Heralds the Holiday Season

St. Francisville’s Christmas in the Country Heralds the Holiday Season
By Anne Butler

Santa brought St. Francisville, LA, an early Christmas gift with its inclusion on a prestigious popularity list for regional travelers, and the little rivertown will proudly show off its assets as it welcomes visitors to Christmas in the Country December 5, 6 and 7th.
Fodor’s, world’s largest publisher of travel information in English both in print and online, named St. Francisville to its list of Top Twenty Day-trip Destinations, recommending it as a sidetrip from New Orleans because of its cluster of plantation tours, walkable historic district of National Register 18th and early 19th-century structures, good shopping and historic churches. With its variety of fine Bed & Breakfasts, Fodor’s noted that the town was just as popular for overnight stays, and its Anglo background provided memorable contrast with its French/Creole/Cajun Louisiana neighbors.
So this year’s Christmas in the Country, the little town’s annual celebration of the season, pulls out all the stops, supplementing the ever-popular parade, spectacular seasonal decorations, live nativities and superlative shopping, with everything from cherubic children’s choirs and a grand symphonic brass concert to a gaggle of Elvis impersonators.

Long the center of commerce for the surrounding plantation country, wide-eyed 19th-century children pressed cold noses against frosted storefront windows and dreamed of china dolls or wooden rocking horses. The dry-goods emporiums in the early days carried everything from farm implements and buggies to ladies’ fashions and gents’ furnishings, and today the little boutique shops in many of these same historic buildings lining the commercial district continue to offer a surprising selection of fine wares.

St. Francisville never looks lovelier than when wearing its holiday finery, tiny white lights decking every Victorian flourish and gallery post to turn the entire town into a veritable winter wonderland. Today’s merchants take pleasure and pride in hosting a Christmas celebration that draws celebrants of the season to a safe, family-oriented weekend of fun festivities and fabulous downtown shopping called Christmas in the Country, always the first full weekend of December, this year December 5, 6, 7.


St. Nick arrives to kick off the Lighting Ceremony of the Town Christmas Tree beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, followed by a public reception at Town Hall hosted by jovial longtime St. Francisville Mayor Billy D'Aquilla and featuring fireworks and a performance by the First Baptist Church Children’s Choir. At 7 p.m., the Baton Rouge Symphony presents its annual Christmas Brass concert and dessert reception at Hemingbough.

Saturday, Dec. 6, begins with a 7:30 a.m. Community Prayer Breakfast at United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall just off Royal St., followed by Breakfast with St. Nick for children at Jackson Hall next to Grace Church at 8 and 9:30 a.m., sponsored by the Women’s Service League (reservations recommended; $8 tickets may be purchased online at www.womensserviceleague.com ). The Women’s Service League also sells fresh wreaths all weekend on Ferdinand St., with proceeds benefiting local civic and charitable activities.

From 10 to 4 Saturday and Sunday there will be music, crafts and food vendors in oak-shaded Parker Park, and from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. the Talented Art Walk features displays of student artwork at local shops, with purchase proceeds supporting the arts programs in local schools. There will also be entertainment in various locations throughout the downtown historic district, featuring choirs, dancers, musicians, and other performers, as well as children’s activities. At 2 p.m. Saturday a book signing at the West Feliciana Historical Society museum-headquarters will introduce for the very first time a long-awaited book of some 250 vintage images of the St. Francisville area.




The angelic voices of the Bains Elementary 2nd Grade Choir are raised at the West Feliciana Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand St. at 10 a.m., while the West Feliciana High School Performance Choir sings at the United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, followed from 11 to 11:45 by the school’s Advanced and Performance Choirs. The front porch of Town Hall is gospel headquarters, while the Angola Inmate Traveling Band from Louisiana State Penitentiary performs across from Garden Symposium Park from noon to 4.

An afternoon Friends of the Library Tour of Homes from noon to 5 p.m. benefits the wonderful new parish library and features four diverse homes, jazz brunch at The Bluffs and boutique shopping. From 6 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, the United Methodist Church on Royal St. hosts a Community Sing-a-long, and from 6 to 8 p.m., St. Francisville First Baptist Church sponsors its very popular Live Nativity, reminding of the reason for the season. Also from 6 to 8 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday, visitors can “Peep into our Holiday Homes,” peering through handblown windowpanes and lace curtains into participating homes all decorated for the holidays in St. Francisville’s downtown National Register Historic District.

In addition, Saturday evening from 5:30 to 8:30, visitors are welcomed for candlelight tours, period music, dancing and hot wassail at Oakley Plantation, Audubon State Historic Site on LA Hwy. 965, where artist-naturalist John James Audubon tutored the daughter of plantation owners and painted many of his famous bird studies in the early 1820s. During the day from 10 to 4, the historic site is decked out in seasonal finery as it observes its annual Christmas holiday festival, this year adding a 150th-anniversary re-enactment of the nearby Battle of Alexander’s Creek in 1864 for “A Civil War Christmas” on December 6 and 7. West Feliciana’s other state historic site, Rosedown Plantation, celebrates the season with appropriate 19th-century decorations as well, and the exterior galleries and antique-filled interior rooms are resplendent with garlands of fresh greenery from the surrounding woodlands, colorful berries and fresh fruit, as was the custom.

Saturday’s highlight has traditionally been the colorful 2 p.m. Christmas parade sponsored by the Women’s Service League, but this year’s parade has had to be moved to Sunday afternoon due to election run-offs (some polling places would have been blocked). Participants include everyone from local dignitaries to Angola’s enormous Percheron work horses, their sleigh bells jingling and their burnished coats gleaming. Dozens of gaily decorated parade floats vie for coveted prizes, accompanied by cheerleaders, bands, bagpipes, vintage cars, marching ROTC units and dancers. The parade, with this year’s theme of “Be There With Bells On,” lines up on Royal St. and traverses Ferdinand and Commerce Streets, so don’t plan on driving through downtown St. Francisville mid-afternoon.

And the fun continues on Sunday night for those who might have a blue-blue-blue Christmas without Elvis. “An Ultimate Christmas with Greatest Elvis Tributes” features Elvis impersonators Cody Ray Slaughter, Jay Dupuis, the EAS Band and special guest Jeff Lewis at Hemingbough beginning at 6 p.m.; for tickets go to Grandmother’s Buttons or online www.hrhpromotions.com, $30 in advance, $35 at the door.

The enthusiastic sponsors of Christmas in the Country are the downtown merchants, and the real focus of the weekend remains St. Francisville’s marvelous shops, which go all out, hosting Open Houses with refreshments and entertainment for shoppers while offering spectacular seasonal decorations, great gift items, and extended hours. A variety of quaint little shops occupy historic structures throughout the downtown area and spread into the outlying district, each unique in its own way; visitors should not miss a single one.

From the rich Victoriana of The Shanty Too, for thirty years the anchor of the downtown business community complete with old-time candy shoppe, to the jewelry beautifully crafted from vintage buttons at nationally known Grandmother's Buttons, and the incredibly extensive selections of carefully chosen gift and decorative items at Hillcrest Gardens and Sage Hill Gifts, downtown St. Francisville is filled with fine shopping opportunities. Artists Herschel Harrington and Joe Savell (Backwoods Gallery) have studios displaying their own works, while St. Francis Art & Antiques Gallery and Bohemianville Antiques feature vintage collectibles and furnishings. Femme Fatale specializes in fine fashions; Trends Salon & Boutique and Ma Milles Gifts also have stylish clothing, game-day gear and jewelry. Temple Design has signature gift items with a local flair, and Benchmark Interiors has delightful selections to complement any decor.

St. Francisville Inn’s Wine Parlor has gift bottles of fine wines, and Birdman Books & Coffee has an eclectic selection of books. Ins-N-Outs carries live seasonal plants to complement any decorating scheme; Mia Sophia Florist features floral arrangements, wreaths and plants as well as decorative items. The tourist information center/museum in the West Feliciana Historical Society headquarters on Ferdinand St. has a great selection of books, notecards and prints, plus free maps showing locations of all of the other retail outlets, local plantations, restaurants and accommodations.

On the outskirts of town, intrepid shoppers won't want to miss the exquisite custom-designed creations at Patrick’s Fine Jewelry in its exciting new location on US 61, the fleur-de-lis decorative pieces in the expanded Elliott’s Pharmacy in Spring Creek Shopping Center, as well as Border Imports with huge selections of Mexican pottery, eyecatching ironwork and concrete statuary on US 61 north. Most of the plantations around St. Francisville have gift shops, and a visit to those would permit enjoyment of spectacular seasonal decorations as well. Restaurants, B&Bs, even fitness centers in the area offer gift certificates to extend the giving throughout the year, providing Christmas in the Country visitors an extended opportunity to relish the charms of this little Top Twenty Day-Trip Destination.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and
Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of splendidly restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: the Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer periodic living-history demonstrations to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some nice restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Farewell to St. Francisville’s True Democrat and Welcome to The Advocate

Farewell to St. Francisville’s True Democrat and Welcome to The Advocate

By Anne Butler

Change, of course, is inevitable, and the balance between progress and preservation is a delicate one. A few years back, St. Francisville residents said farewell to the ferry system that had transported generations across the Mississippi River, their reluctance assuaged in part by the beautiful new cable-stayed bridge that was certainly more reliable.

Now, the little town says good-bye to its local newspaper, The Democrat, which has preserved in print the comings and goings, the happenings and heartaches of this little town in an up-close and personal way that may be difficult to match by the big newspaper conglomerate that has absorbed a number of small regional publications. Certainly new resources will provide opportunities unheard of in the tiny two-man office of The Democrat, but lost may be an intimacy of connection that will be hard to replace.

And the history! When The True Democrat first “unfurled its flag to the journalistic breeze” on February 3, 1892, in St. Francisville, it proclaimed purity as its emblem and truth and honesty as its lofty motto. It promised to labor for the advancement of the people, politically, socially and financially, to promote agricultural diversity, to encourage manufacturing and to liberally support education. But really, this early newspaper was begun to “make war on a great gambling monopoly,” the controversial Louisiana Lottery.


The True Democrat was not the little river town’s first paper. As early as 1811 James Bradford, son of a pioneer Kentucky printer and first official territorial printer in New Orleans, had established the Time Piece in St. Francisville, the first newspaper in the Florida Parishes which had only recently joined the territory of Orleans. This was less than two decades after the first newspaper in Louisiana was begun in New Orleans, prior to which news and official proclamations were spread only by the town crier and the posting of handwritten broadsides.

The True Democrat outlasted the lottery problem. When it published an ambitious 30-page Silver Anniversary Edition upon the occasion of completing its first 25 years in print, a hefty publication that it advised readers would require a whole two cents of postage to mail, the editor couldn’t help bragging that from the first 1892 issue “despite death, quarantine, fire and flood,” The True Democrat never missed an issue.
Its first edition, like all newspapers of the time, was a four-page six-column sheet covered in just three sizes of type, with advertisements limited to a single column and just a few lines; before the mid-1800s, advertising was by broadsides, handbills and posters for the most part. Three lawyers, three doctors and two dentists “had their cards” in that first issue as advertisement, some of whom were still engaged in practice at the time of the Silver Edition, and the “Personal But Polite” column shared juicy tidbits of local gossip.

Interspersed throughout the anniversary edition’s articles were enthusiastic exhortations and encouragements: “Quit existing elsewhere; come to West Feliciana and live!” and “The spirit of progress is abroad in West Feliciana.” There was even a little piece entitled “A Second Heaven,” in which Saint Peter is showing a newcomer around heaven, with streets of gold, singing birds and beautiful flowers; asked about the disconsolate group of men over in a corner tied together, St. Peter explains that those were West Felicianians, who had to be kept tied up or otherwise they’d go right back home.

The editor of the True Democrat, in her 25th-anniversary look backward, proclaimed that it must have been “the rashness of extreme ignorance concerning the cost, risks and demands of publishing a newspaper” that led her to begin publication with her first husband, W.W. Leake, Jr., using “a three-fourths worn-out Washington hand-press and meagerly equipped print shop” and campaigning against the lottery at a time when most other publications in the state supported it. With little start-up capital, the True Democrat was begun with subscriptions ranging from five to ten dollars, “and a few of those, be it whispered, were never paid.” The editor’s husband supported the paper with proceeds from his insurance business; the first year, there was no net profit at all.

When the Louisiana Lottery was defeated, primarily due to a US Supreme Court decision denying it use of the mails, the True Democrat vowed it would “never be at a loss for good causes to foster, new ideals to implant, fresh enterprises to support for the good of the people among whom we live.” And when Mr. Leake died in 1901, his widow struggled to continue alone as a hardworking country editor, often in ill health and “with one baby at the breast, another’s tiny hands on my skirts, a son too young to be of material assistance, and the accumulation of debts incurred in extensive farming operations untimely cut off before possibility of reaching results.” The community reached out to support her, paying bills, renewing subscriptions, paying in advance, providing printing work. And when in 1908 a fire wiped out the little print shop, a new beginning was made yet again.

As the widowed Mrs. Leake began to rebuild her business, a new printer was called for. One she hired turned out to be a disreputable drunk, another so nervous he could not touch the standing type without knocking it over. But in 1906 she made the fortunate acquaintance of one Elrie Robinson, Texan who knew the printing business inside and out. The outcome was happy, not only for the True Democrat but for the widow Leake, soon to become Mrs. Elrie Robinson. The paper flourished and in 1917 referred to West Feliciana, its 246,400 acres containing lands along the river “richer than the Valley of the Nile,” as “the portion of the State of Louisiana which burst upon the delighted vision of the sick and travel-worn Spaniards after their wanderings through the swamps and wilds of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, which in their joy they called ‘Feliciana.’”

The 1917 Silver Anniversary Edition of the True Democrat burst with pride at the accomplishments of the area, with histories of the West Florida Rebellion, Bayou Sara and St. Francisville, the West Feliciana Railroad, the Bank of Commerce and the Meyer Hotel (clean accommodations described as “homey without being unduly familiar”), the Odd Fellows Lodge and other club groups, the historic churches (some like Grace Episcopal already nearly a century old) , agricultural and educational advancements, prize flower gardens, notable plantations, and Audubon’s associations with the parish. There were tributes to leading citizens, many of whose names continue in the parish to this day.

While the bulk of early parish residents claimed Anglo antecedents, of the 1917 population of 13,449 there were interesting injections of other influences, like Peter Trocchiano with his swirling Salvador Dali-esque mustache, described as a live-wire Sicilian married to convent-educated Miss Salvatora Vinci; he began as a fruit peddler before branching out to establish a fine shoe store and manage the movie theater “where some of the most celebrated reels are seen.”


The Jewish community was not neglected, with articles describing the contributions of citizens like Daniel Mann, Max Dampf, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Stern, and Julius Freyhan who funded the fine brick school bearing his name. The Temple Sinai was called one of St. Francisville’s “most attractive places of worship,” completed in 1903 to house a congregation described as “charitable to the needy and kindly towards all without regard to creed.” Nearly a full page was devoted to M&E Wolf, as 1917 marked the golden anniversary of what the paper called “West Feliciana’s greatest enterprise,” beginning as a little country store opened in 1867 by Julius Freyhan in the “dark days of reconstruction,” and growing to become principal source of supply for a dozen Louisiana parishes and Mississippi counties, selling up to a million dollars’ worth of goods and handling up to 14,000 bales of cotton in a year.

The 1917 edition’s advertisements shed as much light upon the life of the times as do the articles; Chas. Weydert offering a line of hardware and machinery at “live and let-live prices,” Max Dampf General Merchandise with “dry goods, staple and fancy groceries,” J.R. Matthews Real Estate Agency offering good farms and plantations while boasting that “this far south is the only section of the US today where good land can be bought cheap,” Parker Stock Farm described as an old-time cotton plantation now devoted to the livestock industry as breeders of Hereford cattle and Duroc Jersey hogs, the Bank of Commerce which had opened with just 30 depositors and $5,185.06, W.R. Daniel purchaser of sweet and Irish potatoes and all kinds of produce, L&S Stern’s “dry goods, notions and gents’ furnishings,” F.S. Percy of Plettenberg buyers of hogs or sheep or cattle in any quantity, Max Mann advertising wines, liquors and cigars, Abe Stern’s livery with “horses and mules always on hand,” and George Rettig’s “Best Eats.”

Mrs. Mae Leake Robinson’s son James M. would succeed his mother as editor of the newspaper until his death, and as he was also the fire chief, the pages of the paper during his tenure were often filled with hair-raising details of local conflagrations. For more than a century after its humble origins, the St. Francisville Democrat remained in publication, extolling the virtues of the parish and its residents, written in the same little structure built right smack in the middle of Johnson Street around 1908 as the first building constructed of brick made by the Bayou Sara Brick Company.

Hopefully the new limited version of news coverage in St. Francisville will include detailed notices of the beloved special events that draw visitors to the town, like the Hemingbough Blues Festival 12:30 to 6:30 on Sunday, November 2, bringing world-class blues artists like Luther Kent, Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone, Gregg Wright, Christ LeBlanc, Eden Brent and the Delta Drifters (for information, find Facebook page for Baton Rouge Blues Society).
Another exciting music festival follows on November 15th, the Louisiana Vets Fest in the West Feliciana Parish Sports Park from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. (http://lavetsfest.org). This is an outdoor festival that supports and celebrates veterans of all wars with fun children’s activities, medical screenings, military displays, and hotly contested cook-off contests providing plenty of good food like barbecue chicken, jambalaya and gumbo.

This year’s LA Vets-Fest has a really exciting line-up of musical entertainment, including the Angola inmate band and that little bitty local dynamo named Julie DeJean. Headlining the program are the Marcia Ball Band from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. and Jimmie Vaughan and the Tilt-a-Whirl Band featuring Lou Ann Barton from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Iconic blues singer-pianist Marcia Ball for three decades has repeatedly won various music awards and been nominated for Grammys five times, has been inducted into the Louisiana and Gulf Coast Music Halls of Fame, and has performed in films and on radio and television. USA Today’s music critic calls her a sensational saucy singer and superb pianist. With a huge following of fans around the world, this enormously popular musician and songwriter is said to know how to “raise roofs and tear down walls with her infectious, intelligent and deeply emotional brand of southern boogie, rollicking roadhouse blues, and heartfelt ballads. Her exquisite piano playing and passionate, playful vocals fuse New Orleans and Gulf Coast R&B with Austin’s deep songwriting tradition into a sound described as a little rock, a lot of roll, a pinch of rhythm and a handful of blues.”

Following Ball’s set, living legend Jimmie Vaughan, one of the popular music world’s greatest guitarists, takes the stage with the Tilt-A-Whirl Band featuring Lou Ann Barton of Austin, Texas, who is called one of the finest purveyors of raw, unadulterated roadhouse blues you’ll ever hear. Vaughan, older brother of blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan who was killed in a helicopter crash in 1990, formed The Fabulous Thunderbirds and performed with the likes of B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. Known for his retro cool, slicked-back hair, sharp vintage threads and classic car collection, Vaughan is credited with sparking the modern blues revival with his clean and uncluttered guitar style, utilizing raw emotion to convey the message within what is called modern roots music, linking contemporary music with its proud heritage.

December in St. Francisville brings the well-established and well-loved small-town holiday celebration called Christmas in the Country, with shop open houses, strolling musicians, lively parade (this year on Sunday rather than the customary Saturday afternoon due to election run-offs requiring that polling places not be blocked), and an afternoon house tour benefitting the new parish library.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine (Chinese, Mexican, most recently Lebanese) to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities, including the Farmers Market on Thursday mornings).

October in St. Francisville Brings Out Colorful Leaves…and Colorful Characters

October in St. Francisville Brings Out Colorful Leaves…and Colorful Characters

By Anne Butler

Hollywood veteran and ageless beauty Andie MacDowell was recently quoted as saying Southern people are crazy and she’s thankful for having grown up as part of that, recognizing the richness a little local color and a lot of local characters can add to life. If ever there were a living breathing example of that, it’s little St. Francisville, Louisiana, where eccentricity is not just tolerated but enthusiastically embraced.

From the late lamented town jailer who covered his bald pate with everything from Elvis pompadours to orange poodle-curl wigs, to the overgrown child who saddled up his three-wheel bicycle and patrolled the streets handing out speeding tickets to unsuspecting tourists, from the hard-drinking pistol-packing mama who wore a pirate’s eyepatch and drove a herd of her own cattle to LSU during the Depression to pay her tuition, to the savant who picks up trash along the roadways while reading Charles Dickens, and the mysterious Orthodox priest stalking the streets in long flowing black robes, St. Francisville has certainly harbored its share of colorful and well-loved characters.

So it’s appropriate that the town’s celebrations of life, its festivals, are just as colorful. And in October, they run the gamut from ghosts to garden-club ladies sipping tea, from fearless inmate roughriders to artists and crafters under the ancient live oaks of the town park. And every one of these diverse celebrations adds to the richness of life in this southern small town. Says Andie McDowell, “People say reading Faulkner is hard because he’s all over the place, but for me it’s easy—I’m right there with him.” And you can be, too.

October is crowded with events allowing visitors to sample first-hand St. Francisville’s beloved quirkiness.  This being the season of witches and goblins, The Myrtles Halloween Experience scares the pants off visitors every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and October 31 from 6 to 9 in a historic plantation house calling itself the most haunted in America (for tickets, telephone 800-809-0565). Indeed, when the attached gift shop caught fire not long ago, the ghosts were said to have saved the 1790s main house (the local firefighters just might’ve helped, too).

For a taste of authentic historic funeral customs, nearby Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site is dressed in mourning garb October 27 through November 3. On October 31 at 4 p.m. the costumed staff of this National Historic Landmark relates Soul Stories of Rosedown family members’ lives and deaths.

Every Sunday in October, the Angola Prison Rodeo draws more than 10,000 eager spectators to witness death-defying bravado in events like bareback bronc or bull riding, wild cow milking, wild horse race, buddy pick-up, bulldogging, inmate poker (last one seated wins, the other players having been hooked sky-high by charging brahma bulls), Bust Out (six bulls released at once) and the crowd-pleasing Guts and Glory when inmates on foot try to snatch a $100 chit from a bull’s horns. “The Wildest Show in the South, ” which keeps the audience on the edge of their seats from the moment the black-clad Angola Rough Riders charge into the arena at break-neck speed, also features prisoner hobbycraft sales, tons of food, and inmate bands. Other than the ladies’ barrel racing, all rodeo participants are inmates in this enormous maximum-security prison. Grounds open at 9 for the arts and crafts, and the fascinating state museum at the entrance gate will also be open. The rodeo starts at 2, and advance tickets are a must (www.angolarodeo.com provides information and spells out regulations which must be observed on prison property).
Somewhat more sedate activities are offered October 10 and 11th at the 26^th annual Southern Garden Symposium, a series of entertainments, workshops, tours, demonstrations and lectures by prestigious speakers in this the land of glorious antebellum gardens. Workshop topics this year include floral design, container gardening, edible garnishes, plant structures, gardening for birds and bees, heirloom bulbs and period architecture, and landscape design over the years (www.southerngardensymposium.org).

The last weekend of October, the 25^th and 26^th, the Yellow Leaf Arts Festival is a gathering of dozens of artists and crafters demonstrating and selling their wares in downtown oak-shaded Parker Park. This 12^th annual event sponsored by the umbrella arts organization called Arts For All to celebrate all arts for all persons, Yellow Leaf 2014 brings together more than 55 artists, plus live music, fun children’s activities, and food including locally grown sweet potatoes. New this year is a Native Bird Photography Contest, and just down Burnett Road from Yellow Leaf on Saturday, the Friends of the Library hold a book sale at the wonderful new parish library.

Arts For All calls the Yellow Leaf Festival a celebration of the “friendly, relaxed, authentic, small-town quaintness that is St. Francisville” (for information, www.artsforall.felicianalocal.com).

For this and every other October event, the town welcomes visitors to revel in its pervasive local color and meet its local characters to understand just what actress Andie McDowell was talking about, that wonderful richness of life in a small southern town.

And the events just keep rolling along through fall into winter. November 15 the Louisiana Vets Fest in the West Feliciana Parish Sports Park supports and celebrates veterans of all wars with children’s activities, military displays, hotly contested cook-off contests providing plenty of good food, and exciting live music including Marcia Ball and Jimmie Vaughn (http://lavetsfest.org). And December brings the well-established and well-loved small-town holiday celebration called Christmas in the Country, with shop open houses, strolling musicians, lively parade (this year on Sunday rather than the customary Saturday afternoon due to election run-offs requiring that polling places not be blocked), and an afternoon house tour benefitting the new parish library.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination.  A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19^th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine (Chinese, Mexican, most recently Lebanese) to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities, including the Farmers Market on Thursday mornings).

Clock Marks Passage of Time

Historic Courthouse Clock Marks Passage of Time in St. Francisville, LA
By Anne Butler

Every little parish seat over the years has had its iconic courthouse, some more elaborate than others but all as fancy as times could afford, and most were topped with a tower or cupola boasting an enormous, often multi-faced clock. The deep tones, the carillon calls, the clanging and banging of these clocks marked the passage of the minutes of their lives for downtown residents, chiming the hours in anticipation of happy occasions and solemn events alike. One haunted historic courthouse clock in Texas tolled away the hours left of life for a condemned prisoner in the nearby jail; just prior to his execution he cursed the clock, which never again kept accurate time and was repeatedly stuck by lightning.

West Feliciana Parish’s courthouse was designed in 1903 by architect Andrew J. Bryan to replace an earlier structure damaged during the Civil War (and an even earlier one in use beginning in 1824). Its National Register of Historic Places inventory listing calls its architectural style “attenuated Georgian Revival, composite quadrastiple portico on each façade, central Baroque dormer,” whatever that means, and it was considered such a letdown from the classical elegance of its predecessor that its cornerstone bore no names of founding fathers. It has recently been augmented by a more modern annex, but still houses offices for the parish gas district and public defender downstairs. The wood-paneled courtroom upstairs is still in use for criminal trials and overflow civil matters, and every hour on the hour, attorneys and witnesses must pause as the clock above their heads deafeningly sounds the time, giving everyone involved a slight breather from the oft-heated proceedings.

This brief respite from weighty judicial matters must give one of the 20th Judicial District’s judges special pleasure, for beneath the flowing black robes of Judge George Haliburton Ware, Jr., beats the heart of a dedicated metal worker/machinist with great admiration for the intricate workings of old clocks, fans and other mechanical wonders. Ware is the father of the metal working program at the Louisiana State Penitentiary that turns out trained machinists through the prison’s re-entry program. And it is thanks to him and a couple of others who share his passion, Dr. Walker McVea and Charles Broussard, that the old courthouse clock works at all. It didn’t for awhile.

Its first restoration came in 2008, after the parish police jury voted to allocate $50,000 to hire clock restoration specialist David Seay to dismantle it, move it to his workshop in Kansas, machine some parts of the internal mechanism that had to be replaced, and return it in working order, plus replacing with metal ones the old wooden numerals in each of the four clock faces atop the courthouse.

Charles Broussard calls David Seay a true perfectionist who absolutely loves what he does, and so it was natural that he would be called in again to put the courthouse clock back in working order after lack of regular maintenance caused it to stop working a few years ago. Says Broussard, “It’s nothing but a big old grandfather clock with four faces, but the motorized control we put in for the weights was hit by a surge and the sensitive gears hadn’t been properly oiled on a regular basis, and a binding in the mechanism was preventing it from striking.” Broussard has worked with parish employee Allen Dwyer to assure proper future maintenance of what he calls “a true treasure. Many of Louisiana’s courthouses have clocks, but I’d say 99.9% of them don’t work. We have a true marvel here. If we’re going to call ourselves historical, let’s do it all the way.”
Longtime St. Francisville mayor Billy D’Aquilla also considers the working clock a true icon, with great historic value to the town and its preservation-minded residents. Says attorney Bob Butler, whose law office is directly across the street from the courthouse, “The old clock is historical and unique. And it’s LOUD!”

The restoration of the old courthouse clock will be celebrated at 6 p.m. during the popular event called Polos and Pearls, highlight of August in St. Francisville, designed to add some sizzle to summer shopping and entice customers downtown the evening of August 23, beginning at 5 p.m. All the interesting little shops and galleries offer lots of extras---refreshments from local restaurants and food vendors, music or other entertainment, and plenty of bargains, making shopping after dark just plain fun, with trolley transportation making it a breeze to get around.

As the advent of autumn brings cooler temperatures, St. Francisville offers plenty of special events. The Hummingbird Festival on September 13 provides the opportunity to observe these amazing little birds up close as professional wildlife biologists band and weigh them before releasing them to continue their fall migration patterns.

October is crowded with events every weekend. The Angola Prison Rodeo draws some 10,000 eager spectators every Sunday in October, and the Myrtles Halloween Experience scares the pants off visitors every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and October 31 from 6 to 9 in a historic plantation house calling itself the most haunted in America. October 10 and 11 marks the 26th annual Southern Garden Symposium, a series of entertainments, workshops, tours, demonstrations and lectures by prestigious speakers in this the land of glorious antebellum gardens. The last weekend of October, the Yellow Leaf Arts Festival is a gathering of dozens of artists and crafts persons demonstrating and selling their wares in downtown Parker Park.

November 15 the Louisiana Vets Fest in the West Feliciana Parish Sports Park supports and celebrates veterans of all wars with children’s activities, military displays, hotly contested cook-off contests providing plenty of good food, and exciting live music including Marcia Ball and Jimmie Vaughn. And December brings the well-established and well-loved small-town holiday celebration called Christmas in the Country, with shop open houses, strolling musicians, lively parade, and house tours benefitting the new parish library.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.

For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum and tourist information center at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224 or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

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The above article, including photographs (by Charles Broussard), are available for reprint.  High resolutions photographs are available upon request, email here.

A CENTURY OF SERVICE IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA
BY Anne Butler

Russell Daniel and his father in spiffy hats and suits in downtown Baton Rouge.

He’s in his 80s now, but it’s an absolute miracle Mr. Russell Daniel survived his childhood. Born in 1928, he was a tiny tot when he ran into the arc of a blade wielded by his grandfather, Robert Clifford Brasseaux, who was chopping on a tree with a double-bitted axe. The gash on the left side of young Russell’s face required a number of stitches to close. And then, still a child, he fell out of a tree and nearly killed himself.

Today this white-haired, soft-spoken man, called by his sister-in-law “a real old-time southern gentleman,” is semi-retired from the family gas distributorship, which was recently officially recognized for a full century of service to the community, its provision of services exemplary and its devotion to its customers noteworthy. “Semi-retired,” of course, means that he only goes into the office in the mornings, after breakfasting with buddies at a local café, and then again in the afternoons, just to help his son, you know.

He’s one of the multitude of distinguished descendants of family patriarch Robert Daniel, Junior, born in 1824 and father of some 15 children, many of them sons who, along with their own remarkable progeny, have left their mark on West Feliciana agriculture and business. Russell Daniel’s grandfather John Robert (known as J. Bob) worked with Governor Parker to establish a notable stock farm in the parish; Russell’s own father died in his thirties, which left young Russell and his mother Myrtle to live with her parents in St. Francisville on Royal Street.

Russell and Betty Sue Kendrick Daniel cut the cake at their wedding.

Myrtle’s father Robert Clifford Brasseaux brought the first gasoline distributorship to the area in 1910 and sold kerosene to the little isolated country stores that kept hand-cranked drums of it on their porches for customers in the days before electricity. The kerosene was sent up from the Esso refinery in Baton Rouge by way of the LR&N railway, and Brasseaux unloaded the tank cars into barrels hauled by a mule-drawn wagon.

Upon the advent of automobile traffic, the enterprising Mr. Brasseaux also opened the first service station in St. Francisville. It was located at the upper corner of Royal and Ferdinand Streets in the store/residence of his father-in-law Henry Temple, who had come over from Germany in the mid-19th century. After Russell served in the armed forces and married vivacious Betty Sue Kendrick upon her college graduation in 1951, he assumed management of the business his grandfather had begun, now known as Russell Daniel Oil Company, providing accommodating service to the farmers and other residents of West Feliciana Parish for more than a century.

The oil company and service station across US Highway 61 from it have a long list of loyal customers, as do other long-established businesses located in historic downtown St. Francisville, listed as an extensive Historic District on the National Register. These join more recently established businesses in sponsoring an event called Polos and Pearls, highlight of August in St. Francisville, designed to add some sizzle to summer shopping and entice customers downtown the evening of August 23, beginning at 5 p.m. All the interesting little shops and galleries offer lots of extras---refreshments, music or other entertainment, and plenty of bargains, making shopping after dark just plain fun.

Betty Sue Kendrick Daniel clowns around with a friend.

As the advent of autumn brings cooler temperatures, St. Francisville offers plenty of special events. The Hummingbird Festival on September 13 provides the opportunity to observe these amazing little birds up close as professional wildlife biologists band and weigh them before releasing them to continue their fall migration patterns.

October is crowded with events every weekend. The Angola Prison Rodeo draws some 10,000 eager spectators every Sunday in October, and the Myrtles Halloween Experience scares the pants off visitors every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and October 31 from 6 to 9 in a historic plantation house calling itself the most haunted in America. October 10 and 11 marks the 26th annual Southern Garden Symposium, a series of entertainments, workshops, tours, demonstrations and lectures by prestigious speakers in this the land of glorious antebellum gardens. The last weekend of October, the Yellow Leaf Arts Festival is a gathering of dozens of artists and crafts persons demonstrating and selling their wares in downtown Parker Park.

November 15 the Louisiana Vets Fest in the West Feliciana Parish Sports Park supports and celebrates veterans of all wars with children’s activities, military displays, hotly contested cook-off contests providing plenty of good food, and exciting live music including Marcia Ball and Jimmie Vaughn. And December brings the well-established and well-loved small-town holiday celebration called Christmas in the Country, with shop open houses, strolling musicians, lively parade, and a Sunday afternoon house tour benefitting the new parish library.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.

For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum and tourist information center at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224 or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

ST. FRANCISVILLE IS FOR THE BIRDS

By Anne Butler

Pileated-woodpecker at Audubon SHS photo by ptWalsh

Calling St. Francisville “for the birds” is hardly derogatory. In St. Francisville, it’s ALL about the birds, and it always has been, even since artist-naturalist John James Audubon arrived in the summer of 1821 and was spellbound by the lush landscape and richness of the birdlife. He painted several dozen of his famous bird studies right in the St. Francisville area, and left such an indelible stamp on the area that everywhere you look, there’s some tribute to the artist: the wonderful new Audubon Library, shiny cable-stayed Audubon Bridge over the Mississippi River, cozy little Audubon Café, even the ever-popular Audubon Liquor Store.
 In fact, the first tour of historic homes, as announced in the April 22, 1934, issue of the Times-Picayune, was a Bird Fete planned by the women of West Feliciana to honor Audubon and his wife at Greenwood, home of the Frank Percys, with a presentation of scenes from his life, plus historic homes open “for inspection,” and a colonial ball. Noted historian and author Stanley C. Arthur of New Orleans was master of ceremonies, and Audubon relics, including portraits, prints and letters, were on exhibit at the local library, sponsored by the Drama-Library League. Its successor, the Audubon Pilgrimage, began in 1972 and for four decades has attracted visitors to St. Francisville to revel in the history.
The gifted writer Danny Heitman wrote a small gem of a book entitled A Summer of Birds cataloging Audubon’s time at Oakley Plantation near St. Francisville, and some of the area’s most popular special events have been birding-oriented. The Audubon Birdfest, a wonderful weekend of birding tours through the woodlands guided by experts, was put on hold after an expensive television camera went overboard with its operator while canoeing in the Cat Island Swamp, but the Hummingbird Festival continues to be popular.

Music at the Birdman photo by ptWalsh

Especially appropriate in this area that harbors such a huge population of both resident and migratory birdlife, the event is sponsored yearly by the Feliciana Nature Society and highlights the unique hummingbird feeding and breeding habitat that entices ruby-throats to linger awhile in the months between late March and early September as they migrate between South/Central America and Canada. Hummingbird Festival weekend usually begins on Friday evening with an expert speaker and a wine and cheese reception in the spectacular 27-acre gardens of Rosedown State Historic Site.
On Saturday morning the festival continues at two private gardens, where vendors offer hummingbird-attractive plants and where hummingbird biologists Linda Beall and Nancy Newfield capture and band birds, giving visitors the rare opportunity to observe the tiny creatures up close as they are being weighed and measured. The banding sites are the homes of Carlisle Rogillio on Tunica Trace and artist Murrell Butler on Oak Hill Road, both of which usually attract dozens of hummingbirds.
The Hummingbird Festival has traditionally been held in July, but recent years have attracted fewer and fewer birds, so this year’s festival has been moved to the weekend of September 12 and 13, when there should be an abundance of migratory hummers on their way south for the winter. Hopefully the local weather will be more comfortable for festival attendees as well as the little birds.
And so St. Francisville’s Summer of Birds becomes its Summer of Arts, for after all Audubon’s Summer of Birds was all about art as well. The local umbrella arts agency, Arts For All, is hosting three July activities at Birdman Books & Coffee that promise to be creatively stimulating even in the sizzling summer heat. The fourth annual Songbird Music School, for ages 18 and up, on July 12 and 13, is a full weekend of classes in banjo, mandolin, guitar, voice, fiddle and dobro, providing small instructional classes as well as opportunities to play acoustic music together. Intended for beginners through seasoned performers, the instructional and collaborative workshops are designed to help musicians sharpen their skills or perhaps learn an entirely new instrument. Saturday sessions are geared to each participant’s skill level, leading to Sunday afternoon’s performance. For information on instructors, programs and registration, see http://songbird.felicianalocal.com.  A Young Songbirds Music Camp for ages 10 to 18 follows July 14 to 18 at Birdman in the afternoons.

Painting by Walter Waters

Also sponsored by Arts For All, beginning at 10 a.m. on July 19 in Parker Park, watercolor master and plein air painter Wyatt Waters will unfold his handmade wooden easel and work for a couple of hours on location right there in the center of historic downtown St. Francisville, giving observers an understanding of why he was the recipient of a Mississippi Governor’s Award for his body of work. This is free and open to the public. In the evening, he displays yet another talent, joining his artist-musician friend Lee Barber in concert at Birdman at 7 p.m., joined by percussionist Bruce Golden; there is a cover charge.
So visitors will just have to wait until September for the Hummingbird Festival, but in July there’s music and art at the quirky local venue known as the Birdman; how fitting is that!
Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination.  A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season, and spring is definitely the season for spectacular bloom. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19^th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

Hummingbird on Flower photo by ptWalsh

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.
For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum and tourist information center at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224 or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Continuing Ed in St. Francisville

By Anne Butler

OLLI birders at the Tunica Hills Campground - photo by Darlene Reaves

The Boomer Generation, just reaching retirement age in remarkably good physical and mental shape, is not surrendering to old age without a fight. Instead, they are running marathons and racing bikes, beginning new careers and travelling to all corners of the globe. The rocking chairs on the porches of their mountain chalets are strictly for après ski, and when they consider relocating in their retirement years, lifestyle enhancements are even more important than economic opportunities.

Besides physical challenges, these busy Boomers are looking for creative inspiration and mental stimulation as well. Fortunately today, even a small rural community like St. Francisville, LA, can augment the appeal of its peaceful pastoral landscape and intriguing history by offering retirees---in fact anyone over fifty---a myriad of ways to keep minds active well into retirement, thanks to a program familiarly known as OLLI at LSU.

Advocate columnist Smiley Anders (center) presented the program for May’s Coffee at the Feliciana Chapter of OLLI in St. Francisville. Photo by Darlene Reaves.

Begun at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1996 as Lagniappe Studies, in 2007 the program became the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at LSU (OLLI), joining a nationwide network of programs devoted to lifelong learning. Today OLLI at LSU has five area chapters and over 1,300 members, with volunteer leadership from local chapters planning courses, coffees and field trips with the support of LSU Continuing Education staff.

Sample courses fall into the categories of the Arts, Languages, Humanities, Social Sciences, Personal Enrichment, and Technology. Oil and watercolor painting, art history, opera and film are some Arts offerings, while Language courses have included French, Cajun French, Spanish and Italian. In the Humanities, course offerings have included such topics as the History of Medicine, The Letters of Paul, The World of Anton Chekhov and the Breakup of American Democracy, while Social Sciences classes include such topics as the Changing Media Landscape, Great Decisions, Current Moral Problems and Financial Strategies for a Successful Retirement. Yoga, Gardening, Bridge, Birding, Life Writing, Line and Square Dancing are just a few of the Personal Enrichment offerings, and Technology classes cover iPhones, i-Pads, Cloud, and Getting the Best from the Internet.

"It's a Watson!" Great OLLI Felicianas coffee today - photo by Darlene Reaves

Courses are taught by a wide variety of instructors, experts in their fields, many of them retired Ph.D. college professors. There are three semesters each year, and most classes meet once a week 9:30-11:30 a.m. for four weeks. Besides courses held in more than 23 locations throughout South Louisiana, there are Field Trips exploring interesting nearby locations, Coffees with speakers and refreshments, and Nature Walks accompanied by experienced naturalists.

There are OLLI chapters in Ascension, Assumption and the Feliciana Parishes, as well as a Cajun Prairie Chapter in Eunice, and a large Lagniappe Chapter in Baton Rouge. In all, OLLI has 1,386 active members who had the opportunity to participate in more than 213 activities in 2013-2014.  OLLI members may attend activities offered by any of the five chapters. Membership, open to anyone 50 years or over who enjoys learning, is $40 annually, tax deductible, plus minimal course fees and only occasional required texts. Information is available from OLLI at LSU, 1225 Pleasant Hall, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803; telephone 225-578-6763; email OLLI@outreach.lsu.edu .

The steadily growing Feliciana Chapter in St. Francisville has more than 170 members, with an ambitious schedule of 53 activities offered throughout the year; in all, there were some 676 participants. Limited summer session begins in July with Yoga and a literature class on Memoirs, and there are field trips and coffees scheduled for the fall as well as a full schedule of exciting classes in other subjects. Some classes have been so popular that participants were reluctant to let them end and have started clubs---Spanish, Bridge and Birding groups continue to get together on a regular basis.

In addition to the continuing stimulation of engaging OLLI classes, St. Francisville residents and visitors can look forward to the inaugural Walker Percy Weekend June 6 to 8th, a literary festival of panel discussions and fun extra activities involving progressive front-porch bourbon tastings, crawfish boils and craft beer under the oaks, and field trips to antebellum homes, the local nuclear plant, state penitentiary and other sites significant in Percy’s writings. Friday evening features the screening of an LBP documentary on the author, and Saturday the discussions include “Cinematic Catechism,” “Lost in the Cosmos,” “Place and Non-Place” as related to Percy’s works. A digital recording project will encourage participants to contribute their own experiences to the LSU Library’s oral history archives. Saturday night’s Dinner in the Park features Louisiana cuisine and Sunday morning participants can attend mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church atop a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River.

St. Francisville is also the site of the annual Day The War Stopped on June 13, 14 and 15, a re-enactment of the 1863 burial of a Union gunboat commander in the cemetery at Grace Episcopal in a rare moment of civility amidst a bloody war. A tribute to the universality of Masonic brotherhood---Union and Confederate Masons participated in the burial service along with the Episcopal rector---the weekend includes graveyard histories, historical presentations, vintage dancing and music, a touching drama and re-enactment of the actual burial, plus special activities at both local state historic sites, Oakley and Rosedown Plantations.

The Day the War Stopped photo by ptWalsh

 Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination.  A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season, and spring is definitely the season for spectacular bloom. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19^th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.
For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum and tourist information center at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224 or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities). For special events information online: www.daythewarstopped.net (for schedule information; all events are free and open to the public); www.walkerpercyweekend.org (for ticket and schedule information).

Tilling The Soil Through Time

St. Francisville, LA: Tilling The Soil Through Time
By Anne Butler

In 1831 the Encyclopaedia Americana called the District of Nueva Feliciana the garden of Louisiana, its rich well-watered soils and happy climate perfect for the cultivation of gardens both pragmatic and merely pleasing to the senses.
The first cash crops, indigo and cotton, corn and sugarcane, were planted as soon as the fields were laboriously cleared. Each early dwelling had its kitchen garden and truck patch for growing foodstuffs for family and farm animals, plus herbs for cooking as well as medicinal purposes. And once those plantings had been established and the pioneering families prospered, attention turned to ornamental gardens, formal parterres and orderly bordered beds of flowering shrubs—azaleas, camellias, sweet olive and hip gardenia, climbing roses and other heritage plants. Some of these 19th-century gardens still exist, most notably Rosedown and Afton Villa, and these historic plantings have been joined by equally impressive contemporary landscaping like Imahara’s Botanical.
The weekly Farmers’ Market, open Thursday and Saturday mornings, allows present-day farmers the opportunity to share the fruits of their labors, but in May the St. Francisville area also hosts two special events celebrating several very different aspects of its long gardening tradition.
On Saturday, May 3, the Feliciana Horticulture Society, Master Gardeners of the LSU Ag Center, host their 10th annual St. Francisville Spring Garden Stroll, showcasing eight unique town and country plantings on morning and afternoon self-guided tours. The featured private gardens—two in St. Francisville’s downtown historic district, two in the country on LA 421, four in Plantation Oaks subdivision—incorporate a wide variety of landscapes and plant varieties sure to inspire gardening enthusiasts. Container gardening, vegetable and herb gardens, water features, an orchard, steep wooded ravines, meandering pathways, formal parterres and rustic fences, patios, courtyards, and thoughtful combinations of cultivated plantings seamlessly fused with wild plants, all are sure to give visiting gardeners new ideas to incorporate in their own landscapes.
As LSU AgCenter horticultural expert Dr. Dan Gill says, “A garden tour is not just an opportunity to learn; it can inspire you to change who you are as a gardener.” Proceeds benefit 4-H scholarships, school gardens and other community beautification projects. Tickets are $20 and may be purchased in advance or on the day of the Stroll at Jackson Hall of Grace Episcopal Church on Ferdinand St. in downtown St. Francisville, and information is available by telephone (225-635-3614) or online at www.stfrancisvillespringstroll.org or by email (abrock@agcenter.lsu.edu).
In stark contrast to the Garden Stroll is a Smithsonian Institution exhibit hosted by the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola Museum. “The Way We Worked,” a travelling exhibition exploring the professions and people that have traditionally sustained American society as part of our workforce, represents the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities’ participation in the Museum on Main Street project, a national/state/local partnership designed to bring cultural programs and exhibits to rural areas. Tracing the developments affecting the workforce over the past century and a half, “The Way We Worked” draws on the rich collections of the National Archives, including vintage images, film and audio accounts, all telling the compelling story of how work impacts the cultural fabric of our lives.
The exhibit at Angola’s museum from May 17 through June 29 is especially meaningful in this rural area where agriculture, most recently the cultivation and canning of sweet potato crops, has for centuries played such an important role. Called “Farming on the Farm, Agricultural Operations at Angola,” it focuses on the extensive agricultural operations on this sprawling 18,000-acre penitentiary comprised of several antebellum plantation properties. Scholarly presentations, films and oral histories will augment the exhibition, and visitors will have the opportunity to add their own work experiences to Smithsonian archival records. Work chants and music both old and new, plus tastings of agricultural produce prepared by inmate chefs in Angola’s culinary program, will heighten the experience.
Located just outside the entrance gates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on LA 66, the Tunica Trace, the Angola Museum is open Monday through Friday 9 to 4:30, Saturday 8 to 4, closed Sunday. For information on this free exhibit, telephone 225-655-2592 or visit online www.angolamuseum.org.
Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season, and spring is definitely the season for spectacular bloom. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).
The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.
For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum and tourist information center at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224 or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Flags Over St. Francisville
By Anne Butler

Market Hall photo by Gail Chisum

The St. Francisville area is so incredibly scenic that since the days of Audubon it has inspired artists and writers, photographers and painters. It still does. Several local artists have galleries in the historic district downtown, and the West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum-headquarters on Ferdinand Street displays a nice selection of coffee table photography books with glorious images of the area’s landscapes and architecture.

Being released this month is yet another, Flags Along the Way: A Pictorial Journey Through the History of West Feliciana, which promises to supplement the current crop of picture books nicely. Just as every good painter has his own unique style, so every good photographer has his own eye. There can never be too many books preserving parish history in images and print, particularly since fragile old plantation homes are so vulnerable to fires and storms and other destructive elements. What’s here today may well be gone tomorrow.

Methodist Church photo by Gail Chisum

Both text and photography in this new book are by Gail L. Chisum, who was born in Oklahoma, raised in Maryland, and attended Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas on a photo journalism scholarship. After serving in Viet Nam, he returned to the states, where he had a distinguished career in insurance and financial services with Farm Bureau all over the state of Louisiana.

Retirement brought a renewed passion for photography, especially with the advent of digital photography which found him, 40 years after doing college sports photography, now carrying a digital 35mm with 400mm lens at LSU football games. His dream in 2011 was to produce a book on LSU’s season all the way to a national championship, but in the title game Alabama put an abrupt halt to those plans.

By the 1990s Chisum and his family had settled in West Feliciana, where the sense of history is palpable and the numerous historic signs whet his appetite to learn more. After sharing with Farm Bureau colleagues his enthusiasm for combining his interest in parish history with his passion for photography, he found himself the recipient of a fine new Canon camera as a retirement gift. As he says, “I walked out the door of one career to begin another, as an author and photographer of history of the area where I lived.”

Afton Villa Gardens - photo by Gail Chisum

A full year of painstaking research and reading, home visits and interviews with property owners followed. Museum director Helen Williams was a tremendous help, and eventually Chisum filled over 250 pages with fine photographs and in-depth histories. He very sensibly divided the book into chapters according to the many flags that have flown over the area---France, England, Spain, Republic of West Florida, Louisiana, Confederacy, United States.

Flags Along the Way will be available in downtown St. Francisville at the West Feliciana Historical Society museum and at Bohemianville Antiques, where the author will have a book signing on May 3. His next project is even more ambitious: photographing the 59 National Parks across the country, so be sure to catch him while he is still in town!

Beginning April 24, the twenty-first annual Cajun Jeep Jamboree brings off-road enthusiasts to the St. Francisville area for two days of guided trail rides through the challenging hilly terrain of West Feliciana. The event is open to all Jeep brand vehicles, and registration information is available at www.jeepjamboreeusa.com.

Oakely House - photo by Gail Chisum

The Angola Prison Rodeo always draws big crowds of visitors to the St. Francisville area in April; this year’s spring edition is April 26 and 27. From the time the mounted black-clad Angola Rough Riders race at break-neck speed into the arena, flags streaming and hooves flying, visitors are on the edges of their seats through events pitting inmates against pro-stock Brahma bulls and wild-eyed bucking broncos. Ladies’ barrel racing is the only non-inmate event in what is called the longest running prison rodeo, begun in the 1960s and now celebrating half a century of thrills and spills.

Crowd favorites are the events unique to Angola, including the crowd-pleasing "Guts and Glory", an arena full of inmates on foot trying to remove a $100 chit tied between the horns of the meanest Brahma bull around. Rodeo events begin at 2 p.m., but the grounds open at 9 a.m. for a huge arts and crafts sale showcasing inmate talent in hobbycraft like jewelry, hand-tooled leather, paintings and woodwork both large and small, from children’s toys to garden furniture. Special activities for children include pony rides and an antique carousel, space walks and carnival games. Inmate bands perform throughout the day, and a large number of concession stands offer a variety of food and drink, with the stands providing shaded seating for more than 10,000 cheering spectators. Tickets ($20 premium, $15 regular seating) should be purchased in advance (online at www.angolarodeo.com or by telephone on weekdays 8:30-4 (225) 655-2030 or (225) 655-2607).

Visitors should allow time to tour the fascinating prison museum just outside the front entrance gates to learn more about the history of this enormous maximum-security penitentiary. It should be noted that there are specific regulations with which visitors must comply when entering prison grounds; no food, drink, cell phones or cameras are allowed through the rodeo entrance gate, and on prison property no weapons, ammunition, alcohol or drugs are permitted; purses and bags will be searched and all vehicles must be locked when unoccupied.

Museum - photo by Gail Chisum

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and
Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of restored plantation homes are open for tours daily: Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season, and spring is definitely the season for spectacular bloom. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations some weekends to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs (state budget constraints have unfortunately shuttered Oakley Sunday and Monday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty shops, many in restored historic structures, and restaurants serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register historic district; there are also motel accommodations for bus groups.

For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society’s museum and tourist information center at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224 or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online visit www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Writers and Readers

A GATHERING OF WRITERS AND READERS IN ST. FRANCISVILLE When the West Feliciana Parish Police Jury in midsummer approved a bid of $2.7 million to construct a new library, old timers considered it a natural progression in an area that has traditionally been devoted to the literary arts. The town had one of the state’s earliest public libraries, and the surrounding plantations had extensive private libraries of their own. Today St. Francisville is home for several published authors and retired university literature professors. Besides looking forward to the spacious new library, today’s booklovers anticipate with great relish a special event dubbed A Gathering of Writers and Readers, begun in 2007 and now under the auspices of Arts For All, the non-profit umbrella agency for all arts in West Feliciana. The celebration brings together published authors with readers who might not otherwise have the opportunity to hear writers read from and discuss their work. Scheduled for Saturday, February 22, 2014, at Hemingbough Cultural Arts Center just south of St. Francisville, the all-day event begins at 8:30 a.m. and will be moderated by SLU professor and former bookstore owner Charles Elliott, himself a writer, film director and noted character. Four professional authors will be featured, as well as distinguished repeat guest Ernest Gaines, recent recipient of the National Medal of Arts, who will be honored for his extraordinary literary contributions, and featured writers from previous years are invited to “gather” again. Dr. Wiley Cash, nationally acclaimed award-winning fiction author, had his first novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, selected as a New York Times Notable Book. A North Carolina native, Cash earned his PhD at UL Lafayette and studied under writer-in-residence emeritus Ernest J. Gaines. It was there that he began the bestselling book A Land More Kind than Home, which NPR called “great Gothic Southern fiction filled with whiskey, guns and snake-handling.” His second book, the just-released This Dark Road to Mercy, promises to be just as riveting, a novel of love and atonement, blood and vengeance. Rheta Grimsley Johnson is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and author of nonfiction books including Poor Man’s Provence—Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana about time spent in Henderson in the Atchafalaya Basin. Dr. Julie Kane, Northwestern State University professor and Louisiana’s past Poet Laureate, has published five volumes of poetry, and her poems have appeared in dozens of anthologies and journals. Both Cash and Kane are experienced university professors, and Johnson has been on the short list for a Pulitzer for journalism; her popular folksy columns appear in Baton Rouge’s The Advocate. Anne Butler writes nonfiction books preserving Louisiana history and culture, as well as children’s books, hundreds of articles for magazines and newspapers, and true crime, including Weep for the Living; as a crime writer she had certainly not intended to become an actual participant, but when she was shot five times, she managed to get a good book out of even that experience. Her more recent books  Louisiana Hwy. 1  and Main Streets of Louisiana include beautiful color images by Louisiana photographer Henry Cancienne. These diverse authors have been specifically chosen to give the audience a well-balanced appreciation for the art of literature---poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, nonfiction, all with great appeal to Louisiana readers. They will share their creative processes and works; participants, including several students on scholarships, are encouraged to ask questions and will have an opportunity to interact with the authors. Seating is limited. For online information visit http://artsforall.felicianalocal.com. Tickets, $35, may be purchased at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/491750 and include parking, individual author presentations as well as moderated panel discussions, book signings, refreshments, lunch and a dessert reception with authors. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council, the Greater Baton Rouge Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency.  A grant from Entergy allowed Arts for All to invite Wiley Cash, who will be the Entergy Author for this event.

Dr. Wiley Cash Rhea Grimsley Johnson Dr. Julie Kane Anne Butler