The South V: Fading Glory

 William Faulkner described the South:  "The past is not dead.  It's not even past yet."  On April 20, 2022, we spent the day in Mobile, Alabama.  Mobile is a seaport which had a similar history to New Orleans--French explorers, Civil War battle, hard Reconstruction and Jim Crow years-- but which seems to be quietly clinging to its romantic past, rather than rushing into the future.

I looked like a fading Southern belle, myself, in a sun hat and pink sweater, posing among the flowers!

We browsed through the Mobile Museum of History, which had displays exploring the influences on Mobile--colonization by the French and then the Spanish, the Civil War, Mardi Gras, military bases, Civil Rights, a literary tradition.

This pale white museum against the pale white sky reflected the soft pastels of the Gulf.

This 18-foot statue of Marianne, Goddess of Liberty, was placed on the top of the 1889 Mobile County Courthouse, across the street from the Museum, which used to house a market on the ground floor and the Mobile City offices above.  Blacks and whites have different views of Southern history.  The Goddess of Liberty towered above downtown Mobile from 1889 to 1917, the heart of the Jim Crow years.

The Museum included a fine collection of carriages, including the 1800s postal carriage--it delivered the mail!

This statue represented the tragic years of slavery.  Mobile had a large slave market and was one point where slaves who were sold "down South" went.

There were some bright spots for blacks in Alabama after the Emancipation Proclamation.  These little girls graduated from Mrs. Packer's School.

Mobile hosts a big Mardi Gras every year, complete with fancy costumes, including groups (kews) of black "Indians."

The South has a fine literary tradition.  "Forrest Gump" was written by an Alabama author.

We paused at the Mardi Gras park in downtown Mobile to see statues of Mardi Gras-costumed characters and imagine the crowds that would congregate there each spring.  Mobile is a sister city to New Orleans, smaller and cleaner, but with the same background of French and Spanish rule.  Mobile was, in fact, settled before New Orleans and claims that it was the originator of Mardi Gras celebrations in this part of the country.

Our next stop was the Bellingrath home and gardens, in the countryside south of Mobile.  A wealthy Coca-Cola bottler and his wife bought a fishing camp there in 1908 or so and expanded the area into an elegant home, stuffed with antiques and objets d’art, and beautiful Southern gardens.

I love roses, and the Bellingrath garden was filled with them.

Mrs. Bellingrath died in 1943 and her husband in 1957, at which time the home and gardens were given to a foundation and opened to the public.  

The house was a beautiful time warp, reflecting 19th century Southern elegance, as updated in the 1920s and 1930s.

Dave and I noted that, above the mantel in the screened-in porch, were portraits of George Washington, flanked with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  “Mr. Bellingrath was a man of his time,” the guide murmured.  Statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are being torn down across the South, as are Confederate flags.  There were a few markers with Confederate flags in the Bellingrath home, as well.

Dave couldn't resist adding to his collections of me riding an animal sculpture and looking ridiculous!

When we returned to Biloxi, we stopped by the local graveyard, for one more bit of melancholy.

We could almost feel the pain of the parents of this child, who died at the age of 4.  He was well-supplied with toys and flowers.

And some people were barely remembered at all.