I thank you all for the privilege of speaking at today’s event.  I am humbled that you would ask me to do this and I only hope that I do you, and the men and the families that we honor, justice.

When Chester McConnell asked me for a title for my talk, I realized that I could do no better than the words inscribed at our nation’s World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.  Those words are:  “Here we mark the price of freedom.”  

That is exactly what we do today.  By remembering our veterans, we pause to mark the price – in years from home, in sweat and toil, and sometimes in their own blood – they paid in the past for our freedom today.  Thanks to your group’s research, we know many of those veterans from Pine Hill by name.

They were men like Chester’s older brother Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class George Raymond McConnell, one of the 644 sailors lost with a Japanese submarine sank the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay in the Gilbert Islands on November 24, 1943.

They were men like Gunner’s Mate Third Class Willie Autery, Jr., a nineteen year-old sailor on board the cruiser USS Juneau.  Juneau was sunk by the Japanese in the Solomon Islands on November 13, 1942.  623 American sailors, to include all five of the Sullivan brothers of Waterloo, Iowa, perished in her sinking.  Only 10 men survived.  Willie was not one of them.

They were men like Platoon Sergeant Enoch “Hugie” Shoultz, United States Marines, killed in action on Iwo Jima on the tenth day of battle as he led a patrol trying to clear the island’s volcanic terrain of snipers.

They were men like Private First Class Allen G. “Van” Johnson, who served with the U.S. Army’s 9^th Infantry Division and who was killed in action in Tunisia on April 3, 1943.

They were men like Captain Marshall D. Godbold, who lost his life serving with the U.S. Army in Burma, half a world away, and who is buried in this very cemetery.

And there are many others that we remember today – if not by naming them, then at least by our presence.

But we Americans are not the only ones who remember our American veterans.  If I may, let me tell you about a town in the Czech Republic.  The town is called Slavicin.  It is about the size of Camden, and sits nestled in the foothills of the White Carpathian Mountains.  Like so many of you, its residents made a living farming and in the timber trade.

Sixty-seven years ago, on August 29, 1944, the United States unleashed an air raid against the Czech city of Moravska Ostrava, which lies to the north of Slavicin.  Moravska Ostrava’s oil refinery provided fuel for the Third Reich; its railway marshalling yard helped funnel German troops to the Eastern Front.

The American B-17 Flying Fortress crews that flew against Moravska Ostrava that day had hoped for what the men called a “milk run.”  But the mission against Moravska Ostrava was anything but a milk run.  Between 70 and 80 German fighters ambushed the seven bombers of the 20th Squadron.  That squadron, by the way, was led by a young pilot from Carbon Hill, Alabama, named Bill Tune.

In twenty minutes of brutal fighting, all seven Flying Fortresses fell victim to the enemy fighters.  Their flaming wrecks exploded in the air or crashed into the thick evergreen forests, farmers’ fields, and meadows around Slavicin and other Czech towns and villages.  By the end of the battle, 40 men of the 20^th Squadron were dead, 26 – mostly wounded – were captured, and only 4 managed to make it back to Allied lines.

After the air battle, the Germans gathered the remains of those airmen from the crash sites around Slavicin.  In total, there were 28 bodies. 

Two days after the air battle, on August 31, 1944, the Germans dug a large rectangular pit in the cemetery at Slavicin’s St. Adalbert Catholic Church and, in that mass grave, buried the American fliers.  The Germans refused to allow the local Czechs – whose country, you might recall, had been ruled by Hitler as a Nazi “protectorate” since 1939 – to be present, although the local priest managed to convince the German garrison commander to allow him to perform a funeral service.  When the grave was filled, the Germans marked the site with a wooden plaque that simply read “28 American Fliers – Died August 29, 1944 – Buried August 31, 1944.” 

In the days after the service was concluded, local Czechs began bringing flowers to the mass grave.  The Germans quickly moved to stop the practice, sending a town crier around Slavicin who beat his drum and read the German order prohibiting any more flowers from being placed on the grave site.

So what does any of this have to do with Pine Hill, you may be asking yourselves.

I will tell you.  It has nothing to do with Pine Hill.  And it has everything to do with Pine Hill.

Let me continue.

A year later, after the war in Europe ended and the German occupation of Slavicin had ended, the townspeople gathered to have a proper funeral service for the American fliers.  Then, in 1946, the American military came to Slavicin and, in a dignified, ceremonious effort, exhumed the 28 bodies.  Some were reburied at the American military cemetery in St. Avold, France; others were returned home to be buried in cemeteries much like this one.

But even then, the people of Slavicin did not forget the young Americans who gave their life for a free Europe – and a free world – on August 29, 1944. 

On August 29, 1994, Slavicin hosted several of the surviving airmen and family members of the fallen in a ceremony commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the battle.  A formal stone monument, inscribed with the names of the deceased airmen, was dedicated and, that Sunday, a special mass was held.  The tradition of an annual special mass continues to their very day, I am told, and a similar memorial celebration was held in 2004.

When I researched and wrote the story of the 20^th Bombardment Squadron, I learned of the Czech people’s long memories of this battle and the men who lost their lives in it.  I also learned of their tradition of honoring, not their war dead, but our war dead from that battle.  And I was humbled by that knowledge – and a little saddened, to be honest with you.  I am not sure that we Americans even go to those lengths to honor our own veterans.  For us, even Veterans Day itself is too often simply an excuse for a day off from school, to close the bank, or to have a sale at the mall.

But not here in Pine Hill.  Here, you have heartened me.  You have not ceded the memory of our fallen veterans to distant nations.  You have not forgotten them. 

Instead, you have kept the faith.  Here, you have taken the time to pause, to remember our veterans, and, in doing so, to say “thank you.”  And for that, I thank you.  God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America.

This is the time to celebrate your favorite author, filmmaker, artist or historian. This is the time to pass on to a friend your favorite book, or recommend a beloved song. This is the month to pull close your children or grandchildren and tell them about your family’s history. Take this month to explore your hometown, or a new town you’ve never visited in Alabama. Learn about the structures there, the culture, the people…learn more about your history as an Alabamian.

Take the time to learn more about the humanities…and more about yourself.

Last year, the Alabama Humanities Foundation honored The Rev. Shuttlesworth with a resolution, applauding “his lifetime of dedication and service to humankind and his unwavering belief and courage in upholding the dignity of all human beings…” Below is the full resolution, presented to The Rev. Shuttlesworth on September 13, 2010.

We invite you to share your comments about this courageous civil rights leader. Or submit a blog post sharing your thoughts to: jdome@ahf.net.

A Resolution Honoring the Reverend Fred Lee Shuttlesworth

WHEREAS, Fred Shuttlesworth has helped shape Alabama and American history through his tireless advocacy for civil liberties and struggle against racial discrimination.  He marched for justice and equality with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., organized boycotts and Freedom Rides, founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and

WHEREAS, a loving servant of God, Fred Shuttlesworth began his 58-year ministerial career in the rural Alabama church, prior to accepting the call for leadership at Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, where the Movement for change began, and

WHEREAS, his historical legacy has been memorialized in two scholarly biographies, Step by Step and A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, and

WHEREAS, he has received numerous awards and citations including the Presidential Citizen’s Award in 2001, induction into the International Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2005, and the renaming of the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in 2008, and

WHEREAS, Fred Shuttlesworth has generously given of his time, energy, abilities, and resources to better the world around him.  We note that it is through the efforts of public-spirited individuals such as he, who are dedicated to preserving the inalienable rights and freedoms of all citizens, that our nation continues to grow and prosper.  We applaud him on his lifetime of dedication and service to humankind and his unwavering belief and courage in upholding the dignity of all human beings; therefore be it

RESOLVED That we, the members of the Alabama Humanities Foundation, in adopting this Resolution, honor Fred Shuttlesworth for his exemplary record of public advocacy that embodies the values and perspectives of the humanities.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this Resolution be formally presented to Reverend Fred Lee Shuttlesworth on this day, September 13, 2010.

The first evening we attend a family reunion in Colbert County, Alabama—a gathering of descendents of Colonel George Colbert (aka, Tootemastabbe, Chickasaw Chief) my wife’s third great-grandfather. We share a covered dish supper and fascinating conversation with these Chickasaw-Scots and with Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws visiting from Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Alabama and Texas, to name a few, whose ancestors survived or perished on the Trail of Tears.

The next day we drive into the woodlands adjoining the Natchez Trace and here, just above the “Devil’s Backbone,” my wife introduces Wesley and me to Tom Hendrix, descendent of the ancient Native American Yuchi tribe. The three of us sit under the canopy of hardwoods near a meandering stone wall, listening. For a couple of hours we remain entranced by his words—the stories that have traveled across generations are now shared with us and we see why his Yuchi people call him “Stonetalker.” Three decades past, Tom felt an urgent need to find some way to tell the journey story of Te-lah-nay, his Yuchi great-great-grandmother, born in the Shoals. We learn that in the 1830s, 13-year-old Te-lah-nay, having just witnessed the murder of all her family, is forced to walk with thousands of Creek, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Cherokees, the many miles of hardships, sickness and deaths, to the West. Even before reaching Oklahoma Territory she yearns for her home on the “Singing River” in Colbert County so much that she determines to return. Shortly after the group reaches their destination, she manages to escape the Indian Territory West, and travels alone for three years, finally reaching home to hear the music of her beloved “Singing River.”  This lone remnant of the Yuchis marries and produces a daughter who passes this story on to her descendents, eventually reaching the ears of her great-great-grandson, Tom Hendrix.

After much reflection, Tom formulates a plan—a way to keep alive the story of his great-great-grandmother’s long and difficult journey west far from her birthplace, and her valiant trek out of exile, back to Alabama’s Tennessee River. He would build a wall of stone gathered from the nearby shoals, the shoals that sang the songs beckoning Te-lah-nay back home.

He drives down to the river bank, loads his truck with river rocks and begins laying the wall in his woodland front yard. A half-ton of rocks does not make much of a wall, so Tom continues his frequent treks to the river bed. Three decades later, after wearing out three trucks and dozens of pairs of gloves, Tom has laid 9,300,000 pounds of rocks to build the wall honoring Te-lah-nay. But it is not finished. He explains that he personally has laid almost every single stone that forms the wall using no mortar. Only on a few rare occasions has Tom allowed anyone else to place a rock. “Every stone,” he says, “represents a footstep taken by one of the people forced from their home on the westward march.” When Tom learns that our grandson’s blood flows with Chickasaw and Cherokee blood, he invites Wesley to select a rock from his truck and place it on an unfinished section of the wall, a defining moment for us all. The construction continues.

Visitors have come from all over the U. S. and from across the world to leave memorabilia on the Wichapi Wall (meaning “like the stars”). Guided by the wall, they wind through the woods, frequently moved to spontaneously pause for meditation.

It is appropriate that Te-lah-nay’s memorial is near Tuscumbia for two reasons. First, the Shoals area is her birthplace and, second, during that horrendous “Trail of Tears” in the 1830s, the citizens of Tuscumbia noted the conditions of the Indians as they waited to be transported across the Tennessee River and came to their aid. The compassionate Tuscumbians are still remembered for their acts of kindness providing food, clothing and blankets to the starving and ill-clothed native tribes.

One can view this magnificent memorial wall by going to www.ifthelegendsfade.com or better still, arrange a visit by emailing Tom Hendrix at stonetalker@comcast.net. It is a compelling journey into the depths of Alabama history.

For more information on AHF’s “Journey Stories” exhibit, now in Marion through Nov. 10, please visit www.ahf.net/journeystories.

“My own contribution to outreach probably received more recognition than it deserved because others were due most of the credit for our success. Nevertheless, in 1989, I received a University Extension Certificate of Merit. That same year, the Alabama Humanities Foundation (AHF) asked me to write a piece to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, centering on the work of AHF in strengthening community life through public programming. Despite a variety of deadlines, I agreed. “Habits of the Heart in the Heart of Dixie” was my attempt to place AHF’s outreach effort into broad social context.

Rural and small town migration patterns, urban complexity, and the atomization of American life threatened venerable traditions of community life. Books as divergent as The Different Drum:  Community Making and Peace by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck and Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Community in American Life by Robert N. Bellah and others had placed the issue front and center on the nation’s agenda.

The age of air conditioners, the disappearance of front porches, the decline of church revivals, and the vanishing court and market days were locking us into progressively smaller cubicles, rooms, offices, and other stifling spaces, largely away from one another. Folks no longer learned so easily about the needs of others. Modern society might produce less small town gossip and petty intrigue. But it most certainly contained less neighborliness and willingness to be bothered by someone else’s troubles. This pulling away from community, this decreasing ability to connect meaningfully, to share important common symbols, had fractured and weakened social relationships and communal identity.

Rebuilding a sense of community is no easy matter. It first requires explaining what it means to be human. Such definitions emerge from religion, philosophy, literature, music, art, drama, speech, and history. This public redefinition requires that practitioners of the humanities occasionally take leave of their classrooms, where many of their seeds fall on the hard, sterile ground of career-building and degree-chasing anyway (or sometimes on adolescents not even that serious). We have to engage the community of adults who do not take our importance for granted. The larger community is not so much hostile to us as it is preoccupied with more urgent concerns: earning a living; nurturing families; preserving neighborhoods; coping with divorce, sickness, and death. Ordinary people do not perceive that humanists (a term they generally don’t understand anyway) have much to contribute to their prosaic comings and goings, their quality of life, or the stability of the places where they live. Nor do we make much effort to persuade them of our relevance. Our efforts in AHF, Auburn’s History and Heritage Festivals, Reading Alabama, and other Humanities Center programs had been but halting first steps at opening that dialogue.”

How has humanities programming touched your life?

It is here, in this storied town’s center, where the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibit “Journey Stories” is housed in the United Way building at 19 Main Street. Walking in the door this Wednesday, I was happy to see a group of students from William L. Radney Elementary School, a sixth-grade class, listening intently to Terry Jones, a volunteer with the Main Street organization, tell the story of our country, how our ancestors traveled here and how they journeyed west across the continent, looking for a better life.

“Journey Stories” is a Museum on Main Street exhibition, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Alabama Humanities Foundation. The exhibit examines the intersection between modes of travel and Americans’ desire to feel free to move. The stories are diverse and focus on immigration, migration, innovation and freedom. “Journey Stories” uses engaging images with audio and artifacts to tell the individual stories that illustrate the critical roles travel and movement have played in building our diverse American society.

Right now, “Journey Stories” can be seen in Alexander City through Sept. 23. It will then move on to:

Marion — Sept. 28-Nov. 10
Mobile — Nov. 16-Dec. 27
Eufaula — Jan. 6, 2012-Feb. 15
Arab — Feb. 24-April 5

Watching the children view the exhibit panels, and seeing them explore Alexander City’s own complementary exhibit across the street in the lobby of City Hall, you can see their minds whirling. They are making connections between the settlers and their own ancestors. They are understanding why people come to America to seek out a better life. Perhaps they are contemplating their own “Journey Stories”—trips taken with parents and grandparents to Mt. Rushmore, Civil War battlegrounds, or Yellowstone National Park.

We all have a journey story to tell. Come see America’s “Journey Stories” in Alexander City or an Alabama town near you! And, if you would like to tell your own journey story here on AHF’s blog, please email it to: jdome@ahf.net.

We look forward to taking the journey with you!

Christopher Columbus (C.C.) Davenport, Eliza’s brother, originally published Looking Backward: Memoirs of the Early Settlement of Morehouse Parish in 1911, as a compilation of weekly columns he’d had written while serving as editor of the Mer Rouge Democrat. Lida’s second cousin, Tommy Davenport Rankin, gave us copies of the memoirs, which the local Lions Club had recently reprinted in pamphlet form. Tommy still farms cotton and soybeans on lands that the Davenport family has held for nearly 200 years in Morehouse Parish.

As reminiscences of early life on the Louisiana frontier and as a record of Lida’s family history, C.C.’s memoirs by themselves would be a wonderful treasure of local history and genealogy. But the final chapter reveals why they are so much more than that.

Chapter XV, “Life on the Plantation When the Negroes Were Slaves,” represents C.C.’s careful effort to portray how humanely his father, James Barlow Davenport, treated his 110 slaves on the family plantation. C.C. writes that his father provided the slaves with good housing, food, clothing and medical care. He gave them small plots of land for gardening and paid them cash for some of the cotton they picked. He provided a children’s nursery, and he permitted religious services and marriages among the slaves. After James died in 1858, C.C., Eliza and their brothers took charge of the plantation and even added a “plantation negro band.”

C.C. goes on to write:

There was no law against the whipping of slaves, but it was seldom done, and, when done it was generally inflicted because of fusses—quarrels among themselves. All disagreements and troubles among the slaves were settled by the owners of the slaves. The courts were not troubled by negro trials. It was a rare thing to see a negro in jail or in a penitentiary…As a rule, masters were kind to their slaves. Occasionally there were cruel masters and, occasionally there were bad negroes that required severe punishment.

He concludes:

Those were happy days that can never be recalled, but it was Southern life and the negroes of that day were happier, much happier than I have ever seen them since those days.

And so C.C. Davenport sums up in his memoirs the near universal attitude of Southern whites at the beginning of the 20th century, as they attempted to justify the system of slavery that had existed within their own lifetimes—and in his case within his own life. Although he doesn’t acknowledge it, 1911 marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. Since he ended the memoirs in 1860, he also doesn’t mention that he and his brothers all served in the Confederate army. None were killed in the war, and C.C. went on to become a successful farmer, state representative and active civic leader. But did he don his old uniform of the Twelfth Louisiana Infantry, Army of Tennessee, to commemorate the anniversary? Did his rosy reflections on his own slaves help to perpetuate the myth of the “Lost Cause”—a romantic view of the Confederacy and its defeat—that swept the agrarian South during Reconstruction and reached a crescendo with the 50th anniversary celebrations? Was his pen—innocently I believe—an instrument of Jim Crow? History and family lore don’t point to anyone’s involvement with the Ku Klux Klan, for example.

From the vantage point of another century’s passage, I prefer simply to point out the irony of his writing in 1911. I also hasten to note that his sister, Eliza Davenport Cotten, and her descendants quietly but substantively contributed to Eliza’s adopted city of Birmingham. This includes Lida’s family standing against racism during the city’s darkest days of the Civil Rights Movement. In their journeys Americans—and Southerners in particular—have passed through time as well as space. Along the way, thankfully, they tossed many old ideas into the rushing streams of history.

General Krulak served 35 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. His last position was as Commandant of the Marine Corps and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He commanded a platoon and two rifle companies during two tours of duty in Vietnam and then held a variety of command and staff positions. These included deputy director of the White House Military Office, Commanding General, 6th Marine Expeditionary Brigade during Desert Storm, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and Commanding General, Marine Forces Pacific. During his military service, General Krulak was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star Medal, the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” and two gold stars, the Purple Heart with gold star, the Meritorious Service Medal, the French Legion d’Honneur Commandeur rank, and many other decorations and medals.

Upon his retirement from the Marine Corps, General Krulak joined MBNA America Bank as Vice Chairman and Chief Administrative Officer and subsequently as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MBNA Europe Bank, Ltd. After four years in this position, he returned to the United States and served as Vice Chairman, MBNA America Bank as Head of Corporate Development, Mergers and Acquisitions. General Krulak retired from MBNA in June 2005.

Today, General Krulak is the President for Birmingham-Southern College, a liberal arts college located in Birmingham. In addition, General Krulak currently sits on the Board of Directors of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Corporation where he is a member of the Public Policy and Personnel Committees and the Board of Directors of Union Pacific Railroad Corporation where he is a member of the Finance and Audit Committees. He sits on the Board of Regents forthe Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He sits on the Board of the CEO Forum and serves as Director with Aston Villa Football Club in the United Kingdom. He is an advisor to the Center for Naval Analysis and Human Rights First. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

General Krulak is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and has a master’s degree in labor relations from George Washington University.

Join us on Sept. 26 to hear this accomplished man speak, and to congratulate this year’s award winners:

• Elaine Hughes, recipient of the 2011 Alabama Humanities Award
• Wells Fargo, recipient of the 2011 Charitable Organization in the Humanities

To order tickets and for more details, please click here.

We arrived in Mer Rouge on a blistering hot afternoon. Our first stop was the small Episcopal church, where we hoped to find some of Lida’s family names—Davenport, Cotten, Douglass—on the handful of nearby cemetery monuments. No luck there. But then I noticed that the main street was Davenport Avenue, on which stood Davenport Insurance and, on the brick wall of another building, a mural depicting figures under a sign for the Davenport cotton gin. We were in the right place.

The helpful clerk in the main street pharmacy directed us to the local library, where she thought we could obtain a copy of a book about the early history of Mer Rouge and Morehouse Parish. She then phoned Tommy Davenport Rankin, whom she thought would have a copy too. Remarkably, we were there the one day of the week the library was open, and she reached Tommy on the first try. The town patriarch, Bill Davenport, was in a bank board meeting, but we met up with him in the two-seat barber shop later. Tommy and Bill turned out to be Lida’s second cousins.

Christopher Columbus (C.C.) Davenport, Eliza’s brother, originally published Looking Backward: Memoirs of the Early Settlement of Morehouse Parish in 1911, as a compilation of weekly columns he’d had written while serving as editor of the Mer Rouge Democrat. Tommy eagerly gave us copies, which the local Lions Club had recently reprinted in pamphlet form.

The Davenport family journey begins with Eliza and C.C.’s grandfather, Josiah Davenport, who charted his own remarkable course by ocean, river and land in 1806. Born in 1771 in Providence, Rhode Island, Josiah took to the sea at the age of 21. He owned two ships, the Brunswick and the Cleopatra, which plied the cotton trade between Savannah and Liverpool for 14 years. But in 1806 he sold the Cleopatra in Savannah to a man who paid him partially in cash and partially in African slaves. Journeying to New Orleans with his slaves, he struck a bargain with Abram Morehouse, a Kentucky entrepreneur who had contracted with Baron de Bastrop to settle a large tract of land in the territory’s northeastern region. Morehouse borrowed a sizable sum of Davenport’s money, then persuaded him to use his slaves to pull a pirogue full of supplies up the Mississippi and Ouachita River to what is now the region around Monroe and Bastrop. Josiah desired to return to the sea, but when Morehouse defaulted on the loan, the Rhode Islander found himself not only a reluctant slaveholder, but now also a cotton farmer and landlocked Louisianan. The area they settled became known as Prairie Mer Rouge, or Mer Rouge for short. C.C.’s memoirs don’t explain the reason for the name. But Tommy claims that either the local Choctaws or the white settlers, looking back east from “the first hill in Louisiana west of the Mississippi,” saw vast fields of red clover waving in the breeze, looking much like a sea of red.

The remainder of C.C.’s memoirs describes the local families and life on the frontier. Josiah himself was known for wearing buckskin until his death in 1835. In about 1858 his granddaughter Eliza (who also went by the nickname Lida) enrolled in college in Cincinnati. Her father James Davenport passed away that year, leaving the family farm to her, C.C. and their two brothers. But the outbreak of the Civil War forced her to return to Mer Rouge. (C.C.’s memoirs also end in 1860.) She later married Robert Cotten, a local physician. It is believed that in the 1870s Robert and Eliza migrated to the new city of Birmingham, Alabama, where Robert treated victims of the city’s early cholera epidemic. His name first appears in the 1889 Birmingham City Directory. They also played a role in the founding of the Church of the Advent, the city’s first Episcopal church.

Before Lida and I left Mer Rouge, Tommy drove us past the farmhouse that Lida’s family had photographed in 1951. He said the original Davenport house stood somewhere behind it, which got Lida to thinking about doing some amateur archaeology in the fields there. Tommy then took us to the top of the “first hill in Louisiana.” There in the town cemetery he showed us the final resting place of several Davenports and other founding families of Mer Rouge. You can’t see red clover any longer from this hill, only fields of corn, cotton and soybeans. It’s an even longer view—about 300 miles, I’d guess—to see the Red Mountain that overlooks what became Eliza’s new home, the Magic City. Over time their children, including Lida’s grandmother, Clara, settled on the side of the mountain in what are now the Forest Park and Highland Park neighborhoods. Lida herself, I think, feels more akin to the forests and hills. She even attended the University of the South, up on a mountain in Tennessee. But driving across the Louisiana flatlands that day, in a heavy rain towards the Mississippi Delta, she said she wants to return to Mer Rouge someday. Maybe get some Davenport soil under her finger nails and keep digging up her roots.

Coming Soon: From the “Red Sea” to the Red Mountain: An Afterward

On July 10 Lida and I attended the opening reception for AHF’s SUPER institute at Spring Hill College in Mobile on “The Alabama Coast: A Sense of Place.” We decided to take a few days to explore areas of Louisiana and Mississippi that we had never visited together, including the charming antebellum Mississippi River towns of St. Francisville, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. But our ultimate destination was to be the tiny northeast Louisiana community of Mer Rouge. On the first leg we visited historic Oakley Plantation outside St. Francisville, where John James Audubon spent several months working on his “Birds of America” masterpieces. (Oakley is an impeccably restored and interpreted Federal-style home and outbuildings deep in semi-tropical forest. I highly recommend it.) From there we drove along famed Highway 61 to Natchez, where we toured magnificent Stanton Hall (1858) and, from our hotel room at night, watched tugs push long barges up the river.

After 24 hours in such stereotypical Southern splendor, our expectations for the farming town of Mer Rouge — the ancestral home of one side of Lida’s family — were admittedly tempered. No one from the family had been to Mer Rouge in 60 years, when someone took a black-and-white snapshot of trees partially blocking the view of a nondescript farmhouse in the distance. That was our only real image of the town, and it didn’t suggest much to compete with the charming areas we had just left. Moreover, what could we expect to find in a Louisiana burg named for a body of water in the Middle East — the Red Sea?

Still, what Mer Rouge had going for itself, as far as we were concerned, was an authentic connection to us, especially in the person of Eliza Davenport, Lida’s great-grandmother and namesake. Eliza’s hand-painted photographic portrait hangs in our dining room, and Lida has her schoolgirl songbook. Frances Robb, Alabama’s expert on historic photographs, had dated Eliza’s portrait to ca. 1858-60, when we knew she was in college in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Click here to view the portrait.) We also knew that somehow she had made it to Birmingham in the late 19th century. But it took our visit to her hometown in Morehouse Parish to put her and all the Davenports into a more vivid picture than just an image in a frame or names on a family tree.

Coming Soon: Part II of From the “Red Sea” to the Red Mountain