“Home is where our story begins.”
– Annie Danielson
Belmont Mansion is a one-hundred-and-seventy-year-old mansion in Nashville, Tennessee. Its salmon-colored, exterior walls and grand interior staircase eloquently mask the fact that this house was built by Adelicia Hayes, the widow of one of the most successful slave traders in American history, who owned approximately seven hundred and fifty slaves over three plantations in Tennessee…
Ever heard of the Stephen Stills band “Manassas?” Me neither, until this week. Apparently, this is the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the first (of two) albums by the band named “Manassas.” Stephen Stills (of the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and—sometimes—Young fame) formed this band in the wake of a chance encounter with Chris Hillman…
On the first Tuesday (after the first Monday) of each November, I think of Lucy Burns, a suffragist who was jailed in the Lorton Workhouse Prison in Virginia for picketing. Burns frequently protested in front of the White House between 1916-1918 to influence President Wilson to support the right to vote for women, resulting in…
Some things require imagination—a dream, a novel, a school, a better future. My husband and I often walk through the Jennie Dean Park near our house. It contains the remains of Jennie Dean’s dream of a residential school for Black students to learn agriculture and industrial skills as well as gain academic instruction. A home…
I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was twelve. I was deeply impacted by the personal story of an incomprehensible situation and ultimately, her tragic end. At the time, I slept in a room over the garage in my home, listening to records by Captain and Tennille, reading books like “Are you there,…
One of the most satisfying benefits of traveling is learning the local lore and history of a place and its people. On a recent trip to South Carolina, I stumbled upon the Robert Smalls house and learned of his amazing life. The discovery of this history is exhilarating even as its obscurity is troubling. My…
