A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....01-09-04....South Carolina ~ "Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places"

visualops, dixie sass | Mama_Bear

[visualops]

Not at sunrise..but I did take the kids there alot. We went there and King St. and Folly Beach many times- Charleston is great for having fun without it costing anything.

[LadyX]

"Both daughters are Columbia College alumna."

My grandmother graduated from Columbia College in 1895, and taught school for three years before marrying my grandfather.

Her father had been an Assistant Pastor at the Methodist church (Washington Street) by the capitol building, and they married there in 1898 with him officiating.

At Columbia College, she had won the coveted Music Medal, and her youngest daughter, Aunt Betty, won it, too, when she graduated there. My grandfather graduated from Wofford College, and all seven of their children graduated from college.

I used to love to visit them in the summer growing up, each child required to recite a Bible verse before eating, and when I was at Parris Island in the Marine Corps, I went to see them one weekend in 1952 (Korean Conflict). They insisted I wear my uniform and sit up front, and it was such a joy to have my grandmother playing the piano, a cousin singing a solo of Bless This House, and listen to my grandfather's sermon.

An oddity is the fact my two sisters and I all ended up living in South Carolina - each one in a town where our grandfather had pastored a church. The one here is just off the Circle in the center of the town by the County Courthouse, and I actually often feel their presence....quite comforting, knowing of all the prayers they sent forth for their grandchildren, some now felt surrounding me...

Hate to relate this, but the heat is off again, and the repairman has returned and is outside.
Need more prayers, methinks...

[Mama_Bear]

Hate to relate this, but the heat is off again, and the repairman has returned and is outside. Need more prayers, methinks...

Oh, no. Well, don't let him leave until it is fixed. It would be awful to be there without heat all night.....can't even go shopping to warm up.

[Mama_Bear]

Hi dutchess. Thanks for your sweet words.

It sure is apparent that Dixie and visualops love their state. They put so much time and effort into presenting South Carolina. They left me with practically nothing to do.

Got your mail. Will answer in a bit. :-)

[N. Theknow]

Between the two of us we fill a few South Carolina colleges.

Brother graduated The Citadel with honors. Two cousins graduated Columbia Summa Cum Laude. Two male cousins graduated USC, and another two from Clemson.

Mom and her two sisters all graduated from Winthrop. Her oldest sister graduated with the highest GPA in school history until my Mom beat her record. The youngest sister said "They spent a lot of time studying, I had fun."

The oldest of my Mom's sisters willed her home to the Methodist Church in Barnwell to be used as a parsonage. It was the first private home I ever was in that was air conditioned. Early 1050's.

Whenever their two sons and my brother and I were punished we were sent outside into the HEAT and HUMIDITY.

It was a wonderful house. Everything was built in and could not be moved. Only moving furniture was the dining room and kitchen table and chairs. Glass tile windows. It was a kid's dream house because you couldn't break anything! It even had an indoor grill so my uncle didn't have to go outside to grill steaks.

[N. Theknow]

BTW - My faculty advisor at The Citadel said I was the first person he had ever seen that looked upon The Citadel as a party school.

[N. Theknow]

Early 1050's.

Oops! Should have been early 1950's.

[LadyX]

I won't take up a whole page of replies, but my mother graduated from Coker College, and Anne and Carolyn went there, too.
Winthrop - my cousin, Betsy, and there were a LOT of aunts and uncles and cousins in other colleges.

University of SC? My older son graduated there; my granddaughter is a Junior there; niece graduated there and is going to Med School - another niece is at MUSC...

My grandfather, Reverend Martin Luther Banks, had the Methodist Church here in Barnwell in the latter 1920's!
Small world.

[dixie sass]

I agree wholeheartedly about South of the Border.

And Charleston? I will never be "at home" anywhere in the world, just visiting until I get back home to Charleston.

LadyX, my first love and my first kiss was a Skinner from that family but their plantation had been on James Island and I believe that they also had land on Seabrook as well as other places.

I forgot to mention the Bell family from this area. One of the Bell's wrote a book about his family several years ago. I believe the title was "A Slave in the Family"

On my momma's side I can claim the Wraggs and Pringles among others. We have many beautiful plantations still "in the families". Most people don't understand that it is a very hard job to be a farmer and raise crops and that Plantations, although small fiefdoms, were in reality nothing more than successful farms.

Medway and several other plantations lie partially or totally within the domains of the Naval Weapons Station. Oh my, I just ramble on and on...

Oh Maggie, I'm so glad that you got the heat on and could come and join the party!

[dixie sass]

Lori, you have to come, no two ways about it!

[dixie sass]

I'm so proud of her for that remark. I've never heard it put better!

Are both your daughters teachers?

I can't find any of my beach music CD's. My son might have taken them with him when he went to Florida.

[Slings and Arrows]

One minor quibble: In your list of South Carolina universities you forgot Coastal Carolina University! GO CHANTS!

[dixie sass]

She was from Goose Creek and her dad was retired military. There were two other girls besides her, one was from upstate and got into trouble - something about fire and sex. Another girl was from overseas, her dad was a diplomat. Most of the girls that came in after Shannon, were quite intelligent and were able to toe the line, even through the hazing.

My momma went to Coker College and I had always wanted to go there because she had gone there. Coker was at one time a girls school but went co-ed. Most of the womens colleges ended up co-ed long before the Citadel went through it's troubles.

[LadyX]

One time my sister, Anne, and I went into downtown Charleston to have lunch with our cousin, Herbert, at a restaurant near the bank where he was a V-P.

It was one of those small ones 'around the corner' built several steps up from the street.
Visitors might not realize that was an absolute necessity in the days of unpaved streets, becoming muddy quagmires whenever it rained, which had the building have been on the same level, would have flooded.

The restaurant manager had a man positioned whose ONLY task was to be on those steps (4-5 steep ones) solely to escort all ladies up and down them!

It was done with the same quiet and respectful manner, tucking you securely in hand, and making sure you did not stumble or exert yourself..:))

YOU know what I mean, dixie, about devilishly but sweetly charming Charleston men, I'll wager!

[dixie sass]

Thank you Dutchess. They are part of our heritage now, their sacrifice is just one more building block in the house of our heritage.

[dixie sass]

That is precious!

[Mama_Bear]

One minor quibble: In your list of South Carolina universities you forgot Coastal Carolina University! GO CHANTS!

Uh oh. Happens everytime!

About Coastal University.

Go Chants!!

How's that? :-)

[dixie sass]

That would be the Yorktown at Patriot's Point. You'd better get back here!

[LadyX]

Have to include Middleton Place near Charleston!

and here is Medway Plantation, built in the 1600's,
where my several greats-grandfather - 'Papa Tom' - is buried:

[dixie sass]

Oh, I know. Just the visual art. Or listening to the locals talking about the past as if it were just happening -listening to them was a lesson in history without the boringness of it.

I picked up a book the other day and on the cover was a picture of the College of Charleston and some of the graduating class and in the back row was a man that I knew -it was my granddaddy.

I walk past Rainbow Row and the Fishburnes old house and or visit the cemetaries and can find my history there. There are times that I am talking with another Charlestonian and all of a sudden we are in clothes from another century talking about the same things just as it was happening then.