Beware! You Gotta Serve Somebody

“It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody,” says Bob Dylan. Thank you, my guests, for allowing me, your servant, the opportunity and privilege to “shout to the North and the South, sing to the East and the West,”  “from the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring.” It is indescribable, uncontainable this experience of sharing the passion of the Holy City of Charleston with you.  For those of us who are blessed to be called Charlestonians, our city is hallowed ground, set apart for a special purpose, peculiar, distinct and different, which is what the word “holy” means in Greek.

I believe it was the Jewish people who gave Charleston the nick name the Holy City.  Who else could?  Our guarantee of religious freedom and tolerance in our colony brought us some of the first Jewish immigrants.  When the Marquis de Lafayette visited every state for our 50th Anniversary as a nation, it was Charleston who first presented the Jewish congregations to the Nation’s Guest along with Christian congregations and ethnic and civic societies.  It was here that his secretary Levasseur first wrote of the disproportional  contribution the Jewish volunteers made to the American Cause for LIBERTY.  Here they were considered “A Portion of the People”.

We are geographically set apart on the Peninsula for a special purpose and grow more peculiar, distinct and different as the rest of the world changes and we preserve our heritage both architecturally and culturally.  “Where are the sky scrapers, the business section” many of you ask.  “I need to get my bearings.”  I answer, “Our church steeples are still our sky scrapers.”Despite wars, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, Earthquake of 1886, British bombardment, Union bombardment,  ransacking, and the ravages of time, Charleston still looks like the oldest city in America.  We formed the first Preservation Society of any city in the nation in 1920 under Susan Pringle Frost.

“People come here who have heard rumors from friends of an old city still left with high walls, and gardens barely visible through wrought iron gates, of houses with plum colored roofs.  We have something new for their eyes to see.  If you are weary of the syncopated unrest of a crazy world, come here and set your feet to a saner tempo.  ‘What would we gain by that’, you ask; ‘all we’d accomplish would be to get out of step with the rest of the world.’  We do not argue the point, but if you would only do it for a bit, you would leave us wiser than when you came; for the streets of Charleston have something to give them who walk them in a receptive mood that will make life forever richer.”

Beware!  The Holy City of Charleston is infectious!  I am a servant of the Holy City as one says trying to convert you at every turn, to allow that passion I have to be yours as well.  It is a rich history here with many layers still to be unpeeled, held within family portraits, papers, diaries, letters, and unpublished novels.  Charles Waring, editor of the salmon papers of the Charleston Mercury, told me last night at The Wedding at St. Philip’s on Church Street of our minister’s daughter, Katie, that he has an unpublished novel by an ancestor of his family about Lafeyette!  I want to read that historic fiction, as those of you who have heard me wax poetic about this French Founding Father can imagine. One life time is too short to discover all the facets of our city’s heritage.  Come and see!  “Ho!  Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the water.  Ye that have no money, come ye buy and eat. Wherefore do you give your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not?”

I look forward to meeting you, feeding both body and soul if you are in a receptive mood.  A sumptuous feast of the senses awaits you!–Laura Wichmann Hipp 843-577-5896

Charleston Voted Top of the World

Today we read in the Post and Courier that international Conde Nast Travel readers have voted Charleston the top destination IN THE WORLD!  Readers judge cities on a five point scale; their composite scores determine the outcome.  Thank you to all who hold Charleston, the Holy City, in that sacred place of your hearts.  Thank you to my friends in Charleston who allow me to bring you, my guests, into their old and historic private properties,  to gain a glimpse behind the scenes, behind the gates and piazza doors,  into a world that can be entered only by invited guests.  Where else in the world is there such hospitality?  God preserve us from that suffocating fear of liability, which is death to our renowned Southern hospitality.

We are humbled by this designation of top in America and top in the world.  Cape Town South Africa is second to Charleston.  Florence, Italy is third.  In the United States, San Francisco is second, Chicago is third, Santa Fe, New Mexico is fourth, New York City is fifth, and Savannah, Georgia is tenth.  ”It’s the history, the restaurants, the historical churches, and the graveyards.  We always find something we have never seen before.”  ”It’s like heaven.”  These are some of the quotes in today’s paper.  The Holy City of Charleston is working her way into people’s hearts across the world.  As the world changes, Charleston matures like an old wine, getting more and more full bodied.  Our Judea-Christian family values make this city the place of depth and heritage it is.  To experience the restaurants and bars and shops is to know only the superficial surface.

The view of Charleston I try to give on my tour is the view we have who have been born and raised here.  I cannot give you any other view than that of a native Charlestonian.  What you get on my tour is the real Laura Wichmann Hipp.  I do not try to be someone I am not; everybody else is already taken.  As an ambassador of Charleston to the world, I try to give you that bird’s eye view of history as it relates to American and European history and to where we are today and where we are going.  If we do not learn the lessons from history, we will be doomed to repeat them.  Our LIBERTY was bought at a price by the sacrifice and patient toil of many individuals.  To understand who and where we are today, we must look back at the patterns of history.  Thank God for Charleston’s creation and preservation, and for all the blessings of this life, but above all for that inestimable love that sets Charleston apart as the Holy City in our hearts.

Spring in January and February in Charleston

January and February are the best kept secret in Charleston.  The camellias are in bloom, cultivated for the social season when Charlestonians and plantation owners were in town for the races.  Magnolia Plantation is not to be missed with their world renowned collection of camellias in bloom now, which peak in February.  Those who wait til spring miss our spring like winter, especially refreshing if you live in environs where you see nothing green all winter.  Bulbs are coming up.   We are to ourselves again after the many visitors of autumn and Christmas.  It is quiet.  We have time get to know you better.

It is also the season of Lowcountry oyster roasts.  My family and I went to the SAVE THE LIGHT oyster roast for the Morris Island Lighthouse last Sunday.  I stood at the same spot for HOURS eating steamed oysters.  People would go away from our table and come back hours later to say, “You still here?!”  If anyone wants to have an oyster roast, my husband roasts some up for 6 or more.  He is renowned for doing it the old Charleston way.  He builds a fire in our old brick outside chimney; he puts a metal slab over the fire and piles on the Lowcountry oysters, ” locals” we call them.  Essential then is the wet burlap sack to put over the oysters so that they steam, roast, and smoke.  Where does one get a burlap sack these days?  Only those who are committed to LOCAL oysters know that secret!

Thank you to all who made 2011 a great year.   A young couple loitered after my last tour of the old year, waiting till everyone else left after Tea.  The young man had a guilty look.  Finally he  outed with it.  It was not my money of which he wanted to rob me;  it was another English Plum Pudding,  for the road.  He explained, “I’ve never had anything like this before.”

I also served  Hoppin’ John with a refreshing twist:  Field Peas with chopped Roasted Beets,  Ginger,  Meyer Lemon, and dried cranberries, inspiration from The Taylor Brothers, for whose cooking demonstration I first made it.  I made it it New Year’s Day for our family gathered at Aunt Dee’s.   I am using my home grown Meyer Lemons before a freeze comes along.  I was not as wise last year.  I am making Meyer Lemon Sorbet, my favorite, and Meyer Lemon Curd with scones.  Yesterday I baked two persimmon pies, which filled the house with their wonderful aroma.  You have to wait til the persimmons look soggy or they will taste like chalk.  We have a tree in back.  We have something new for the eyes to see, persimmons and calamondin oranges in my camellia flower arrangements.  Winter joys of life in Charleston keep us in good spirits until the full bloom of magic culminates in spring.

I am still up to my eyeballs in Calamondin Marmalade.  I cannot work in the front garden without a passerby wanting to know what that tree is with tiny oranges.   I gave tiny jars for party favors at a fabulous  New Year’s Eve dinner party with our friends at Cathy and Harry Gregorie’s, owners of GDC.  I ran out this morning of the marmalade jars I took with me to a citrus lecture at the Garden Club of Charleston.  Don’t worry; I am making more.

We are now in the 151st year since the War Between the States began at Ft. Sumter, April 12, 1861, in Charleston, “That Hellhole of Secession.”  One of the houses we visit is my friend, Francess Palmer’s, on East Battery with a dead on view of Ft. Sumter, where was fired the shot that was heard around the world.  I never tire of the sunlight on the water, the ever changing views of white caps or lazy glassiness where dolphins are jumping  and white sails are gliding by.  To add more value in these times to the tour and to highlight the history as seen from the Battery, I am offering a full, hot Southern breakfast in my friend Francess Palmer’s home and  B&B.  It has been in her family for three generations. I first went there for her debutant party when we were 18.  The Big Band from her grandparents era played on the lawn under a full moon.  There as we gaze at the view of Ft. Sumter,  I  talk about the history of this War of Northern Aggression!  You come to understand why Southerns had the audacity to call it that.

Our own  house had been Francess Palmer’s uncle’s.  We have owned it for 14 years this winter, having bought it from the Edmonds, who lived in it for 30 years after the Palmers.  I cried when we moved in.   I did not want to give up my home I had bought before marriage on Legare Street, where my tours had ended with tea in the garden.   I said I was only moving here because I loved my husband.  Preston in my face said, “Mark my words.  You’re gonna love it!”  And HE WAS RIGHT!  Sunlight and moisture for a citrus grove and flower garden, a view of the water, open air circulation and good sea breezes, SPACE for family living and for entertaining you, my guests,  all contribute to my love for our home.  Though it is old enough to have problems, its assets outweigh the responsibilities…so far anyway.  Your one hundred dollars each goes to the preservation of this historic Charleston house, be it ever so humble.

I realize I am living the life of my gregarious father, Fred Wichmann.  He is the epitome of Charleston hospitality, inviting strangers in who he meets often through sailing or through real estate.   Despite all the “strangers” I have had in my house, when I put everything back in their proper place, they are all there.   No one has taken from me yet after six years of my private tours.  I use old things for my enjoyment and that of of my guests as they were used in 18th and 19th century Charleston.   Thank you for being the people to whom  this Holy City of Charleston was meant to be hospitable.  Lafayette was amazed at Charleston hospitality when he visited here in 1825, saying there were so few inns or hotels because Charlestonians were so hospitable, “they would take you into their homes be you prominent or indigent.”  Read the first translation ever published of “Lafayette in America, 1824-25″, until now hidden in the French language.

I meet some of America’s nicest people on my tour.  I don’t want to let them go.  And so, I invite them in!   I learn from them.  Jump in and tell me something if it is on your mind.  I learned from Johnny Kicklighter that a scene I show of an old print of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, was on a South Carolina dollar bill and a Confederate bill.  I did not know that connection.  It is a scene of him loving his enemy, doing good to those who mistreat you.  Marion is sharing with hated but lost Redcoat Tarleton hot sweet potatoes just pulled from the fire. That picture tells the story of the heart of Charleston hospitality.  This value is an aspect of Charleston that once understood completes the picture of who we are.  Until newcomers get this understanding that it is more blessed to give than  to receive, they are not going to be regarded as belonging.  We are not a gated community of arrogant rich people trying to keep everybody else out.  We are an open city with a heritage and culture that is still alive,  to be shared,  and which has defined us for centuries.  This sentiment I learned growing up in Charleston and from Elizabeth Verner Hamilton, poet, gardener,  and daughter of Charleston artist Elizabeth O’Neill Verner.  I am sharing my larkspur seedlings, which came from ones she shared with me decades ago.

I do my best in my humble efforts to give you that experience of Charleston that has persisted from generation to generation.  My tours are once a day at 9 a.m. with entrance into private homes and gardens. At the end of my tour I invite you in to my home.   After my last tour of the old year, a man moaned, “A hundred dollars!”  “Y-es”, I replied holding my breath.  “This tour is worth MUCH more than a hundred dollars a person! ” he exclaimed,  to my relief.  May God bless us, every one.–Laura Wichmann Hipp– Call 843-577-5896 for reservations.

Opportunities to Make Others Thankful

Yesterday I broke routine to receive a phone call from someone to whom I had written a letter because of an article in the Post and Courier.  Later his mother called to thank me for my letter her son had just read to her.  I am thankful for the boundless opportunities provided by our reporters to step into someone else’s shoes and not only to be thankful for what we have in contrast but to make a difference in the lives of those in our Charleston community we read about in our newspaper.

 Everyone feels compassion, the kindness of a stranger for victims of tragedy and life’s sudden reversals.  Feeling compassion does not make you a compassionate person; it is acting on that heart tug that can make the difference.  We think, how can I make a difference with my little mite, but if we follow through with that urge and mustard seed of an idea, we can change the course of someone’s day, and perhaps someone’s life.

 I read the article on Mills Adams at Mars Hill College in the Sports section, to which I rarely turn.  It was lying open on the kitchen counter when I came down to cook breakfast for the family and caught my eye with its title of “It Feels Like I’m Playing with Fire”.  I learned that whites as well as blacks can carry the sickle cell trait as Mills does.  He is living his dream of playing football for college, despite playing with fire with the risks associated with being a carrier of sickle cell.

 I wrote him that I had a heart for those with this ailment from my association with the late Albertha Stokes, the beloved Gullah Flower Lady on the corner of St. Michael’s Alley and Meeting.  Though her baskets were not the most impressive, I always encouraged my tours to buy from her because her heart was always in songs and spirituals.  We loved each other so. She would bake me lemon cream cheese pound cake for my teas parties in appreciation, telling me after many years, that my support made a difference in the care she was able to provide for her daughter, who she said had “the sickle cellemia”.  This daughter would eventual pass away before her mother and father. 

 I also wrote Mills that I would like to offer him and his family a complimentary tour of Charleston, enclosing a signed gift card for my tour business, which has always been my career.   

He said I had no idea how much this letter and offer meant to him, that he was a history major, and though from the Charleston area, he had NEVER been in ANY historic houses of Charleston.  He had always wanted to see inside some and learn the history, but he dared not even mention it to his mom, because as a single mom, he says, she trys so hard to make ends meet for her two boys, sacrificing her own needs. 

 When his mother called, she gave me a fleshed out picture of their challenges, struggles, and reversals.  Just an encouraging word to let them know that there are those who care in Charleston meant the world.  The Post and Courier article is what made this connection between us possible.

 I want give money to  either the Coastal Community Foundation or to St. Philip’s and designate that money  be given to help this family this Christmas.  The mom needs to buy a car as she does not have one at the moment.  She also needs help with presents for her boys, one still home in highschool.  There are no life’s extras for them.  It will be a challenge for them to get to Charleston for my tour and for her son to get home from the North Carolina mountains for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  But with this mom, where there is a will, there is a way.  She has moved mountains already for her children.

 I do not pat myself on the back.  There are many opportunities I intend to take and miss.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  The important thing, I tell myself,  is to act on the little that is on our heart to do and not to delay a day.  Respond to that still, small voice only our heart can hear.  We each can make a difference in being a city on a hill, whose light cannot be hidden, the best city in America.  Carpe Diem!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Museum Pass a Good Value

During the weekends, Fridays through Sundays, the Museum Mile Weekend Pass offers good value.  The tickets are $25 per person and $10 for children.  For those coming on my private tour, we do not go into museum houses, only private homes and gardens.  I  LOVE these museum houses and got my start giving tours in them in college.  If you come on a week day for my tour, offered Mondays through Fridays, plan to take advantage of the Museum Mile Weekend  Pass.  If you order it, it is best to start with it on Friday morning.  Schedule a tour with me either Thursday before or Monday after if you can stay that long. Artist Elizabeth O’Neill Verner said, “ If you are weary of the syncopated unrest of a crazy world, come here and set your feet to a saner tempo…for the streets (AND MUSEUMS) of Charleston  have some thing to give those who walk them in a receptive mood that will  make life forever richer.”

One of the museums is The Governor Aiken -Rhett House, one of my favorites because IT IS PRESERVED rather than “renovated.”  The collection is original and tells the story of Gov AIKEN, known for “moderation in all things,” and his daughter marrying the son of the Fire Eater, Senator Robert Barnwell RHETT, who argued for independence for the State of South Carolina;  thus the name the Gov. Aiken-Rhett House, at 48 Elizabeth St.

Another favorite is the Powder Magazine on 79 Cumberland St near St. Philips and the Market.  It is a humble little building that carried a big bang.  It is where the gun powder was stored to defend Charleston fr0om invasion from Spaniards and French and Indians in the Colonial period of the 18th century.  It will be celebrating its 300th anniversary soon.  The man who was Powder Receiver was the most respected man in the colony; he had the security of the entire city on his shoulders.  The moving of that gun powder to the Powder Magazine was the sensitive bomb with a bang.  The groin architecture is European in strength and beauty, three feet thick.

The Confederate Museum is upstairs in the Market Hall facing Meeting Street and Charleston Place at the foot of Beaufain and where the Market begins.  It is lost in time, the collection having been dropped off by individual Confederate soldiers here in Charleston for a reunion 20 years after The War.  I had saved it in my youth so that I would have something still to discover in Charleston.  One day I was asked by the Preservation Society to give a tour for Lord and Lady Salisbury.  It was raining torentially.  They wanted to go anyway.  In particular, he wanted to go to the Confederate Museum.  They were elegant, beautifully mannered people.  He was the epitome of a perfect gentleman, racing around as fast as a servant to open my door for me and to anticipate my every need.  God bless him.  He wanted to go to the Confederate Museum.  This was OVER 20 years ago.  Doubtfully, I told him it was not professionally done with choice collections under glass and climate controlled, that experts had told me that it should have been on many floors, not all together packed into one room.  He taught me a lasting lesson when he said,”Young lady, THAT IS A REAL MUSEUM!”  The Daughters of the Confederacy run the museum and took the collection home to air dry after the roof was blown off in Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  They are committed to providing this access to the real memorabilia of the Confederacy.

The Edmondston-Alston House at 21 East Battery is where I worked during college and then as assistant administrator after graduating from the College of Charleston.  It overlooks the harbor and Ft. Sumter, where The War started 150 years ago.  Hester Bateman silver is in the dining room, exquisite.  Susan Pringle Alston portrait is there, too, which she had painted on her grand tour of Europe, probably by a street artist in Paris or Florence, as my daughter Olivia did.  The frame and style are the same as one we see in a private home on my tour from the same period.  The books in the library and the furniture are all original to the Alston family, rice planters, reflecting the interests and lifestyle of this Charleston aristocratic family.  Charles Alston’s father married the Pringle daughter at the Miles Brewton House on lower King with the cheveau de frise, the spikey iron fence.  His father was Wm. Alston, called King Billy!   See the book by Richard Cote, Mary’s World.

Who can come to Charleston without seeing the free flying eliptical staircase of the Nathanial Russell House,  51 MeetingSt.?  It is the quintessential Adam style house, which never went out of style in Charleston.   Who can say they have seen Charleston if they have never seen Thomas Elfe furniture, our premiere cabinet maker from the 18th century?  His work is prolific in the Heyward- Washington House.  Note the letters  from Edward Rutledge asking President George Washington to stay at his house, and George Washington’s carefully worded regret, saying he could show no favoritism, that he must rent a house.The kitchen house and formal garden are worth the visit, maintained by The Garden Club of Charleston.

The Gibbes Museum of Art is a very human scale art museum at 135 Meeting where you can see the faces of the people Who Built This City.

See the old Exchange and Provost Dungeon at the foot of Broad, where the British imprisoned signers of the Declaration of Independence along with common criminals during the British siege of Charleston.  It is also where the tea was stored by locals from the Charleston Tea Party, the FIRST 18th century tea party in America before those more flamboyant in Boston took the credit, thus the name of my tour!

For a complete, unbiased listing, see www.charlestonmuseummile.org or the Charleston Visitors Center, where the tickets may be purchased.

Other Places

  Charleston is The Place; all other places are simply other places.  This summer vacation (and my tour guests) afforded my family of five the opportunity to visit a historic city we had never seen before. 

I recommend that all try to visit Natchez, Mississippi and stay in the main house of  Dunleith, the Antebellum home on 40 acres still, in Natchez.  Natchez is a town that time forgot.  You are removed from the modern world and wonder if it is a fluke that all of the guides in the museum houses on tour do not know anything about the world of computers.  Twilight Zone. If you are weary of the syncopated unrest of a crazy world, come to Charleston; then, plan a trip to Natchez.  Natchez feels even more lost in time than Charleston, and less discovered,  to be honest.  We stayed in two museum rooms filled with antebellum antiques in Dunleith all alone for the same price as Natchez’  Days Inn.  We got off-season rates because they heard I was a famous Charleston guide.  Just kidding.  We were just another tourist family.  But we made the most of it, swimming in their pool surrounded by banana fronds, and writing post cards on the veranda, while sipping a mint julep from their herb garden’s  freshly picked mint.  The massive canopied beds were not reproductions as we have predominately here in Charleston B&Bs.

  Before summer is over, relax in a pool in the warm silky waters of the South.  All your cares melt away, as well as all your aches and pains.  And if like us you have to drive to Natchez rather than fly, listen as we did to the book on tape, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Being sold Down South meant down the Mississippi River in Natchez or New Orleans where the sugar cane plantations were, more to be dreaded by slaves than the plantations of cotton or rice.

As we observe the 150th anniversary of the start of the War Between the States, it is a good time to read and visit the history of that day and age,  We learn anew the lessons.  In one of the museum houses of Natchez, we learned that the widow of 1859 had to pay taxes on not only the property of the Antebellum mansion, but on every piece of furniture, mirror, and chandelier; consequently, she was forced to sell the house. 

This one little unelaborated tidbit of history made me suddenly see why the Federal government up North was so hated in the Antebellum years.  The South felt taken advantage of.  The wealth of America was being produced in the South, but the South was being taxed every which way the Federal government could find.  America’s taxes were getting to be like Great Britain whose yoke America had thrown off because of taxation.  The South felt all their hard earned money was going up North to feed the Federal government machine of wasteful spending.  The Southerners felt they would be better off on their own, that states rights had been replaced with Federal government rights.  Statehood implies sovereignty.  People were patriotic and loyal to their state, which was their country.  The outcome of the War changed America’s perception of statehood and states rights.  In looking back, we remember who we are and were designed to be by the Founding Fathers.

Diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut

For those in the Charleston area,  the first Friday of August was an  interview about Mary Boykin Chesnut on our local ETV radio station at 89.9 with Walter Edgar’s South Carolina Journal.  Her biographer goes beyond the War Between the States diary into her earlier years of growing up, teaching every slave she could how to read and write.  The women were the heros of the South, the cohesive, oft times rebellious members of society who lived out their faith by being doers of the Word, not hearers only, teaching the slaves their catachism, while their husbands and fathers were passing laws forbidding teaching slaves to read and write.

I quote from her diary at breakfast in the house we visit on East Battery overlooking the harbor and Ft. Sumter.  I was delighted to talk to a tour organizer  who is half way through reading MBC’s diary because of my suggested reading on this web site, though she has yet to go on my tour.

I learned that Mary Boykin Chesnut’s father’s plantation was bought BEFORE THE WAR by a free man of color, who owned 60 slaves.  Unfortunately, there are no records of life and relations between master and slave under his ownership, such as MBC provided.  I also learned that there was a very well educated “mulatto” woman who taught Mary with Madame Talvande in Charleston where she was a boarding student on Legare Street at the Sword Gate House.  I knew she went to school here, but how interesting that she was taught by a  person of color, who she respected and admired.  No wonder she tried to teach every slave she could how to read and write.  The inter racial relations were much more complex than we might think.

It is always fun to be the student and to learn more and more.  Adding to one’s foundation is a life time achievement, which never grows dull.  I will be taking my daughter to Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee the week of Aug 13-19, taking in Natches and Vicksburg.  I hope to see you after our own vacation, our first of the summer.  If you are in Charleston during my time away, you can call my mother, Marianne Wichmann,  for her 9:30 am two hour walking tour at 843-722-1779.

–Laura Wichmann Hipp  843-577-5896

St. Philip’s Church on Church Street

St Philip’s Episcopal Church is the Mother Church south of Virginia.  We were established in 1680.  As a matter of fact, the very first request made by the colonists was for  a minister.  The letter to the Lords Proprietors said,” Though we are in dire want of many basic neccessities, yet one thing is needful, a godly and orthodox man to lead the people”. 

It took ten years after the colonists arrived in 1670 to get a minister, but they finally got one brave man from the approved Church of England, who started  St. Philip’s.  The church became known as the most elegant church in the English colonies.  “Church Mice” are on duty weekdays as volunteers to keep the church open for you.  Do look in at the angels in the center of the Corinthian columned arches. 

You are invited  to see the life blood of the Holy City.   It is our historic churches and synagogues that still today provide that sense of community that they have had throughout our history.  It is this viability of our downtown that makes Charleston so real, yet ideal, the Holy City in the hearts of all Americans, what Paris is to Europeans.

Call me at 843-577-5896 for reservations for my Private Tour.  Leave a message as I may be on a tour, and I will call you back!  –Laura Wichmann Hipp

The One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Firing on Ft. Sumter as Seen by Mary Boykin Chesnut

  Mary Boykin Chesnut in her diary of the 1860′s asked, “Why did that green goose Anderson go into Ft. Sumter in the first place.  Then everything began to go wrong.”  We are still asking that question and others about what caused The War that killed more Americans than all other wars we have been involved in… put together!

  On April 12 we observed the start of the War of Northern Aggression. ” You are kidding, right?” you ask.   From a view of Ft. Sumter on one of the piazzas along High Battery, I explain from primary sources, such as the  diary by Mary Boykin Chesnut, and Charlestonian Emma Holmes, why the South called The War by this name.     There is so much information key to understanding the Southern mindset that has never been put in history books.  It is as if we have grown used to seeing a puzzle with key pieces missing.  As an English major with emphasis in history of the South, I love being put back in that moment in time by the writings of the day, which contain secrets to understanding the otherwise overlooked aspects of the causes.  I do not just tell you about what they wrote, I quote them in their own words, for they said it better than I could. 

 Take note that we are NOT celebrating the start of The War, but we are observing that it started here in Charleston April 12, 1861, and are learning what we can from that event that Mary Boykin Chesnut said “nothing but blood letting would put an end to.” 

The eve of The War, the last ditch efforts were by special envoy Senator James Chesnut, Mary’s husband, to get The Union’s  Major Anderson to surrender Ft. Sumter to avert war.  Anderson had been given four months of warning to leave this foreign fort, having moved there six days AFTER South Carolina seceded.  The lone nation state of South Carolina had asked if any move would be made to Ft. Sumter.  President Buchanan still in office said any move to any Federal fort would be considered an act of aggression.  When on December 26, the night after Christmas, the Union was seen having moved to Ft Sumter with the Union flag flying, the South naturally saw this move as an act of aggression.  The North was preparing for war.  It was only then  that other Southern states started joining South Carolina, which had been the first state to secede December 20, 1860.

Pack that car and start driving now!  Call me for a private tour, 9:30 a.m.  Monday through Friday, 843-577-5896. 

Tell me you have read  my writings, and I will make sure I give you the full quotes from the Diary From Dixie.

–Laura Wichmann Hipp

Blooming in my Garden, Spring 2011

  Come on my private tour as soon as you can to see the spring flowers, peaking earlier this year.  The big surprise this spring is the Lady Banks Rose.  I have had it planted for several years by the post in our front garden nearest the Ashley River.  I finally got it to do what I want, which is to grow up and over the brick post of the wrought iron fence.  This is the first year it has paid me for my patience.  It is overflowing with bowers of feathery, yellow, thornless blossoms.  My husband, Preston, and I were sitting on the bench on the Battery wall on the Ashley River yesterday chatting with neighbors when we could see someone stooping by our house, taking pictures of  OUR Lady Banks Rose and  our walkway of flowers.  This is the first year our Lady Banks  has been noticable.

  Lady Banks Rose was named after the wife of an eminent botanist of the 18-19th century, Sir Joseph Banks, who sailed around the world for three years with Captain Cook, returning to England in 1771 with many samples of plant and animal findings.  He died in 1821.  A collector went to China where this rose grows wild on the banks of mountains, thought of him, brought it back to England, and named it after Sir Jos Banks’ widow.  Linnaeus called him “the immortal Banks”.

His legacy lives on in Charleston gardens where long stalks shoot up over walls, along the sides of houses, and up into tree tops.  To see this height of yellow sends a thrill through you, actually renewing your confidence to REACH  out of darkness and obscurity into the LIGHT!  Nature’s triumph inspires our own.

 This country has so much to offer.  Follow my freshman in college daughter’s example and get friends together to share gas expenses and take turns driving as long as it takes to get here to see spring in Charleston.  There is always room somewhere.  Call me and I will help you find the hotel, inn, or B&B  just right for you.  Splurge by treating yourself to the Charleston Tea Party Private Tour.  I am blessed to be able to show you by the kindness of my friends some of the finest private gardens of this historic city.

A group I enjoyed having on my tour this week was  a doctor who treated her mother in law,  daughter,  and aunt to my tour to celebrate the mother in law’s 80th birthday.  I baked a delicious calamondin orange and crystalized ginger tea cake with a candle  lit for her,  as we sang Happy Birthday.   The Sheffield silver tea service and tea strainer provided the elegant touch for this memorable lunch and tea party after our morning of exploring the Old Walled City together.  This daughter in law took time off from her busy  practice as a pediatrician to honor the mother of her infectious disease doctor husband.  Their daughter took time off as a successful interior designer in New York City to come as well.  We are healthier families for taking  time set apart to honor each other. 

My friend Jane Sandwick from upstate New York renting a house with extended familyat Folly Beach for the month treated her mother to my tour this week also.  Preston and I visited them last night at Folly meeting his parents and hers, all together from New York to enjoy each others company with their  grandchildren, too.  Salt of the earth they are, the ones who make this country great. ” More to be desired are they than gold, yea than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honey comb.”

Another tour group I had was of college friends having a reunion in Charleston, having gone to Kansas University.  They came from all over the country.  To keep such special friendships alive is to know what is most impotant to pursue in life. 

In that vein, though busy this week, I was not about to deny life long friends in town who I wanted to come for dinner. George Kanellos was here from the White House with son, Hill, on his spring break.  Ian Walker was flying in from Paris to pay his taxes and to visit his mother.   George was leaving town the next morning.  The only time to get together with these old friends was in between tours, Friday night.  We had Preston’s Quail Piccata with my home made  loquat liqueur.  Life long mutual English friend Victoria Hanham made mushrooms in cream .

 If you come on my tour, I might just let you have a taste of this nector of the gods.  It is a seasonal thing I make every spring, which takes a year to mature.  Last spring was a bumper crop of loquats.  Come join me for a sip after lunch and tea at my dining room table.  I can be contacted at 843-577-5896.–Laura Wichmann Hipp