s diary to glean stories for his books. He used some of the original names. Truth is always stronger than fiction and history has such utterly fantastic stories that you can’t beat or even make up and he was the master storyteller. The Ohioan was kin to James Micajah Autry who would have been another general for Holly Springs but the day he was to receive his general’s commission, he was killed in the battle of Atlanta.

James Autry’s father, Micajah Autry, was a Texas hero who was killed in the Alamo, so James brought his mother from North Carolina to live with him here in Holly Springs. He was so famous in North Carolina that they still celebrate Micajah Autry Day every year.

They lived in the house at the corner of Walthall and Van Dorn across from the Catholic Church.

The man from Ohio said his great-grandfather was born here October 27, 1847 and was James Micajah Greer.

In Ohio, David Greer said in what his grandfather left behind was a collection of stories of his antebellum plantation named Hazelwood Plantation, which was between here and Waterford, about four miles due south of the courthouse as the crow flies.

The stories also tell of his experience as a VMI cadet in the last year of the Civil War and of a meeting with General Lee in 1865. A friend named “Watson” was with him. Included in these stories are sketches to go along with the stories. I can’t wait to see and read them.

Eddie Francisco just called from Atlanta and said that he and his group are coming the second week in May to dedicate a window from the Francisco house that Loulie wrote her name on during the Civil War.

She was watching the Yankee soldiers marching down the street, right on these same streets that you and I walk on today, except there was no concrete then, just dirt. Loulie ran off and married a Yankee soldier and was never seen again.

Hardy Allen, local friend, brought by two Holly Springs photos of long ago of the square when cotton was stored all over town. We will hang them to show off as much as we can. We had a man from Amory who came today to bring us some railroad memorabilia.

Valentine’s Day was marvelous and always so much fun. “What do squirrels give each other for Valentine’s Day? Forget-me-nuts!”

Oh, yes, one of our talented artists, Randy Hayes, who lives on Maury Street, has a fantastic art show exhibit in Jackson at the Mississippi Museum of Art. You all should go. it is on display until July 17.

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