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.

More English than England, There is No Place Like Charleston, America’s Top City by Conde Nast

Though I am of necessity to all things English born with my mother being a native of the British Isles, yet having just returned from an unexpected visit to England, I have to admit, I could not wait to get back to Charleston.  Granted, this visit was not a pleasure trip.  I was in a new, modern,”sculpture” town visiting my Auntie Edie Breyer in Princess Alexandra Hospital, where she lay after a stroke last Wednesday after 98 years of living on her own in another village.  There in this new, unknown town I stayed for five days in a modern hotel, it being the nearest to the hospital, though  a 45 minute indirect walk through busy traffic.  I carried my old brown wicker English shopping basket to and fro containing my Sainsbury edibles, my books, extra cardigan, and wallet, looking more English than the English.  After walking through a roped off rape crime scene the first day,  an essential part of my route, it took me a few days to decide to be my effervescent self and greet people with “Good Morning”.  The English in this town do not look you in the eye or offer greetings.  There is a wariness and unease.  I found, however, that as I greeted each person on my routine walk each day, their old habits fell into play.  The ladies in particular would return with a cheery “Good Morning” and a smile as if remembering that all was well with the world after all; however, the men would glance furtively with their eyes, not turning their heads,  as if to say, “Do I know you?  I don’t think so.”  Returning from the hospital to my hotel after dark each evening, I left off greeting.

The new middle to low income housing in England is an attempt to make living more human scale without highrises.  But I am from Charleston, which as a Gullah ”Weggytubble Lady” with her wheel barrow said many years ago,” Cha’ston keep all t’other places from seemin natchal.”  There was nothing historically comely to rest the eyes upon architecturally.  I am spoiled having in Charleston a daily feast visually on every street.  My mind would retreat to the Charleston scene of the  etched glass door at 5 East Battery, my friend, Francess Palmer’s home, which has been in her family for three generations.  I pinch myself every time I see my reflection in the glass with the morning sunlight dancing on the harbor reflected behind me.   As part of my morning routine on a tour, I  go  to this preserved home on the Battery with my guests.  I have never taken it for granted.  Being in another daily routine in an unromantic part of England, put me in someone else’s shoes for a week of my life, a self imposed fast of all things aesthetic.  Now I have the actual daily experience similar to many to contrast with what I bring visitors to share every day with me in Charleston.  I always hope that visitors will take mental flash shot images of Charleston to which to return when in the daily, dull routine of life, a place of serenity from which to draw, to retreat and refresh.  I found myself following my own advice,  dipping in to the images of Charleston, contrasting my daily life to those of this town in England, counting my lucky stars that I get to return to Charleston, where as Rhett Butler said, “There’s still grace and charm left in the world.”

My thanks to the few people who were kind and understanding though disappointed to miss my tour.  I am glad I went, though it was a hard trip.  My Auntie Edie’s mind is still there, though she cannot speak.  I did finally decipher some of her scribble with her left hand.  The first word she wrote with great effort was “pay”.  She wanted to pay for me to have gone to the trouble and expense to come visit her.  She nodded her head vigorously, thrilled that I got it!  But of course, there was no pay necessary for the duty of love and family.  Pointing out my diamond wedding ring convinced her not to worry.  The next she scribbled was “Go to Loo”, quite an ordeal for a stroke victim of 98, but with help from the wonderful staff, we managed to get her there three times that day.  The major literary work she had been trying to write, I finally got the last day.  “Tell (Auntie) Pam to feed Tara (her beloved cat)!”  as if she would not know to be doing that.   Auntie Edie never married.  She has lived for her cats as she said once I live for my children, knowing their likes and dislikes, as no one else can.

Reading by her side to her The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, her favorite of CS  Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, singing hymns from the 1916 little black Bible with Church of Scotland hymnal in the back, cleaning her nails and giving her a manicure, and getting her using manipulatives from the physical and occupational therapists’ “gym” next door became the highlights of our days together.  She would conduct music as I sang, using her head to keep time.  With her good hand she would applaud onto the lifeless hand.  Though in a stroke ward with open doors and windows where sound traveled, no one ever complained of my singing.  The tunes and words brought back old associations for others I could see as one lady smiled and looked contented and  another made inaudible sounds fervently praying along.  There are four stroke patients to each room.  One attractive  lady never gained full awareness, sleeping always.  They are ministering angels, the staff who work with these stroke victims daily, unflaggingly patient, showing their kind hearts that drew them to this profession and the Judeo-Christian heritage of hospitals in the United Kingdom.  And yet, it takes a loved one sitting by their side to attend to all the difficult to communicate needs.  The staff does not have the  time to spend to figure out what each is trying to say.  Being there to “translate” helped.  It was a maternal instinct to drop everything and go, an indebtedness to  Auntie Edie as the eldest member of our English family and her hospitality to me in my staying with her in my early years of travel and study in England.

Though I was desperate to see my husband, children and Charleston again, I wept when I left her, such is the debt of gratitude I owe my mother’s half sister.  She was only 7 when her mother died.  Twenty years after her birth and her father’s remarriage, my Auntie Pam and my mother were born.  Out of these unexpected extra children has come help for the present for this  century old spinster, who would have been otherwise alone in the world.

If you have loved ones in hospital or a nursing home, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust  corrupt, nor thieves can break in and steal, and make it a part of your daily routine to visit and stay by their side.  “Though the way be cheerless, I will follow calm and fearless.” No matter where we live or what our daily life is like, we have so much to be thankful for if we have our health and faith.  We can break up the monotony of those who are in prison in their own bodies by attending to them.  God bless those who already do this act of charity or are caregivers at home.  “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you have done it unto Me.”  I see The Holy City of Charleston  preserved as a place of refreshment for visitors who are following the weary and heavy laden way in which they should go, keeping their homeland strong, doing the hard work needs to be done.

“Still the weary folk are pining for the hour that brings release

and the city’s crowded clangor cries aloud for sin to cease

and the homesteads and the woodlands

plead in silence for their peace” — Henry Scott Holland, 1902

I hope you can take some time set apart and see Charleston, South Carolina with me.  I look forward to meeting new friends every day  Despite this necessary unaesthetic side of England in a  hospital,  I am exploring taking a group on a tour to England and Scotland next summer .  I did it three years ago and have some wonderful  new ladies ready to sign up.  I will be working out the expenses and itinerary.  We will see private English and Scottish  Country Houses and gardens far from the Madding Crowd.  Let me know if you are interested.  You have to have come on my tour first of Charleston.

–Laura Wichmann Hipp-843-577-5896