Take a Shopping Staycation to St. Francisville, LA

Take a Shopping Staycation to St. Francisville, LA
By Anne Butler

Visitors often marvel at how such a little town as St. Francisville can offer such diversity. Want something to eat? There’s Chinese, Middle Eastern, Mexican, Southern, you name it, all of it good. Want to spend the night? There are Bed & Breakfasts, modern motels, golf resorts, historic, contemporary, in town, in the country, on a lake. Want recreation? Hiking the hills, biking the rural lanes, birding in the wooded areas or even in the middle of tree-shaded downtown, kayaking in Bayou Sara.

And shopping? An enticing variety of little shops with unique wares offer something for everyone, from upscale jewelry sold around the world to one-of-a-kind items provided with warm personal service. This sure isn’t Wal-Mart, Toto, although there are a couple of Dollar Stores and a well-stocked Fred’s.

In the 19th century, St. Francisville atop the bluffs was the center of culture while Bayou Sara, perched on the banks of the Mississippi River below the bluffs, was the center of commerce, with steamboats unloading treasures from around the world. But after years of overflow flooding, most of that port city was washed away, though some structures and businesses relocated up the hill into St. Francisville. Today there are still some of these same structures and businesses, but they have been joined by a whole host of others, providing a new fresh outlook and plenty of up-to-date shopping opportunities.

Grandmothers Buttons, in the turn-of-the-century red brick bank building, has beautifully designed jewelry utilizing vintage buttons and imported glass or crystal in an affordable price range, as well as an eclectic selection of many other items; there’s also a fascinating museum of antique buttons in the former bank vault. Patrick’s Fine Jewelry (Live Oak Centre) has classic custom pieces as well as estate jewels.

Two art studio/galleries showcase the works of local artists and host periodic shows: Harrington Gallery and Backwoods Gallery, with originals, prints and framing. Temple Design has totebags, tshirts, hats, beach towels and lots of other pieces with local insignia.

There are several antiques co-ops with multiple dealers exhibiting vintage collectibles as well as fine antiques: Bohemianville Antiques, St. Francis Art and Antiques, and the new St. Francisville Antique Mall.

Gift shops include The Shanty Too, longtime downtown anchor store with linen clothing, baby presents and an old-time candy shoppe; Hillcrest Gardens and Interiors with something for every age and every taste; Sage Hill Gifts with a wonderful selection of carefully chosen decorative items.

Elliot’s Pharmacy (Live Oak Centre) also has a large gift section, and next door is Mia Sophia Florist, which augments beautiful fresh flowers and plants with children’s clothing and the world’s best fudge. Ins-N-Outs Nursery has hanging and bedding plants for flowerbeds and vegetable gardens, while Border Imports on US Highway 61 North has a huge variety of Mexican import pottery and cast aluminum pieces for indoors and out, ranging from small colorful Talavera pieces to lifesize animal reproductions, garden statuary and seating.

Ladies’ clothing shops offering the latest fashions and stylish accessories include Ma Mille which often has special markdowns, Femme Fatale Boutique, Beehive Boutique, and Trends. Sharing space with Beehive is Mud-Pie Soaps.

The Conundrum Books and Puzzles is a quirkly little indie bookstore with a well-curated collection of reading material and puzzles for children and adults, and the West Feliciana Historical Society also has a nice gift shop with lots of regional books as well as cards and children’s things. Heirloom Quilt Shoppe has patterns and select fabrics for sewing projects and offers periodic instruction as well.

And then there are the little pop-up periodic shopping opportunities. On Thursdays and Fridays the Farmers’ Market has not only fresh produce but also designer Anna Maceda’s beautiful Bon Savon Soaps, plus honey and jellies and baked goods. On days when the American Queen steamboat docks at St. Francisville so its passengers can tour the downtown area and patronize the shops, a boutique of arts and crafts (great jewelry and other items) sets up in historic Audubon Market Hall. Rosedown, Oakley and The Myrtles Plantations in the surrounding area also have well-stocked gift shops.

Most of these shops are in St. Francisville’s National Register-listed Historic District downtown within easy walking distance of each other, except for the ones in Live Oak Centre, on US Hwy 61 North, or at the outlying plantations. So stroll the brick streets beneath the overhanging live oaks and colorful crepe myrtles, and this shopping staycation can make visitors who’ve driven short distances feel a million miles away, transported back to a time when shopping trips were eagerly anticipated and lavishly rewarding.

A fun special event called Polos and Pearls extends shopping hours into the cool of the evening on Saturday, August 19, with trolley transportation throughout the downtown area as shops host open houses with refreshments and live music. Participating shops are open until 9 p.m. and visitors should not miss a single one.

And if auctions are your thing, be sure to attend the Wags and Whiskers Gala at Hemingbough on Saturday, July 29, beginning at 6 p.m. This fundraiser for the West Feliciana Animal Shelter promises food, fun, kissing costumed dogs wishing for a home, dancing to the music of the popular Delta Drifters, and a silent auction with tons of great things to bid on. The shelter does a magnificent job and deserves everyone’s support. Tickets may be purchased at the Bank of St. Francisville or online at Brown Paper Tickets.

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: The Cottage Plantation (weekends), Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season and are both spectacular. 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. The main house at Oakley is temporarily closed for lead abatement, but the visitor center and grounds remain accessible and planned programs continue.

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking and especially bicycle racing due to the challenging terrain, birding, photography, hunting, and kayaking on Bayou Sara. 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 West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society 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).

Layers of History

St. Francisville’s Layers of History
By Anne Butler

Tunica-Biloxi Cultural and Educational Resources Center

St. Francisville, Louisiana’s popular Audubon Pilgrimage each March features West Feliciana’s fascinating historic plantation homes and gardens from the 19th century, but the history of the area goes much farther back than that. Indeed, some of the earliest roadways, sunken deep into the soft loessial soil with steep sides showing striations delineating the layers of history, began as game trails leading to watering holes, then as footpaths trod by the moccasins of the area’s earliest Native American occupants.

The 1680s journals of French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, mention the Houma Indian nation living on the eastern banks of the Mississippi River across from the mouth of the Red River around what is now West Feliciana Parish, and in 1686 explorer Henri de Tonti visited the Houma village. Peaceable farmers whose numbers in 1699 were recorded by Iberville as 350 men, it was the Houmas who marked the boundary of their hunting grounds with the tall red pole that gave Baton Rouge (Red Stick) its name. By 1706 the Houmas had been driven farther south by the Tunica tribe, fierce tattooed warriors as well as skilled traders, who moved near the present site of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. It was an ideal location for the continuation of their role as middlemen in the trading of commodities like salt, highly valued by both Indians and European explorers.

In 1731 the Tunica moved a few miles south to the site of Trudeau Plantation, and over the course of the next three decades, until 1764, the burial grounds at this Indian village would grow to include over 150 graves. It was the custom of the Tunica to bury valuables with the dead, and these graves contained not only the wealth of the tribe but also exotic imported goods attesting to their extensive trade with Europeans.

Tunica Indian's Artifacts

After joining the military campaign of Governor Galvez which overthrew British control in Baton Rouge, the Tunicas were rewarded with Spanish land grants in the Avoyelles Prairie, now the Tunica-Biloxi Indian Reservation in Marksville on the west side of the Mississippi River. The 2000 census showed 648 Tunicas on the reservation, which is run by an elected tribal council with its own police force, health services, education, housing authority, court system, and they also operate Louisiana’s first land-based casino.

But the Trudeau Landing burial grounds remained on the east side of the Mississippi River, undisturbed until the 1960s, when an amateur treasure hunter and Angola guard named Leonard Charrier from Opelousas, having pinpointed the location of the Indian village site by poring over old maps and journals, began excavating the graves, unearthing without landowner permission what came to be known as the Tunica Treasure.

Eventually estimated at 2½ tons of artifacts (Charrier cast aside the bones), his findings included not only intricate native pottery, calumets and three-legged cookpots but also large amounts of European trade goods, glass bottles, brass and copper items, flintlock muskets, iron tools, French faience pottery, lead-glazed bowls and stoneware. As Charrier explored possible sales for his booty, various respected archeologists and museums across the country got involved. The bulk of the artifacts were sent to the Peabody Museum at Harvard and later stored at the LA State Museum while a lawsuit over ownership of the treasure made its way through the cumbersome court system. The state of Louisiana eventually purchased the Trudeau Plantation property and the Tunica tribe was declared the legal owner of the burial goods. One significant upshot of the legal wrangling was passage of protective federal legislation called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990.

Today the Tunica Treasure collection is housed on the reservation in Marksville at the Tunica-Biloxi Cultural and Educational Resources Center, a soaring architectural wonder housing a library, learning center, conference facilities, tribal offices, museum on Tunica tribal history, and a state-of-the-art conservation laboratory where a large percentage of the artifacts have been painstakingly restored.

Old Tunica Road by Darrell Chitty

Visitors to the St. Francisville area today have access to state preservation wilderness areas in these same Tunica Hills, and a drive along the Old Tunica Road between Weyanoke and Tunica offers a thrilling roller-coaster ride as it parallels the Mississippi River’s course, traveling along steep hills and deep hollows back through the centuries along paths once trod by the area’s earliest inhabitants. A favorite of hikers and bicycle racers because of the challenging terrain, the Old Tunica Road traverses some of south Louisiana’s most spectacular scenery, but it is not for the hurried or the faint-hearted during inclement weather, as some unpaved sections become impassable when wet without four-wheel drive. The road passes through the south tract of the Tunica Hills Wildlife Management Area, sunken between high roadside banks rising 20 or 30 feet above the roadbed and covered with mosses and wild ferns that thrive in the cool shady habitat. From St. Francisville, go north on US 61, left onto LA 66, left onto LA 968 and right onto Old Tunica Road, which eventually winds back out to LA 66 for a right turn to go back to US 61 and south into St. Francisville.

Less strenuous but just as challenging (mentally, at least) is St. Francisville’s popular annual Writers and Readers Symposium, bringing together an amazing group of authors and artists to speak about their creative processes and mingle with enthusiastic lovers of good literature at Hemingbough Conference Center on Saturday, February 20. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m., with presentations by featured authors starting at 9, lunch at noon, a 1 p.m. author’s panel Q&A, followed by an hour-long autograph session at 2 p.m. An added visual treat will be A Novel Image, a competitive exhibit of photographs, paintings and sculpture matched with literary works. The Saturday symposium will be followed on Sunday by a Writers Workshop led by Margaret McMullan for both experienced and aspiring authors at the West Feliciana Parish Library from 9 to 4.

Margaret McMullan

Featured presenters this year are award-winning novelist Margaret McMullan, who released her moving seventh novel Aftermath Lounge on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina; Renaissance man Michael Rubin, jazz pianist, national speaker/humorist, and practicing attorney whose murder mystery The Cottoncrest Curse was published by LSU Press; New Orleans poet Mona Lisa Saloy returning to share a new book of poetry called Second Line Home; and noted Louisiana photographer Philip Gould and renowned public muralist Robert Dafford. The Public Art of Robert Dafford, one of Gould’s dozen books, features his superb images in both words and photographs of some of Dafford’s most memorable murals, painted in this country, Canada, France, Belgium and Great Britain, and both artists will be present for the symposium at Hemingbough.

For tickets, register online with credit card at www.brownpapertickets.com (OLLI members www.outreach.lsu.edu/olli). Advance fees for the symposium are $50; $60 at door. Writers Workshop fee is $150; limited scholarships are available. Online information is available at www.literatureandart.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 splendidly restored plantation homes are open for tours: the Cottage Plantation, Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are open in season and are both spectacular. 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 Monday and Tuesday).

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking and especially bicycle racing due to the challenging terrain, birding, photography, hunting, and kayaking on Bayou Sara. 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 West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society 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 Symposium

Writers and Readers Symposium Coming Soon to St. Francisville, LA
By Anne Butler

West Feliciana Parish Library

As 2015 dawns, St. Francisville steps into the future with a number of improvements, from the grand new library and prospects of a commodious new hospital to several much anticipated new restaurants and shops. But location scouts have long appreciated the little town’s ability to step BACK in time, the many preserved historic structures making it possible to throw some dirt on the streets and…voila!...it’s the 19th century.

Residents deal daily with this dichotomy, the delicate balance of preservation and progress, recognizing that the present and hopes for a financially stable future are of necessity firmly grounded in the past, built upon history. Town founders had forethought and high hopes, laying out side streets with optimistic names like Prosperity and Progress. As that old Greek proverb proclaimed, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

But how to connect past and present, especially in a meaningful and sensible way? Participants at A Celebration of Literature and Art’s Writers and Readers Symposium on Saturday, February 21, at Hemingbough Convention Center in St. Francisville will get a variety of unique views on the interconnections between past and present as four celebrated authors—mystery writer Abigail Padgett, poet Ava Leavell Haymon, New Orleans novelist and short story writer Moira Crone, photographer Richard Sexton, all with new books-- share their creative processes both individually and in moderated panel discussions with audience participation encouraged.

Abigail Padgett’s latest book is An Unremembered Grave. A resident of San Diego who has visited St. Francisville over many years, Padgett was struck by a 1990s photograph showing excavations through the striated strata of Angola’s Tunica Hills. At the lowest level of a dirt pit cut deep into the loess soil, LSU paleontologists were shown examining mammoth bones, while at the very top ground-level layer, archaeologists and prison staff in the same photograph examined newly uncovered skeletal remains of an unidentified 19th-century burial.

Considering these layered connections, a single photograph linking time periods from prehistoric creatures through Native Americans and antebellum plantations to the present correctional facility, award-winning mystery writer Padgett has woven an imaginative web of intrigue involving a prescient history professor, a spooky Louisiana plantation, an innocent prisoner, an ancient slave-made quilt. And, oh yes, a charming vampire with a plausible explanation for these entwined moments of time, whose slumber under the oppressive weight of history was interrupted atop that loessial bluff on Angola, the vampire whose blood-thirst was essential to pass along the eternal stories, the immutable history of the race and the currents of collective memory coursing through the veins of living creatures.

Gifted writer-photographer Richard Sexton’s most recent book, Creole World: Photographs of New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean Sphere, explores and illustrates with dreamy images the Creole connections between New Orleans and the Latin Caribbean. It’s all in the eye, really---well, maybe the mind too, and the heart and soul. That’s how Sexton, with his strong architecture and art background, spots the elegance amidst the decadence and celebrates the colorful remnants of Creole culture even in the most desolate Caribbean slum or New Orleans housing project. Compelling images reflect the author’s four decades roaming across the Latin Caribbean capturing architectural and urban similarities connecting New Orleans’ Creole heritage with colonial cultures in Haiti, Colombia, Panama, Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador and other historic locales.

Sexton says his Creole book “isn’t about home decorating---or pretty architecture, or even about city planning, although I think it addresses those interests. It’s my attempt to sum up an outlook---and a culture---that feels Creole to me. I’m drawn to places that accept accidents and decay, that put the past to fresh uses, that proceed by trial and error and keep things that work even if they don’t fit the rules.” As Sexton, who has lived in New Orleans since 1991, explains in an interview with Chris Waddington of nola.com, “I don’t just celebrate the past. I’m looking to see how the past can help us get to the future.”

Prestigious LSU Press has published four collections of Louisiana Poet Laureate Ava Haymon’s poetry, and she is editor of the press’ Barataria Poetry Series. A Mississippi native who grew up in Kansas City with a Baptist preacher father who made her memorize ten verses of Scripture each week and recite them perfectly before the television set could be turned on, she attended Baylor University and then moved to Baton Rouge so her husband could go to LSU Law School and she could get a master’s degree in English.

She found Louisiana a poet’s dream, “a wonderful place to write poetry about. It has exotic weather, all sorts of ethnic groups and fabulous music. It’s sensory.” And yet, she finds inspiration in family dynamics across the generations as well. Her most recent book is titled Eldest Daughter, in which LSU Press says the poet combines the sensory and the spiritual in wild verbal fireworks. “Concrete descriptions of a woman’s life in the mid-20th-century American South mix with wider concerns about family lies and truths, and culture that supports or forbids clear speech. Haymon’s poems encourage us to revel in the natural world and enjoy its delights, as well as to confront the hard truths that would keep us from doing so.”

Also inspired by family dynamics in the South is Moira Crone, respected New Orleans novelist and short story writer. Called one of the best American writers, Crone attended University of North Carolina and Smith College, then studied writing at Johns Hopkins. After moving to Louisiana, she directed the MFA Program in Creative Writing at LSU in Baton Rouge before relocating to New Orleans with her husband, writer Rodger Kamenetz.

When she received the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers for the body of her work, it was said that her interest in things spiritual “has led her work to be wittily described as ‘Southern Gnostic.’ In books like What Gets Into Us, Period of Confinement, and Dream State, Crone charts a zone of family resemblance and family claustrophobia. Her work can be hilarious in dealing with contemporary moral relativism. She is a fable maker with a musical ear, a plentitude of nerve, and an epic heart for her beleaguered, if often witty characters.”

Moira Crone’s newest book, published in late fall 2014, is The Ice Garden, called “a story as dazzling and dangerous as ice, a heart stopper. This may just be the most haunting and memorable novel you will ever read.” The book’s narrator is ten years old, daughter of a mother trapped in the suffocating southern culture of the sixties, and only she can save her family. Of all Crone’s prize-winning novels and short stories, reviewers call The Ice Garden her finest book yet.

Tickets to the Writers and Readers Symposium, including lunch with these authors and a juried exhibit of photographs linked to literature, may be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com ( OLLI members can sign up through LSU); January tickets are $40, February $50, at the door $60. Seating is limited. Thanks to the Town of St. Francisville, 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, and as administered by the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. Funding has also been provided by Entergy and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Adjuncts to the program include Ava Hayman teaching a poetry workshop for Bains Elementary School students, and Abigail Padgett, who has taught creative writing at Harvard and other institutions, working with promising upper class students. In addition, Hayman and Padgett will conduct a Writers’ Workshop for aspiring and professional adult authors Saturday, February 28, in a stimulating plantation setting.

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: 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).

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).

DECK THE HILLS AT ST. FRANCISVILLE’S CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

By Anne Butler

Local Shop

Christmas, as customarily celebrated in the country, was marked by beloved rituals and time-honored traditions. Houses were decked with woodland greenery, cedar trees cut and strung with cherished decorations, mistletoe hung in anticipation of stolen kisses, nativities assembled and church services attended, even a few cups of creamy eggnog downed. And then 19^th-century country folk piled into horsedrawn wagons and headed into the area’s commercial and cultural center, St. Francisville, where wide-eyed children pressed cold noses against frosted storefront windows and dreamed of china dolls or wooden rocking horses.
The dry-goods emporiums and specialty shops of St. Francisville in the early days carried everything from farm implements and buggies to ladies’ fine millinery and gents’ furnishings, everything from cradles to coffins. They still do today, and the merchants of historic downtown St. Francisville take pleasure and pride in hosting a Christmas celebration that still draws celebrants of the season to a safe, family-oriented weekend of fun and festivities and fabulous shopping called Christmas in the Country, always the first full weekend of December, this year December 6, 7 and 8. There may not be any coffins for sale, but Santa still arrives in a horse-drawn vehicle.

White Cottage & Market Hall

Millions of white lights trace soaring Victorian trimwork and grace gallery posts to transform the entire town into a veritable winter wonderland as St. Nick arrives to kick off the Lighting Ceremony of the Town Christmas Tree beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6, 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.  The Baton Rouge Symphony presents its annual concert of seasonal selections and dessert reception beginning at 7 p.m. at Hemingbough; tickets are available at the Bank of St. Francisville.
Saturday, Dec. 7, 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; $6 tickets may be purchased online at www.womensserviceleague.com ).   The Women’s Service League also sells fresh wreaths and pre-wrapped Plantation Country Cookbooks all weekend on Ferdinand St. next to the library, with proceeds benefiting local civic and charitable activities.
From 10 to 4 Saturday there will be children’s activities plus the Main Street Band (noon to 2), handmade crafts and food vendors in oak-shaded Parker Park.  There will also be entertainment in various locations throughout the downtown historic district, featuring choirs, dancers, musicians, and other performers. 

Children meet Santa

The angelic voices of the Bains Elementary 2^nd Grade Choir are raised at the West Feliciana Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand St. at 10 a.m. From 9:45 to 10:45 the West Feliciana High School Mixed Performance Choir sings at the United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, followed from 11 to 11:45 by the school’s Beginning, Advanced, Performance and Soloist Choirs. The front porch of Town Hall is gospel headquarters with stirring performances from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. by the Sherobee Missionary Baptist Church Combined Choir, Mount Bethel Baptist Church Choir, recording artist Minister TEHA, and from New Roads Arthur & Friends Community Choir. From 10 to 2 the Sweet Adelines’ Lyrical Quartet strolls and sings along Ferdinand and Royal Sts., while the Angola Inmate Traveling Band from Louisiana State Penitentiary performs across from Garden Symposium Park from noon to 4.

Christmas Parade

Saturday’s highlight, of course, is the colorful 2 p.m. Christmas parade sponsored by the Women’s Service League with the theme “Deck the Hills with Lights and Holly.” Participants include everyone from local dignitaries and Mike the Tiger 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. Grand Marshall is the newly elected Parish President. The parade lines up on Royal St. and traverses Ferdinand and Commerce Streets, so don’t plan on driving through downtown St. Francisville mid-afternoon.
From 6 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, the United Methodist Church on Royal St. hosts a Community Sing-a-long, while the First Baptist Church (US 61 at LA 10) sponsors its very popular Live Nativity from 6 to 8 p.m., reminding of the reason for the season.  Also from 6 to 8 p.m., visitors can “Peep into our Holiday Homes,” peeking through handblown windowpanes and lace curtains into participating homes all decorated for the holidays in St. Francisville’s downtown National Register Historic District.

Santa Rides

In addition, Saturday evening from 5:30 to 8:30, visitors are welcomed for candlelight tours, period music and 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 1820's. This historic home never looks lovelier than in the soft romantic glow of the candles that were its only illumination for its early years. During the day from 10 to 4, the historic site observes its annual Colonial Christmas holiday festival, including cooking demonstrations.
Christmas in the Country activities continue on Sunday, December 8, with in-town activities and an afternoon Friends of the Library Tour of Homes from noon to 5 p.m. ($20 fee benefits the new parish library and advance tickets are available online at wftourofhomes.bpt.me or from the West Feliciana Parish Library; on the day of the tour, tickets may be purchased at The Bluffs clubhouse or participating homes). Four diverse homes are featured, two on LA 965 and two on Ferdinand St.; at The Bluffs, a jazz brunch (extra fee) precedes the tour and boutique shopping with refreshments follows.

Local Shop

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. Francisville Art & Antiques and Bohemianville Antiques feature vintage collectibles and furnishings. Femme Fatale specializes in fine fashions; Trends Boutique and Ma Milles Gifts also have stylish clothing, game-day gear and jewelry.

Singing along Main Street

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 and Coyote Creek nurseries carry live seasonal plants to complement any decorating scheme; St. Francis Christmas Trees also has fresh-cut trees, and Mia Sophia Florist features floral arrangements, wreaths and plants as well. 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 and 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 and B&Bs in the area offer gift certificates to extend the giving throughout the year.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and

Christmas Parade Trolley

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, Butler Greenwood Plantation, the 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 most 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 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).

A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA,

November 30, December 1 and 2

By Anne Butler

St. Francisville’s economy was predominantly agriculture-based into the mid-20th century; the farmers planted sweet potatoes, the farmers’ wives canned the potatoes at the local processing plant, and prosperity proved elusive. But even then, visitors were drawn to the area by its nostalgic charm.

Grand Greek Revival Greenwood offered house tours and the setting for swashbuckling movies like Drango (1957) starring dashing Jeff Chandler. At gothic Afton Villa, Aunt Shug made pralines for the tourists and her husband in top hat and tails swept deep bows to entice passing carss in from two-lane Highway 61. Bewhiskered Jimmy Bowman and his spinster sisters offered peeks of the rundown but still glorious Rosedown Plantation house and overgrown gardens, timidly proffering penny postcards for sale. The Cottage opened the first B&B where would-be Scarlett O’Haras were served morning coffee on silver trays while snuggled in fine four-poster beds.

Alas, Greenwood and Afton Villa burned; the sweet potato cannery closed. The little town of St. Francisville seemed destined to fade away as well, until 1972 when the passionate preservationists of the recently formed historical society hit upon a plan to bring in tourists---and money---with the Audubon Pilgrimage, opening the doors to private historic homes and gardens one weekend each spring. The pilgrimage had as much to say to residents as it did to visitors, giving locals an increased appreciation of the natural beauty and historic treasures they too often took for granted. Is this history relevant today, the cultural antecedents that made the community what it is? As one rather earthy early New Orleans legislator commented, “If ya ain’t got culcha, ya ain’t got sh**!”

For forty years the popular pilgrimage proved St. Francisville indeed had “culcha,” but all the “culcha” in the world isn’t worth much if it isn’t economically sustainable, and this springtime tour lasted a mere three days a year and featured only historic properties. With changing demographics of tourism and year-round interest in visiting the area, it was only natural to augment the spring festival with what has become the region’s most popular small-town Christmas celebration, “Christmas in the Country,” featuring fabulous shopping opportunities and fun-filled family-friendly downtown activities, plus a library fundraising tour of outstanding contemporary houses as well.


Christmas in St. Francisville has always been a magical time. In the 19th century, country folks from miles around would pile into wagons to do their weekly shopping in the little town’s dry-goods emporiums that offered everything from buggies to coffins. At Christmas, tiny tots would press their noses against frosted storefront windows to gaze with wistful longing at elegant china dolls and wooden rocking horses.

It’s still that way today. Millions of tiny white lights trace soaring Victorian trimwork and grace gallery posts to transform the extensive downtown National Register Historic District into a veritable winter wonderland for Christmas in the Country November 30, December 1 and 2, as the historic little rivertown showcases its continuing vitality as the center of culture and commerce for the entire surrounding region. The enthusiastic sponsors of Christmas in the Country are the downtown merchants, and the real focus of the weekend remains the St. Francisville area's marvelous little 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 fine shops occupy historic structures throughout the downtown area and spread into the outlying district, each unique in its own way, and visitors should not miss a single one.


Beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, Santa Claus comes to town to kick off the Lighting Ceremony of the Town Christmas Tree, followed by a public reception at Town Hall hosted by longtime St. Francisville Mayor Billy D'Aquilla and featuring performances by the First Baptist Church Children’s Choir and West Feliciana Middle School Choir. The Baton Rouge Symphony presents its annual concert of seasonal selections and dessert reception beginning at 7 p.m. at Hemingbough; tickets are available at the Bank of St. Francisville. And designated residences along Royal and Ferdinand Streets allow visitors to “Peep into our Holiday Homes” Friday and Saturday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 1, 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; www.womensserviceleague.com or 225-721-3563). The Women’s Service League also sells fresh wreaths and pre-wrapped Plantation Country Cookbooks all weekend on Ferdinand St. next to the library, with proceeds benefiting local civic and charitable activities.



Throughout the day Saturday there will be children’s activities and photos with Santa, the Main Street Band (noon to 2), handmade crafts and food vendors in oak-shaded Parker Park. There will also be entertainment in various locations throughout the downtown historic district, featuring choirs, dancers, musicians, and other performers.

The angelic voices of the Bains Lower Elementary children's choir—Voices in Motion-- are raised at the West Feliciana Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand St. at 10 a.m. From 9:30 to 10:30 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 Beginning and Advanced Choirs. At 11:30 on Ferdinand St. the Westside Cloggers group put on a lively show at Bella Vita Salon, followed by a Shin Sun Korean Martial Arts demonstration. From 10 to 2 the Sweet Adelines’ Lyrical Quartet strolls and sings along Ferdinand and Royal Sts., while the Angola Inmate Traveling Band from Louisiana State Penitentiary performs across from Garden Symposium Park from noon to 4. Kevin Johnson sings on the front porch of Town Hall 11 to 1, and the Swinging Willows Jazz Band performs at the library from noon to 1. Arts for All hosts a photography exhibit at its studio in the Quarters on Commerce St. 10 to 5.

Saturday’s highlight, of course, is the colorful 2 p.m. Christmas parade sponsored by the Women’s Service League, this year’s theme being “Joy to the World.” Dozens of gaily decorated parade floats vie for coveted prizes, accompanied by cheerleaders, bands, bagpipes, vintage cars, marching ROTC units and dancers. Santa rides resplendent in a magnificent sleigh pulled by Louisiana State Penitentiary's immense prized Percheron draft horses, groomed and gleaming in the sunlight with their sleigh bells jingling. Grand marshall is dedicated town employee Eric Schneider, who spreads his own joy on his daily rounds maintaining St. Francisville’s remarkably litter-free streets.

At 6 p.m. on Saturday, the United Methodist Church on Royal St. hosts a Community Sing-a-long, while the First Baptist Church on US 61 at LA 10 sponsors its very popular Live Nativity from 6 to 8 p.m., reminding of the reason for the season. In addition, Saturday evening from 6 to 8, visitors are welcomed for candlelight tours, period music and wassail at Audubon State Historic Site on LA Hwy. 965, where artist-naturalist John James Audubon painted many of his famous bird studies in the early 1820's. This historic home never looks lovelier than in the soft romantic glow of the candles that were its only illumination for its early years. During the day from 10 to 4, the historic site observes its annual holiday festival.


Christmas in the Country activities continue on Sunday, December 2, with in-town activities and, north of St. Francisville in the Lake Rosemound/Laurel Hill area, the Friends of the Library Tour of Homes, featuring six unique homes on four private properties, with refreshments provided by Heirloom Cuisine. Tickets are available from the West Feliciana Parish Library, at the featured homes and other businesses on the day of the tour (for information, 225-635-3364). Features include the Figges’ lakeside country retreat on Hazelwood Plantation, a cottage called Kwamalusi (Zulu for “place of the shepherd”) housing retired bishop Charles Jenkins and his wife, Paul and Mary Ann Stevens’ Micajah Lodge which began life as a log cabin, and several incredible cypress-and-glass structures surrounded by lakes and waterfalls and gardens owned by the Roland family.

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.


The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican 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 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

ST. FRANCISVILLE CELEBRATES ITS GLORIOUS GARDENS AND GROWING ART SCENE
By Anne Butler

The floral design workshop on Friday morning will take place on the picturesque grounds of Afton Villa Gardens. (Photo credit: Dr. Neil Odenwald)

In 1831 the Encyclopaedia Americana called St. Francisville and the surrounding District of Nueva Feliciana “the garden of Louisiana,” and always it was so. Across the verdant hills and well-watered forests Mother Nature spared no effort in strewing a wonderful wealth of wildflowers to brighten this garden spot long before the earliest settlers arrived. The first cultivated gardens were practical affairs of vegetables and herbs, with greenhouses to extend growing seasons to feed the early families as well as their livestock. Once these planter families prospered from cash crops of indigo, cotton and sugarcane, they could turn their attention from the pragmatic to the merely pleasing, clearing and terracing the rolling lawns, transplanting from the woodlands wild oak-leaf hydrangea and snowy dogwood, and importing from fledgling East Coast nurseries the azaleas and camellias to plant in patterned parterres of formal gardens inspired by foreign travels.



The annual Southern Garden Symposium in St. Francisville celebrates that great gardening tradition and fosters its continuation by convening horticulture enthusiasts for a weekend of demonstrations, lectures and tours through the area’s glorious antebellum gardens. This year’s 24th annual event, which planners promise will be one of the most informative and entertaining ever in its combination of prestigious speakers, historic surroundings and engaging social events, takes place Friday, October 12, and Saturday, October 13. Proceeds fund such projects as scholarships to LSU’s School of Landscape Architecture and garden enhancements at state historic sites.

The Speakers' Gala is an elegant highlight to the Symposium weekend.(Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

Subjects of Friday morning workshops include a demonstration of floral design presented in the ruins garden of Afton Villa by Lynette McDougald who was named Mississippi’s Floral Designer of the Year 2000; rain gardens and other sustainable landscaping presented at Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site by LSU landscape architecture professor D.G. “Buck” Abbey; the incorporation of edible plants into today’s landscape, presented at the United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall by Kyle Huffstickler, landscape coordinator for LSU’s LaHouse Home and Landscape Resource Center; and tree care presented at Wyoming Plantation by arborist Jim Culpeper. In the afternoon on Friday, several of those workshops will be repeated, plus a presentation at Grace Episcopal Church’s Jackson Hall by flower magazine editor Margot Shaw on the fearless use of color in gardens.



On Saturday Southern Garden Symposium programs at Hemingbough, feature lectures on “Time-Tested Treasures for Sophisticated Southern Spaces” by Heidi Sheesley, owner of wholesaler Treesearch Farms; “Martha Turnbull’s Rosedown Diaries” by Suzanne Turner, landscape architect and author who edited the diaries; “Integrating Art and Science in Landscape Design” by award-winning landscape architect Jeffrey Carbo; and “Welcome Home George Washington” by J. Dean Norton, historic Mount Vernon’s Director of Horticulture. Participants will be welcomed by Master of Proceedings Dr. Neil Odenwald, and social gatherings are the Friday evening Speakers’ Gala at Rosebank Plantation and the Saturday afternoon tea at Evergreenzine. For registration information, see www.southerngardensymposium.org.

Guests enjoy a workshop at Rosedown Plantation. (Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

The sheer beauty of the cultivated landscapes and the verdant wild woodlands in the St. Francisville area have inspired creative artists ever since John James Audubon painted a number of his famous bird studies while tutoring the young daughter of Oakley Plantation in 1821, and the arts scene is growing just as prolifically as the glorious gardens. The annual Yellow Leaf Arts Festival, this year Saturday and Sunday, October 27 and 28th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., celebrates that rich tradition of artistic inspiration by filling St. Francisville’s downtown oak-shaded Parker Park with an incredible selection of music and artwork, with some 60 artists presenting, plus plenty of good food. To mark both the tenth anniversary of Yellow Leaf and the bicentennial of Louisiana statehood, there will be a special tribute to the area’s past artists both sung and unsung, and on Sunday author Danny Heitman discusses research for his book A Summer of Birds: John James Aubudon at Oakley House from 11 to 12:45, followed by New Orleans poet Mona Lisa Saloy hosting a poetry workshop and readings from her book Red Beans and Ricely Yours from 1 to 3 p.m. Music on Saturday includes The Acoustic Playboys at noon, the popular local group called The Fugitive Poets at 2, and a Songbird Reunion Jam at 4; at 7 just around the corner at Birdman Coffee and Books, Mark Raborn and Outside Passage perform. Sunday’s live music includes Burke Ingraffia at 3, and at 4 the debut of an exciting new girl band featuring Heather Feierabend, Jodi James and Becca Babin. Yellow Leaf Arts Festival is sponsored by Arts For All.

Wyoming Plantation will be the site for a workshop on caring for trees in the landscape. (Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

Fall also brings two of the St. Francisville area’s most popular events, the Halloween extravaganza and eerie ghost tours at The Myrtles Plantation, called America’s most haunted house (www.myrtlesplantation.com), and the Angola Rodeo at Louisiana State Penitentiary every Sunday in October. The arena grounds open at 9 a.m. for the inmate hobbycraft sales, inmate band performances and plenty of concession stands; rodeo starts at 2 with hair-raising events like the Grand Entry with mounted black-clad Angola Rough Riders circling the arena at breakneck speed, Bust Out, Bareback Riding, Wild Horse Race, Women’s Barrel Racing, Bull-Dogging, Buddy Pick-Up, Wild Cow Milking, Bull Riding, Convict Poker, and Guts and Glory culminating with inmates on foot trying to snag a chit tied between the horns of a rampaging Brahma bull. All contestants are inmates except the barrel racers, and an ambulance stands by to haul off the wounded. Tickets should be purchased in advance at www.angolaroadeo.com or by calling 225-655-2030, and visitors are cautioned to remember that this is a penal institution with very strict regulations that must be followed to the letter.



St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

Shoppers browse the plant offerings on Saturday morning.(Photo credit: Tracey Banowetz)

The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool fall weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican 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. The local Farmers’ Market is open mornings Thursdays and Saturdays, and a third-Saturday community marketplace fills Parker Park with homegrown arts and crafts as well.

For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities, including St. Francisville Main Street’s fun functions for children around Halloween in the National Register-listed downtown historic district).

Mustard Green Festival

MUSTARD GREEN QUEEN’S MEALS MARK THE MILESTONES OF LIFE IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA
By Anne Butler
Photos by Henry Cancienne 

Every little town has one, that dependably generous soul who never says no and thus may be found laboring behind the scenes over a hot stove or flaming grill at every fundraiser, every church dinner, every charitable event. St. Francisville has over the years been fortunate enough to have had a number of these unsung heroes, and one of them is finally getting her due.

For nearly half a century, St. Francisvillians have marked the milestones of life---the summer vacation Bible schools and high school graduations, the engagements and weddings, the baby showers and births, the illnesses and finally the inevitable deaths---over Sue Powell’s delectable dishes. The fundraisers and church socials, the pilgrimage luncheons and potluck suppers, the celebrations of life and the mourning of passings could hardly be observed without Miss Sue’s cakes or casseroles to enhance the joy and ease the pain. Somehow the whole world looked a little better over a heaping bowl of Miss Sue’s famous gumbo or her incredible Italian cream cake, her roast with rice and gravy or her homemade jellies or her lemon icebox pie.

The effervescent Sue Powell spent years working in the guidance counselors’ office at the local high school. Longtime counselor Ms. Dianne Williams recalls that Miss Sue knew all the students and parents, and she treated each one with love and respect. “She was the life of the party,” said Ms. Williams, “and she could help a child, work with office materials and talk on the phone all at the same time. She loved to cook and coordinate school social activities. She had more recipes than anyone I knew and she’s one of the best cooks I’ve ever seen. The faculty loved her and she loved them. She brought laughter, compassion and a genuine sense of love to West Feliciana High School. Mrs. Sue was ‘Mama’ to all of us. A thousand words are not enough to describe one of the most humble and friendliest human beings I’ve ever know.”

If the bounties of her kitchen spread a little cheer, that was enough for Sue Powell; she never asked for more, never coveted recognition. But when a new festival came to town, another one of those homegrown frolics celebrating the things St. Francisville is famous for, like its birds or its historic plantations and gardens or its local artists, and when there was a contest to see who was the best mustard green cook of them all, well, Miss Sue could hardly be expected to pass up the challenge. After all, she was an old Mississippi country girl who’d spent her entire married life in St. Francisville, where cold-resistant hardy mustard greens graced many a dinner table throughout the winter months, usually accompanied by a baked sweet potato and pone of iron-skillet cornbread to soak up that good ol’ pot likker.

Miss Sue knew you didn’t need any fancy recipe to cook mustard greens to perfection, just a slab of salt pork and a long, slow simmer. “Put ‘em on and let ‘em go; you gotta cook ‘em for a long time,” as her daughter Tootie describes her mama’s secret method. There was plenty of competition, including a couple of upstart wannabees like the regional magazine publisher and one local realtor decked out in real greens, plus some stiff judging by the likes of C.C. Lockwood and Smiley Anders, but not only did Miss Sue win the World Champion Mustard Green Cooking Contest, she was also crowned Mustard Green Queen for having raised the most contributions for the local food bank, over $1000. The only male contestant (in the cooking contest, not the queen’s) was gracious enough to retire from the field. And so, resplendent in denim overalls and a sparkling tiara, Sue Powell, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye and looking far younger than her 75 years, reigned supreme over the first official Feliciana Green Festival sponsored by the local Rotary Club.

At last one of St. Francisville’s unsung heroes finally got her due. While Sue Powell loves to travel and has been all over the world, from Saudi Arabia to Hong Kong, from Hawaii to Belgium, her happiest moments are when she is stirring that pot and cooking something soothing to the soul for her friends and neighbors in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Of course she knows everybody in town; on her last birthday Miss Sue received a grand total of 207 cards! Daughter Tootie says, “Anytime anybody wants anything cooked, she can’t say no.” What a blessing she is to the community, she and all the others like her in every little community, whose culinary contributions mark the milestones of life and make the living and dying more bearable.

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens is open seasonally; Imahara’s Botanical Garden offers spring tours weekends March through May. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican 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. And those looking for mustard greens and other fresh produce can visit the local Farmers’ Market Thursday and Saturdays.

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

Generals and Bridge

APPROACH TO NEW AUDUBON BRIDGE BETWEEN ST. FRANCISVILLE AND NEW ROADS SALUTES TWO GENERALS
by Anne Butler

John J. Auduburn Bridge

The historic little towns of St. Francisville and New Roads have been separated over the years by many factors: cultural and linguistic differences, landscape and crop differences, and even by the mighty Mississippi River. New Roads was French, flat, sugarcane fields. St. Francisville was traditionally Anglo, hilly, with cotton the main cash crop of the 19th century.
And yet, over the years, the two communities have been inextricably bound together as well, beginning in the late 1800s when Capuchin monks from flood-prone Catholic Pointe Coupee had to cross the river to the high bluffs of St. Francisville to bury their dead. Now a beautiful new bridge, the country’s longest cable-stayed structure, connects the two communities across the waters of the Mississippi, and the bridge approach avenues have been named in commemoration of something else the two towns have in common---native sons who valiantly served their country in the wars of different generations and rose to the highest rank of their chosen branch of service as Commandants of the US Marine Corps.
The west approach to the bridge has been named by the state Department of Transportation and Development the General John A. LeJeune Memorial Approach. Born in 1867 in Pointe Coupee, LeJeune graduated from LSU and the US Naval Academy. During the Spanish-American War he commanded the Marine Guard on the USS Cincinnati and USS Massachusetts. As he rose through the ranks, he served all over the world, from Norfolk to Panama, from Washington DC to the Philippines, from Guantanamo Bay to Vera Cruz in Mexico.

General John A. LeJeune

By the outbreak of World War I, LeJeune was a brigadier general, in command of Marine divisions overseas. He would be the first Marine officer to hold an army divisional command when he led the famous Second Division (Army); after the armistice, he led his division in the march into Germany. In 1919 he was appointed commanding general of the Marine barracks in Quantico, Virginia, and became the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1920. After two terms he retired to serve as superintendent of Virginia Military Institute. General LeJeune, an active-duty Marine for more than forty years, was called “the greatest of all Leathernecks,” and when he died in 1942, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was the recipient of many military honors recognizing his distinguished service to his country, and Camp LeJeune in North Carolina bears his name.
The bridge approach on the St. Francisville (east) side of the river salutes native son General Robert Hilliard Barrow, 27th Commandant of the Marine Corps, who served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. When General Barrow died at age 86 in 2008, the New York Times said he “combined Southern courtliness, fierce devotion to Marine tradition and courage reflected in dozens of wars.” During the course of his military career, he received the Navy Cross for service in Korea and the Army Distinguished Service Cross in Vietnam, both second only to the Medal of Honor.
Born in 1922, Barrow was raised on his family plantation, historic Rosale, in West Feliciana Parish, and attended LSU, enlisting in the Marine Corps in March 1942. After attending OCS and being commissioned a second lieutenant in 1943, he was deployed to China and led an American team fighting with Chinese guerrillas operating extensively in enemy-occupied territory behind Japanese lines. As a rifle company commander in the Korean War he was called the most outstanding company commander of the war, and during Vietnam he commanded the Ninth Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, again being recognized as the war’s finest regimental commander.

General Robert H. Barrow

After seven tours of duty in the Far East, in 1979 General Barrow became Commandant of the Marine Corps, and he was instrumental in implementing much-needed reforms in recruiting and training. He also expanded the Marine role in the military’s new rapid response strategy. When he retired from the service in 1983, Barrow returned to his beloved home near St. Francisville, and when he died, he opted for burial not in Arlington National Cemetery but in the peaceful oak-shaded cemetery surrounding historic Grace Episcopal Church, which his family had attended for some five generations.
And today as the new Audubon Bridge links the two historic communities on either side of the Mississippi River, so the bridge approach avenues mark yet another commonality between the two towns in recognizing the tradition of distinguished military service in the careers of two native sons, one from the east side of the river and one from the west, who rose to the same high rank and post in serving their country across the generations.
Having taken the place of a longtime ferry that was becoming increasingly unreliable, the bridge expedites traffic flow across the river and provides faster access to popular special events like the Angola Prison Rodeo, an annual event that always draws big crowds of visitors to the St. Francisville area in April; this year’s spring edition is April 21 and 22nd. 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, begin in the 1960s.

On top of Audubon Bridge

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. 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 should be purchased in advance (online at www.angolarodeo.com).
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.
St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens is open seasonally; Imahara’s Botanical Garden offers spring tours weekends March through May. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

Audubon Bridge Tower

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican 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 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

Spring Blooms - March 2012

Spring blooms beckon Audubon pilgrims to St. Francisville, LA
by Anne Butler
The forty-first annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 16, 17 and 18, 2012, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. For over four decades the sponsoring West Feliciana Historical Society has thrown open the doors of significant historic structures to commemorate artist-naturalist John James Audubon’s stay as he painted a number of his famous bird folios, and 2012, being the 200th anniversary of Louisiana statehood, promises to be a spectacular tour.

Features of the 2012 Audubon Pilgrimage include two historic townhouses, Hillcroft and Prospect, and in the surrounding countryside two early 19th-century plantations: Highland and Woodland, plus Afton Villa Gardens and Rosedown and Audubon State Historic Sites, three 19th-century churches and the Rural Homestead with lively demonstrations of the rustic skills of daily pioneer life. The fascinating Smithsonian Institution exhibit Journey Stories, examining who we are and how we got here, fills the Historical Society museum, and two other historic buildings downtown hold the popular antiques show and sale. Tour hostesses are clad in the exquisitely detailed costumes of the 1820’s, nationally recognized for their authenticity.

On Pilgrimage weekend, St. Francisville’s National Register-listed historic district around Royal Street is filled during the day with the happy sounds of costumed children singing and dancing the Maypole; in the evening as candles flicker and fireflies flit among the ancient moss-draped live oaks, there is no place more inviting for a leisurely stroll. Friday evening features old-time Hymn Singing at the United Methodist Church, Graveyard Tours at Grace Episcopal cemetery, and a wine and cheese reception featuring a style show of glorious period costumes at Bishop Jackson Hall. Light Up The Night Saturday evening features live music and dancing, dinner and drinks. For tickets and tour information, contact West Feliciana Historical Society, Box 338, St. Francisville, LA 70775; phone 225-635-6330 or 225-635-4224; online www.audubonpilgrimage.info, email sf@audubonpilgrimage.info.

Throughout springtime, the gardens of St. Francisville are spectacular, with some of the state’s finest antebellum plantings showcasing what a felicitous climate, rich soil, horticultural know-how and unlimited labor could produce in the mid-1900s. Rosedown Plantation house is surrounded by 27 acres of formal plantings featuring a number of heirloom varieties, and it is open daily throughout the year. Afton Villa gardens are open seasonally, with landscaped terraces and parterres brightened by the blooms of thousands of flowering bulbs and the famed Pride of Afton azaleas along the oak alley. A third garden, Imahara’s Botanical, this year takes its place among the premier garden spots of the south, with extensive hillside plantings of azaleas, camellias, crape myrtles, hollies and magnolias, palms, oaks and fruit trees interspersed among reflecting pools and an old cypress swamp, plus a conference center with fascinating displays of Haiku carvings, a new Japanese garden and even Mount Fuji replicated among Feliciana’s hills; tours offered Saturday (10 a.m., 1 and 3 p.m.) and Sunday (1 and 3 p.m.) in March, April and May, plus larger group tours by advance registration (call 225-635-2001).

March 31, the 2012 St. Francisville Spring Garden Stroll, presented by Feliciana Master Gardeners, provides access to unique private and public gardens both in town and in the surrounding countryside, with proceeds going to 4-H scholarships and local school gardens (call 225-635-3614 for information, or email abrock@agcenter.lsu.edu). Also on March 31 and April 1, Arts for All, the organization that fosters appreciation for the arts in West Feliciana Parish, sponsors a community art show at historic Audubon Market Hall on Royal Street in St. Francisville; says Arts for All president Becky Landry, the show continues a time-honored tradition of support for the arts and artists begun in the early 1800s when John James Audubon found the area’s landscapes and birdlife so creatively inspiring.

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation and Afton Villa Gardens seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.
The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican 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. Through mid-March the newly redesigned West Feliciana Historical Society Museum hosts the free Smithsonian exhibit Journey Stories, with a number of related activities and events.
For visitor information, call St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.