Thoughts of Thanksgiving in St. Francisville, LA

Thoughts of Thanksgiving in St. Francisville, LA
By Anne Butler

Thanksgiving turns our thoughts backward, back to the 1620s First Thanksgiving celebrated by Plymouth pilgrims with the Native Americans who taught them survival skills, back to our heritage and history, back to “Over the River and Through the Wood, To Grandmother’s House We Go.”

These days, Grandma might just as well be on a skiing trip to her condo in Colorado instead of laboring over a hot oven roasting turkey for the multitudes, and anyway, the original poem penned by Lydia Maria Child said we were going to Grandfather’s House. And while Ol’ Man River keeps on rolling, rolling, rolling in timeless fashion past St. Francisville, we’re missing two of the icons of a trip over the waters. The ferryboat we rode for a century or so has been replaced by a grand new bridge. And Miss Emily, ah, we miss Miss Emily.

For more than 30 years, the long wait at the landing for the ferry to cross the Mississippi River between St. Francisville and New Roads was brightened by the much anticipated sight of Miss Emily. Braving the freezing breezes or broiling sun, straw-hatted Miss Emily trundled along the landing road with a bright red Radio Flyer wagon loaded with her famous homemade pralines, teacakes, boiled or roasted peanuts. Generations of travelers from around the world grew to love Miss Emily, daughter of an old-time pastor/carpenter. Miss Emily worked for many years as nanny and housekeeper for the Wilcox family in St. Francisville, but she needed more income to support her seven children. When she came up with the idea of hawking snacks, she asked the Lord to give her a recipe, and after a few failures, she and the Lord perfected the ingredients and technique for what visitors and residents alike called the world’s best pecan pralines.

When she died in September at the age of 84, longtime St. Francisville mayor William H. D’Aquilla, “by the authority vested in me by the State of Louisiana and the Town of St. Francisville,” officially proclaimed October 3 as Ms. Emily Smothers Williams Day in recognition of the great respect with which she was viewed in the community.

Today her grandson Antonio Williams, long her understudy, continues to make her popular pecan candy, selling it from her home across from the town post office as well as in the local historical museum and other shops in St. Francisville, carrying on the tradition in fine fashion.

This being November, the month of nostalgia, there’s another salute to tradition and heritage on Sunday, November 1, when the Hemingbough Blues Festival pays tribute to the roots music from which so many contemporary musical genres spring, everything from jazz and R&B to rock and roll or hip hop. From 12:30 to 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 11:30), the Baton Rouge Blues Society has assembled an incredible array of talent to give concert goers the opportunity to enjoy world-class blues played by some of the best musicians around.

Hosted by radio personality Rob Payer, the festival features blues and soul man Luther Kent, who was born in New Orleans and began singing professionally at age 14. One-time lead singer for “Blood, Sweat and Tears,” he has been inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame as well as the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. Another member of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame is Gregg Wright of the stellar guitar and soulful voice fame, called King of the Rockin’ Blues. Wright played 75 concerts as Michael Jackson’s guitarist on his legendary 1980’s Victory Tour. Worldwide audiences proclaim him one of the most innovative guitarists of our time, in the top echelons of the great blues guitarists.

They will be joined by Chris LeBlanc, for over 20 years a mainstay on the Louisiana music scene, whose performances resonate with the rich bluesy sound of the south; Betsy Braud with her upbeat gumbo bayou jazz with a hint of the swamp; talented LSU music school grad Kiki Lynell; and beloved local blues band the Delta Drifters. Also appearing are Oscar “Harp” Davis, one of the region’s best blues harmonica players and member of the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame; John Gray, educator and trumpet player noted for his wide range of musical genres from classical to jazz, funk and R&B; Chris Belleau, physiatrist by day and in Zydeco bands by night, whose album Knee Deep in the Blues featured him on vocals, harmonic and Cajun accordion.

Tickets for the Hemingbough Blues Festival are $20 in advance, $25 at the gate, and are available at Phil Brady’s Bar and the Elizabethan Gallery in Baton Rouge. No coolers are allowed; food and drink are available on-site for purchase.

So if you don’t have an accessible Grandma to go home to for Thanksgiving, come on over the river and through the wood to St. Francisville, eat some of Miss Emily’s legendary pralines and hear some soulful sounds of the southern blues for which this area is famous.
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).

AUDUBON PILGRIMAGE SURE SIGN OF SPRING IN ST. FRANCISVILLE
By Anne Butler

The forty-third annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 21, 22 and 23, 2014, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. The ice storms of winter may have confused the plants, but savvy pilgrims know it’s spring when the West Feliciana Historical Society throws 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 studies and tutored the daughter of Oakley Plantation’s Pirrie family, beautiful young Eliza. And regardless of the winter weather, the azaleas always come through with spectacular bloom just in time for the pilgrimage.

Carefully selected features this year—three antebellum homes in the countryside and one townhouse-- illustrate the grand good luck of needy historic homes fortunate enough to fall into the hands of dedicated and knowledgeable preservationists.

Overlooking Little Bayou Sara from a high bluff along the Tunica Trace, Live Oak is one of the earliest plantation homes in the Felicianas, built around 1808 on part of a 1796 Spanish land grant by Elijah Adams. A splendid two-story structure with four sturdy brick columns across the lower gallery and five slender wooden ones across the upper one, the home shows both Spanish and Anglo-American architectural influences, with steep unbroken roofline, thick brick walls that taper upwards, and exterior staircases as well as a tiny hidden indoor stair. Unlike later Greek Revival structures, the house has no central hall; instead, rooms open to the outside for ventilation. There are seven fireplaces, and the sturdy framing beams are of pit-sawn red cypress and blue poplar, notched and pegged together.

In 1824 Live Oak was acquired by Bennett Barrow, and a century later Katherine Towles LeSassier and her husband operated a post office and school for neighborhood children who arrived on horseback. By the 1960’s, Live Oak was unoccupied; cattle grazed on the grounds, the back porch had fallen off, the third-floor attic was full of rats and bats and wasps. None of which deterred dedicated preservationist Sue Turner, who with her husband purchased the house in 1975, having loved it ever since receiving as a young girl a small watercolor of it by artist Charles Reineke purchased in New Orleans. They immediately commenced a sensitive and thorough restoration under the direction of restoration architect Samuel Wilson.

Also now in the Weyanoke plantation community, Sunnyside was languishing abandoned in a field in Pointe Coupee until a dedicated historian trucked it across the Mississippi River bridge and reassembled it on a treeless sweet potato field. Sunnyside was built near Lettsworth in 1838 for Laura Thomas, niece of General Philemon Thomas, hero of the 1810 West Florida Rebellion and the War of 1812. She was 15 when she was married Charles Tessier, and after her death in 1852 Sunnyside was occupied by the plantation overseer and not subjected to modern improvements, remaining a veritable time capsule.

Still, only an experienced eye would have noticed the potential in the unpretentious little story-and-a-half structure with its rusted tin roof sitting abandoned in an overgrown field near Lettsworth. Fortunately, David Floyd, Rural Life Museum director and longtime preservationist, had the requisite experienced eye, recognizing immediately that this typical bluffland house type, vernacular architecture at its best, would fit in perfectly with neighboring historic homes in Weyanoke. And so the little Sunnyside house was meticulously disassembled and moved, then put back together. Its lumbering trip across the old bridge at Baton Rouge in December 1997 made the television news more than once.

Sunnyside’s lush landscaping is a tribute to Floyd’s beloved longtime mentor, the late landscape architect Steele Burden. Maturing live oaks line the drive from the Tunica Trace, a crape myrtle tunnel draws the visitor through the pieux picket fence to the patterned plantings at the entrance, and a side potager of herbs and vegetables is presided over by a traditional weathered dovecote. Eminently suited to this 19th-century home, these plantings anchor the house beautifully to its site.
Nydrie is a handsome raised Creole cottage that was filled with stored hay until salvaged and relocated from Tangipahoa. Constructed in the 1850s in Tangipahoa near the Confederate training camp called Camp Moore, it was used as a hospital during the Civil War. The upper floor was the living space, while the open lower level, its walls of old brick upwards of 16” thick, was used as a rustic dirt-floored carriageway for wagons and buggies. In 1997, the upper floor of the house was cut in half and moved on two 18-wheelers to property originally part of Rosedown Plantation; the upper walls and floors, all of wood, proved to be in remarkably good condition, as were the upstairs doors. The hip roof, removed prior to the relocation, was replaced with a new gable one. The downstairs brick, some so old they had embedded animal footprints, were saved and reused.
Today spacious rooms flank a wide center hallway on the upstairs “premier etage,” and the lower floor has been enclosed as well. The house has been beautifully furnished with an eclectic collection reflecting the diverse tastes and extensive travels of the owners, Earl and Anne S. Eichins, New Orleanians who found refuge in St. Francisville after Hurricane Katrina. Now both occupants and home have been admirably settled into their new location, the old house grounded by terraces of old brick, arbors hung with climbing roses and a parterre garden.

In town, the comfortable little cottage called Ardisia has benefitted from a succession of master builders enhancing its charms through the generations. Its hilltop site provided an ideal vantage point for viewing the passage of history, adjacent to the courthouse square and overlooking the major thoroughfare traversed by cattle drives and cotton wagons en route to the Mississippi River port of Bayou Sara below the hill.

As the area struggled to recover from the Civil War, court documents seem to indicate that the property was owned by William Walter Leake, respected judge, bank president and state legislator who raised 11 children in the Barrow House on connecting property facing Royal St. When Johnson Street was carved out to connect Royal and Ferdinand Sts., it separated several lots facing Ferdinand that in 1878 had been sold to Thomas Raynham of a family of expert craftsmen, joiners and brickmasons whose skills were evident in beautiful Grace Church.

In 1919, widowed Mary Ann Raynham’s will left to her niece Mamie Levert “my three lots with house and all improvements thereon facing Ferdinand in the town of St. Francisville, also six silver teaspoons.” Mamie’s relative Thomas Raynham, that English-born master builder, had constructed for her a comfortable bungalow overlooking Ferdinand Street, where her husband Dr. Eloi Levert kept a medical office in a front room. On the adjacent lot Mamie inherited from her aunt was a cottage for their cook Aunt Nellie. When Mamie died in 1939, this property was sold for $3,500 to Willie Randolph Cason, whose son-in-law, Rodney Cassagne, was a master carpenter.

The house now called Ardisia, originally two front rooms, two rear cabinets or small rooms, and at least one dirt-floored room, really began to take shape as Cassagne replaced the roof, added two back rooms and stair, reframed the second floor, poured concrete for the front porch; bricks from the original fireplace formed the front walk. In 1985 Cason heirs sold the property for more than $41,000. Current owner Melissa Higgins moved to St. Francisville in 2002, found the occupants of this little hilltop cottage erecting a For Sale sign, and bought it practically the same day.

Other features of the 2014 Audubon Pilgrimage include Afton Villa Gardens, Audubon (Oakley) and Rosedown State Historic Sites, three 19th-century churches in town and beautiful St. Mary’s in the country, plus the Rural Homestead with lively demonstrations of the rustic skills of daily pioneer life. Audubon Market Hall houses the popular antique show and sale, and the Audubon Play will be performed several times daily on Saturday and Sunday in recently restored Temple Sinai. Daytime features are open 9:30 to 5; Friday evening activities are scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m., Saturday soiree begins at 7 p.m.
The 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, Audubon Play in Temple Sinai, Graveyard Tours at Grace Episcopal cemetery (last tour begins at 8:15 p.m.), and a wine and cheese reception at Bishop Jackson Hall (7 to 9 p.m.) featuring Vintage Dancers and young ladies modeling the pilgrimage’s exquisitely detailed 1820’s evening costumes, nationally recognized for their authenticity. Light Up The Night, the Saturday evening soiree, features live music and dancing, dinner and drinks beginning at 7 p.m.

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 . New this year is a package including daytime tours, evening entertainment Friday and Saturday, and a Saturday picnic lunch. Tickets can be purchased at the Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand Street.

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 and 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 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).

Celebrate the Yellow Leaves of Autumn in St. Francisville

Artist Joe Lackie

By Anne Butler

In one of few spots in South Louisiana where the arrival of autumn actually does bring brilliant fall color---the yellows and oranges and reds of turning leaves in the hardwood forests of the Tunica Hills---the appropriately named Yellow Leaf Festival October 26 and 27 is an outdoor celebration of all things creative---art and crafts and music and writing. And this year’s eleventh annual festival is heralded by a colorful poster that is the wonderful work of Joe Lackie, whose many years of astute observation of his surroundings have given him the rare gift of being able to share that sense of wonder and appreciation through his very fine watercolors.

Fall in the Felicianas brings many activities---the Southern Garden Symposium October 18 and 19 featuring prestigious gardening experts lecturing and demonstrating amidst the glorious garden settings of the St. Francisville area, the Baton Rouge Symphony’s Baroque Concert October 25 on historic Grace Episcopal Church’s splendid 1850s Pilcher organ, the Angola Prison Rodeo (“Wildest Show in the South”) every Sunday, and the chilling thrilling Halloween extravangas at The Myrtles (“Most Haunted House in the South”) every Friday and Saturday in October (plus October 31). November features two music festivals (LA Vets Fest Nov. 8-10 and Modern South Music Fest Nov. 10), and December’s special celebration of the season is called Christmas in the Country Dec. 6-8^th in St. Francisville.

Fugutive Poets

But the last weekend in October the Yellow Leaf Arts Festival draws crowds of art-lovers to oak-shaded Parker Park with its bandstand right in the middle of St. Francisville’s downtown National Register-listed Historic District. A festival called “authentic, genuine and full of small-town charm,” Yellow Leaf from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday showcases the works and talents of more than 50 artists and crafters who offer paintings, pottery including a potters reunion and a chance to try throwing pots, metalwork, fabric art, books, woodwork, sculpture, glass art, jewelry, carvings and lots more. There are art activities for children and local farmers with home-grown sweet potatoes both cooked and raw in bulk, plus local honey.
This festival, they say, really is all about the art---no mass productions, no noisy generators, no train rides, although there are usually a few local kiddies hawking refreshments from little red wagons. There’s also great live music from 10 to 3 both Saturday and Sunday, with a Louisiana songwriter showcase plus The Fugitive Poets, Clay Parker, Emily Branton, The Wilder Janes, Karuna Spoon and Hot Club de Lune. Also on the music stage the Bains Elementary Children’s Choir performs at 10 Saturday. Sponsors include the local umbrella arts agency called Arts For All, plus Birdman Coffee, West Feliciana Parish Hospital and the Bank of St. Francisville. For information, access www.artsforall.uniquelyfeliciana.com or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

Pottery for Sale

The park pavilion will showcase the varied works of Arts For All members. The 2013 Yellow Leaf poster was executed by Joe Lackie, who was supposed to be the featured artist in the park pavilion until health constraints intervened. Mr. Lackie, whose creative talents have inspired and encouraged members of the arts organization, is a gifted artist with that rare ability to reveal volumes from the slightest glimpse, finding beauty in everyday subjects from dogs and street artists to an old farmer washing the mud from his rubber boots. A tiny porch corner of a weathered cypress cabin on LA Highway 1 down the bayou whispers of life there just as compellingly as the grand white-columned gallery at Manresa Retreat Center, and the small section of a cast-iron fence is just enough to impart that quintessential New Orleans spirit. The painter, who works primarily in watercolors but is equally proficient in acrylics, oils, pastels and pen and ink, is adept at letting a narrow but carefully selected view speak for a wider world and broader message.

From St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square to tiny bait shops and shrimp boats along the bayou, from a row of quirky flamingo-decorated rural mail boxes entitled “Expecting” to the priceless expressions on the wrinkled faces of three old Bolivian matrons wrapped in woven shawls, Mr. Lackie celebrates the soul and spirit in the most mundane of subjects; as he says, he tries to capture an instant in time or bit of history that preserves on canvas the essence of that moment for future generations. His website (www.joesart.com) sprinkles religious encouragements among his galleries of paintings: “A cheerful heart is good medicine,” Prov. 17:22, a sentiment that permeates his works, which are gentle, generous and cheerful, simple and sincere. And very, very good.

Musician Heather

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, Butler Greenwood Plantation, the Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Garden are 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 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, including the Farmers Market on Thursday mornings).