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, you are invited!  My husband will roast some up for a group of 6 or more.  He is renowned for doing it the old Charleston way.  He builds a fire in our 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.  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.

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.  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 have more.

We are now in the 151st year since the War Between the States began 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  or 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.  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 so 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.

After dinner and our family friends helped me reset the table for tomorrow’s tour, I made Lobster Newberg and more Carolina Gold Rice.  This dish is a Christmas special with cream, vermouth, and brandy combined with a lobster broth reduction.  If you are not coming at Christmas time, don’t get your hopes up.  I do not cook this rich a luncheon every day.  I am using the Doubleday Cookbook receipt, the second one, which is richer.  I cannot tell you how good it is.  You will have to try it for yourself.

For those who read my Thanksgiving entry, the Mars Hill College football player and family DID come on my tour.  It was a joy to treat them to the gift I had offered.  Mills Adams is a sickle cell carrier and was in the paper for “playing with fire”.  His team made it to regional championship games for the first time in 20 years.  Before the words were out of my mouth on South Carolina’s history, Mills would be saying it for me.  It is incredible how much he loves his State’s history.  He is a history major and had NEVER been in Historic Charleston houses.  ”You have no idea what this means to me,” he kept saying.  His mom, a former history teacher, and teenage brother came, too.  They are descendants of Robert Mills, Charleston architect of the first Fire Proof Building and the Washington Monument in DC, among others.

Husband Preston this afternoon cut HUGE branches of calamondin oranges–JUST what I need before Christmas–more projects!  I will be up to my eyeballs in making calamondin marmalade, as if I have not made enough already!  Everybody wants some though;  it goes out the door as fast as I can make it.  I bought  baler jars from Italy, which add to the beauty of this locally grown golden product.

Our Christmas baby daughter is turning 14 December 22, with a family birthday tea party here, followed by Christmas Eve Dinner here two days later before she sings in St. Philip’s choir  for Midnight Mass.  Sleep time now!  I can’t wait to meet the next group of people tomorrow–oops this morning!

May your days be Merry and Bright–Laura

 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!

Dick Bennington, furniture restorer, returned my recaned chairs and loaned me 11 more. Preston took two days off from his office to help me be prepared.   Somehow, we managed to seat  32 people in our front drawing room, which is as wide as the front of our Charleston Double House.  We served lunch and tea with Varnetta’s help and the unexpected help from my father’s lovely wife, Joyce Wichmann.  The FAUSA group also used the occasion seated together in our home to have their meeting.  Their ice breaker question President  Louise posed was  what was the most unusual and favorite dish  they learned to prepare and in what country.  These ladies have lived ALL over the world.  They have had such varied experiences.  Cooking, of course, immerses you in the culture, changing and sealing you forever as a part of that culture.  Gardening abroad does the same.

For Sue, the treasurer and organizer to say those magic words, “It was perfect”, makes all the headache of preparing worthwhile.  Her smile and faith in me are with me still, refreshing me, making me believe I can do it again for others.  I sold them my first freshly made batch of  Calamondin Marmalade as well,  which we served over roasted pumpkin cake,  and used the proceeds to treat our family that night to the movie, Courageous, an inspirational film for our times.

I wish I could have got to know all the ladies better and to hear all their adventures from the far corners of the world.  They have a zest for life from living abroad, but have not forgot to be proud to be an American.  Thank you to all who were pulling for me in this venture outside my routine of typically touring  small groups of  up to six.  At our Saturday night dinner party with good friends, Preston could talk of nothing else but our tour.  This was a rare opportunity for my man to step into my shoes for a day, breaking routine himself.  He was proud of me!  And I was thankful for him.

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

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.

His office building is for sale.  It occurred to me that people on my tour are always saying that their dream would be to live in Charleston, but that their business or practice is elsewhere.  Well, bring your business here!  Why would you want to live anywhere else?  This one story building is zoned part residential and office.  For someone starting out, it would be perfect to buy to live in as well as to have as a business or medical practice.

Anticipated Questions:

-Is it old and historic and in the historic district?  No, it is at 1412 St. Andrews Boulevard, West of the Ashley River, about 7 miles from downtown historic Charleston, in the highly visible business district.  Because it is a new interior, it is more  green and energy efficient than old and historic.

-Is it charming?  No, it is functional and practical.  It does have a back door neighbor, a lawyer,  very nice, who allows us to pick her persimmons in the late fall after the frost.  We will introduce you to her.  It is a tall tree, the glory of the neighborhood, visible from the back yard. I will even throw in the receipt for persimmon sorbet I make with these tender autumnal orbs. There is also a majestic Live Oak immediately in the back yard of our office building, as old as Historic Charleston.

–Can I keep a boat on a trailer there?  Yes!  If you like boating as we do, you can keep the boat covering my husband built for our boat in the winter when it is on a trailer in dry dock.

–Does it have space for parking?  Yes, lots of it, and not hot tar mac.  It is actually on several lots.

-Will I have to paint the outside?  No.  It is brick, 1960′s, when they built to withstand the winds and rains of time, as it has.

-Who will my friends and clients be?  Us!   Preston and I will introduce you to all our friends!

–How much is it and what is the square footage?  You will have to call my husband about the number details.  Dates I remember but not numbers.

Email him at  preston@hippProperties.com, or call him at 843-571-2332, ext 1#, or cell at 843-729-2086.  This is new on the market.   I thought you would like to be some of the first to know!–Laura

 When we came home, we walked outside to the Battery wall where the water was bubbling up under the side walk there at the intersection of Tradd and the Boulevard. A glorious sunset was shaping up over the water. As we looked back to our house to contemplate leaving the glory to get our children to come outside, we could see that we were the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! It was only the end of the rainbow that was visable, but it ended on top of our house!       By the time I ran in and got the children out, the rainbow was gone, but the whole sky was alight with the masterfully stroked sunset.

This week I visited a shop in the Rainbow Market off North Market Street here in Charleston. I remember this shop from when I was a youth 30 years ago trying to figure out where I was going to land. The same lady runs it now as then. It is called In Good Scents. She has been a success dispite not advertising or ever owning a computer! You will have to come here to experience this little treasure trove of small antique porcelain boxes and the good scents that go in them. This shop manned by the owner is one of the anchors of Charleston that keeps people coming back.  She has one of a kind items, beyond the ordinary prepackaged stuff of the outside world.  Her shop is a world set apart, what you expect to find in Charleston.

“If you are weary of the syncopated unrest of a crazy world, come here and set you feet to a saner tempo.  What would we gain by that, you may ask?  All we’d accomplish would be to get out of step with the world.  We do not argue the point.  But if you would only do it, you would leave us wiser than  when you came;  for the streets of Charleston have something to give those who walk them in a receptive mood that will make life forever richer.”  This elusive something is why Charleston is called the Holy City.   It is the place she holds in our hearts!

I look forward to sharing more of Charleston with you on my private tour.  Please call me to make a reservation at 843-577-5896.  –Laura Wichmann Hipp                    w/ quote by Elizabeth O’Neill Verner

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.

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