VISITING NORTH CAROLINA
How I spent my summer vacation. Wrong season, how I spent Thanksgiving week. The Chief Penguin and I were in North Carolina to visit my sisters and their families and spent time in both Greensboro and Chapel Hill with brisk walks to Greensboro’s Bog and Centennial Gardens, excursions to Winston-Salem, to the marvelous McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village, and to the Kidzu Children’s Museum for a morning with three lively little girls.
REYNOLDA HOUSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
Located in Winston-Salem, the former home of R. J. and Katharine Reynolds, of tobacco fame, is worth a tour. The house was built in 1917. R. J. died in 1918, and Katharine only lived until 1924, but she was both enterprising and ahead of her time and founded a school for the black children of the staff. Of greater interest, perhaps than the house, is the range of special exhibits on offer throughout the year in the museum wing. This season it is: Leyendecker and the Golden Age of American Illustration. J.C. Leyendecker and his brother, Frank, were both artists, but J.C. had the more notable career.
Over his lifetime, J.C. produced 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post in addition to ones for Collier’s Magazine and illustrations for Arrow collars and men’s clothing.
J.C. also introduced the idea of using a baby to represent the beginning of a new year and drew 40 New Year’s covers for the Post.
Created in the early part of the 20th century, his depictions of African Americans and everyday people reflect the racial and social climate of the time. This is a fascinating exhibit on many levels.
Built by a University of North Carolina alumnus, opened in 1924, and later gifted to the university, this charming inn in Chapel Hill is a paean to the achievements of its faculty and alumni. Throughout the halls are plaques and photographs testifying to the accomplishments of the many individuals who were educated here. You feel a bit like you will turn baby blue in hue before you leave!
There is lots of history recorded here, and it’s significant to note that while blacks worked in the hotel, the first black guest, for lunch, not overnight, was Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963. Such a short time ago—so much has changed for the better, but not everything. Fast forward to the present day, and I enjoyed watching family groups arrive for Thanksgiving Dinner, all ages and multiple generations, white, Hispanic, and black.
It is not Christmas yet, but our family group was delighted with the inn’s creative, whimsical, and fun displays of the Twelve Days of Christmas. The days were scattered out of order around the lobby and main floor, and my older granddaughter and I made many treks around finding each number and then reading about the artist.
Highlights for both granddaughters were Two Turtle Doves (live ones), Four Calling Birds, a display that included four ticking cuckoo clocks, and Five Golden Rings, five desk telephones spray painted sparkling gold.
It provided great post-breakfast entertainment along with this year’s tree with its theme of “visions of sugar plums.”
RECENT READING
America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie
This is the first of two Colonial period historical novels by this pair. I read their most recent one, My Dear Hamilton, first and enjoyed it so much that I was drawn to this one about Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, known to him and her siblings as Patsy. Patsy’s mother died when she was only nine and she promised her mother that she would always take care of her father. That promise to care for her father and, by extension, guard his legacy, led her to sacrifice her own happiness and to keep dark and dangerous secrets.
The authors did extensive research for the novel and have used quotations from the archive of Jefferson’s correspondence to begin every chapter. As the novel opens, Jefferson has died, and Patsy is going through his papers and deciding what letters may be kept and which ones destroyed in order to preserve his reputation as a great statesman. Through the years, we see Patsy mature from childhood to teen to adult as his helpmate, his confident, and as a skilled political hostess in Paris and Washington. Later, as the wife of a Virginia plantation owner, she manages hearth and children (ten in all) at their home and some of the time at Monticello, always attended by slave labor and the ever-present Sally Hemings. The result is a rich portrait of a woman who both chafed against the strictures of her time and simultaneously, ignored or denied unpleasant truths. Reading this I came away with a perspective on a less noble, flawed Thomas Jefferson.
Note: All text and photos ©JWFarrington. Header photo taken at Kidzu Children’s Museum.
