Davis' Beauvoir & Bellingrath Gardens

Tuesday 22 February 2011
Jefferson Finis Davis was an interesting man, a tenth son. His father wanted him to be a scholar. But when he complained about this it only took three days of working in the field to learn he preferred being a scholar. He didn't want to go to West Point, but was talked into trying it for a year and did like it after all. He helped build forts in Iowa and Wisconsin. He eloped with the commander's daughter and resigned. But when the Mexican War started he served as a Colonel. He was also U.S. Sccretary of War and later when the Civil War started he expected the same role in the Confederate government, but got appointed and then elected President. After the war he spent two years in prison, then wandered around Canada and Europe looking for a job. But what he really wanted to do was write his memoirs. He finally settled at Beauvoir between Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, and spent the next 12 years there.

But the story of Beauvoir is also the story of Hurricane Katrina—the same one that wiped out New Orleans. That storm tore off part of the roof and parked for eight hours a foot of water on the floor boards already 23 feet above sea level (storm surge). They have clean it up, restored it, but there is still a lot to do to get back to where they were. It is the same way with the entire Mississippi coast, lots of property where there was once some building but now lying vacant. All the surviving houses, like Beauvoir were on stilts.

Bellingrath Gardens in Alabama is beautiful even in February. They have added a Bayou boardwalk and an Asian-American section since we last brought the family. They had a few magnolias in bloom, a few daffodils, but mostly purple and white decorative cabbages for color. Mr. Bellingrath made most of his money with a Coca-Cola bottling franchise. The bank was worried they could only sell Coke in the summer so he thought up the idea of having Santa Claus advertise his drinks. Yes, it was Bellingrath's advertising that led to our concept of Santa Claus in a red and white suit.

Tonight we sleep on Dauphine Island, Alabama. The fort a few hundred feet from where we sleep was part of the battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War.