I realized this morning, that throughout my life, I have spent more than half of my daylight hours in a garden somewhere! During all those cumulative years, I have enjoyed a multitude of beautiful flowers. And of all those flowers, the sweet olive is…well…nowhere near the top of the list.
The fall-borne flowers are rather non-descript and hard to see unless you’re somewhat close. The large evergreen shrub is also not exceptionally attractive on its own. It’s branching structure doesn’t age well compared to let’s say: a Japanese maple or a Loquat. Based on looks alone, Osmanthus fragrans is a decent screening plant for the back of the border (and that’s how it is generally used in southern gardens across the United States).
But here comes the fun part…sweet olive flowers are among the most powerfully fragrant flowers on earth (at least among pleasant-smelling flowers). I believe nearly anyone who has smelled Osmanthus fragrans permanently remembers the citrus-gardenia-esque smell. Think about that for a moment…although our minds are always recording, how much of what we sense is actually committed to memory? I am saying that while we probably forget more experiences than we remember in life, the saturated, thickly sweet smell of sweet olive will be remembered, along with everything else associated with that moment. A time portal has opened at Bellingrath Gardens & Home: memories activated by air filled with sweet olive scent transports us to where and when we first experienced it. Time travel powered by Osmanthus fragrans…that’s one of Bellingrath’s many garden superpowers!
For over 90 years a large cast iron Lion has lived in Bellingrath Gardens. He is always popular with children who enjoy climbing up on his back and no doubt thousands of photographs have been snapped of that scene.
He originally stood in the front yard of Caroline Purvis Marshall (1848-1941) who resided in a handsome home, which still stands at 952 Government Street. Her late husband, John H. Marshall, had been a partner in a wholesale grocery and liquor business with John Bradford Davis.
A nearly identical lion came up for sale a few years ago and was described as having been cast for display at the Philadelphia Centennial celebration of 1876. The maker was Robert Wood & Co., also of Philadelphia. His firm was advertising in Mobile as early as 1852 when a newspaper advertisement offered “Iron railings, Statuary, Greyhounds, Lions, Hat Stands, Tables and Settees.”
A pencil sketch of the Lion by architect George B. Rogers is in the archives of Bellingrath Gardens and Home. It is dated 1931 and so is safe to assume he has resided with us ever since. Before his placement on his own terrace on the west side of Mirror Lake the Lion had stood among the plantings above the Rockery.
Mobile city directories show the Marshalls as residing on Government Street as early as 1877, and no one knows if the lion was there when they moved in or was a later addition. Judge Herndon Inge grew up on that block and recalled the lion as a favorite for neighborhood children. Some things never change.
In the 1920s and 1930s, when Bessie Bellingrath wanted to beautify the Fowl River property that we know today as Bellingrath Gardens and Home, she knew that two plants were essential to add color and beauty – azaleas and camellias. She preferred larger, established specimens, and she and her architect, George B. Rogers, found them all over the southeast and had them delivered to the property.
Everyone loves azaleas, but camellias, which are so well-suited to Southern gardens, are sometimes overlooked in the modern-day landscaping world. That’s a shame, because these lovely plants are cold-hardy in our region, nicely shaped and require very little maintenance once they’re established. They can live for many years. Camellias are also versatile; they can be used as hedges, as garden accents, and in containers. Here on the Gulf Coast, many specimens bloom for months at a time. At Bellingrath, we enjoy blooms from a variety of sasanquas and japonicas from November to April.
If you’d like to add camellias to your garden, here are some good resources for finding tried and true varieties:
Laura Kay’s Nursery & Florist, 5600 Cottage Hill Road, Mobile, AL 36609. Phone: (251) 666-1510.
Mobile Botanical Gardens, 5151 Museum Drive, Mobile, AL 36608. (Sales are seasonal.) Phone: (251) 342-0555.
Stokley Garden Express, 1451 Government Street, Mobile, AL 36604. Phone: (251) 461-6434.
Old Tyme Feed and Garden Supply, 19580 S. Greeno Road, Fairhope, AL 36532. Phone: (251) 928-1156. Website: https://www.oldtymefeed.com/
It’s essential to plant it with the root ball slightly higher than ground level, to make sure that the roots will have good drainage.
Water it regularly for the first year, and give it a good soaking whenever the soil seems overly dry.
The best time to plant camellias is either in the spring, or in late fall and early winter.
Camellias do best in dappled sunlight, under a canopy of tall trees.
Newly planted or transplanted camellias should only be lightly fertilized during the first year. Use a slow-release, balanced fertilizer formulated for acid-loving plants, or cottonseed meal.
Add fresh mulch in spring and fall, but not too close to the stems or trunk.
Avoid planting a camellia too close to trees with aggressive surface roots, such as magnolias, oaks and crape myrtles; their roots can invade the camellia’s root zone.
Camellias don’t require frequent pruning, and you should especially avoid pruning after spring, or you’ll likely remove next year’s buds.
Trouble-shooting:
Wilted or discolored leaves: This may indicate a root problem. The roots may be too dry, or overly waterlogged, or may have come in contact with a toxic chemical.
Stunted growth: Have the soil tested to find out if there is an imbalance in the soil minerals or pH level, which may limit the roots’ ability to absorb nutrients for growth.
Disease control: If the foliage wilts in one part of the plant, the cause may be a fungal disease known as “die back.” Try to remove all of the infected wood to prevent it from spreading throughout the entire plant, and treat cut surfaces with a fungicide. Put the infected wood in a plastic bag and discard it to keep the fungal spores from spreading in your garden. Clean your pruning shears with 10% bleach solution between each cut.
The Bellingrath Camellia Legacy
We know that Walter Bellingrath was a camellia aficionado. In a 1947 article, Mr. Bellingrath wrote, “The wonderful forms and colors of Camellia japonica have no equal in the plant world for their beauty and fitness for general landscape work.” He noted that Bellingrath Gardens had more than 2,000 mature specimens of Camellia japonica, which he described as “undoubtedly one of the finest collections of specimen plants to be found anywhere. Over 400 varieties are embraced in this collection.”
After Mrs. Bellingrath died in 1943, Mr. Bellingrath continued their plans for their beloved Gardens until his own death in 1955. His favorite flower was showcased in the Camellia Parterre, which featured 100 specimen plants and was staffed by employees whose job was to remove all spent blooms daily and who were trained to personally identify each variety for visitors, because Mr. Bellingrath disliked the idea of signs marring the natural scene.
The Camellia Arboretum in 1964.
Mr. Bellingrath died two days after his 86th birthday, on August 8, 1955. In the later years of his life, he had often expressed a desire for more and more camellia varieties. After his death, some of his friends had the idea to honor his memory by adding a new camellia arboretum adjoining the original Gardens.
They selected a seven-acre wooded area with good pine tree cover, in the area on the side of Mirror Lake behind the Summer House. In 1957-58, the site was planted with 400 field-grown specimens ranging in age from 5 to 10 years. The gardeners also planted 400 grafting stocks of ‘Professor Sargent’; our guests will notice numerous specimens of this variety at Bellingrath today.
The arboretum eventually featured 1,200 plants of about 900 varieties, situated along grass-covered trails, which were over-seeded with rye grass in winter. Unfortunately, in 1979, the entire garden suffered a direct hit from Hurricane Frederic. The combination of high winds and falling trees wiped out hundreds of camellias and azaleas, including the arboretum. The gardens were closed for six months during the clean-up, which required extensive replanting and rearranging. Many of the arboretum’s prized camellias were salvaged and moved into the main garden. The old ones that survived were nursed back to health by the Gardens’ late manager, Pat Ryan, a leader in the camellia world.
Sources: Camellia Garden Field Guide, Third Edition, by Forrest S. Latta and Brenda C. Litchfield; Bellingrath Gardens and Home archives; The Camellia Club of Mobile
By Sally Pearsall Ericson Director of Marketing and Public Relations
Catie Simpson, the first female to earn her Eagle Scout rank in the Mobile Area Council, built and installed eight bat boxes at Bellingrath Gardens for her Eagle Scout project. The boxes will serve as shelters and nurseries for the tiny flying mammals.
Catie’s project was the first effort to encourage bat habitation in the Gardens, and the Bellingrath staffers are so pleased that Catie selected the Gardens for this initiative. Bats are not only pollinators; they’re also prolific consumers of insects, including mosquitos! In addition, bat guano makes excellent fertilizer. We’re hopeful that the bat boxes will provide shelter for numerous species, including those that are currently endangered.
Catie designed and built the bat boxes with advice from Roger Clay of the Alabama Department of Natural Resources. Her team included 15 volunteers and resulted in 215 service hours.
Here are a few interesting facts about bats that Catie learned during her research:
There are at least 10 different species of bats that range along the Gulf Coast, and 15 statewide.
Bats are not territorial, but they do tend to roost only with their same species.
Bat boxes must be faced at 140 degrees in order to allow for at least seven hours of sunlight.
The color of the paint on the outside of the box is important; a warmer climates requires a lighter color. Catie’s boxes are all painted pale brown.
Bat boxes must be installed within a quarter mile of a fresh water source.
Bat boxes should be mounted on poles instead of on trees to offer additional protection against predators (snakes, owls and hawks).
On average, a bat will consume anywhere from 1,000 to 4,500 insects per night.
The boxes are 17.5 inches wide and 31 inches tall, with grooved wood at the back and base to make it easy for the bats to get a grip and climb in. The boxes have Ondura corrugated asphalt roofing to shed water, and are mounted at a height of 15 feet. The well-designed structures fit nicely into their surroundings in the Gardens. Catie and her team also built a clear-sided bat box that Bellingrath will use as an educational resource for guests to learn about bats and their habits. This bat box will be placed on display in the Entrance Building.
Catie’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor was held on January 31, 2021, at The Steeple.
Catie, a senior and honor student at Compass Point Christian Academy, is the first female Eagle Scout in the Mobile Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and the fifth female to achieve the rank in Alabama. Her father and brother are both Eagle Scouts, so she was already familiar with the program when females were allowed to join the Boy Scouts (now Scouts BSA) in February 2019. Catie received her Eagle Scout award in November and celebrated with family and friends at a Court of Honor on January 31, 2021. In a video presentation as part of the ceremony, Ellie Morrison, the first female National Commissioner of the Boy Scouts of America, called Catie “a real trailblazer.”
Catie has volunteered with numerous organizations in addition to Scouts BSA, including the Mobile Museum of Art, Woody’s Song, the Weeks Bay Foundation, the Alabama Animal Welfare Coalition, and AIDS Alabama South. She is an Azalea Trail Maid and a member of the Mobile City-County Youth Council.
Catie and her dad, Charlie, present the educational bat box to Bellingrath Gardens and Home. They are shown with Chuck Owens, Director of Horticulture.
By Sally Pearsall Ericson Director of Marketing and Public Relations
From routine maintenance chores to major repairs, Greg Hill’s work was almost always behind the scenes at Bellingrath Gardens and Home. But his main legacy is Bellingrath’s most well-known and popular season: Magic Christmas in Lights.
Hill, who worked at Bellingrath for 28 years, was one of the show’s creators from the very beginning. In 1995, when Bellingrath’s staff decided to set out a holiday light show unique to the Gardens, Hill was tasked with building the metal frames to hold the lights in place. He had trained as a welder, so he knew what was required. Year by year and piece by piece, Hill built it all, constructing more than 1,100 pieces in total.
Greg Hill with his family (from left): son, Greg Jr.; daughter, Skye; and wife, Susan.
Hill died at age 52, on November 6, 2020, of cancer. At the time of his death, he had recently completed work on a new, 38-piece scene to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Magic Christmas in Lights. The theme was Mardi Gras, in honor of Mobile’s status as “the Mother of Mystics,” the city where Carnival was first held in the United States. The figures included a marching band, a horseback rider, a street barricade and a large replica of a Mardi Gras float, complete with maskers.
Hill started working on the new scene in May 2020. He designed and welded the pieces in the metal workshop near the greenhouses at Bellingrath. He usually had only a basic drawing to start with, and he used very simple tools. His coworkers marveled at how he could take a small sketch and scale it to a much larger version, often using chalk rubbings on the cement floor of the workshop.
“I always like to think of him as MacGyver,” said Melissa Wells, the Magic Christmas in Lights Manager and Showrunner. “You could hand him anything and he could make it work. … He was so talented, but he didn’t like to boast about his talents.”
Greg Hill used very simple tools to bend and manipulate the metal pieces in the Magic Christmas in Lights scenes.
“After 25 years of welding, he’d really perfected that skill,” said Ralph Drury, Bellingrath’s Maintenance Manager. “If there was one thing that he took a lot of pride in, it was the pieces he created. You could really see the joy he got out of the pieces he created. He wasn’t an egotistic type, but when he talked about them, you could really see that pride – pride that other people enjoyed them.”
“We could hand him a sketch and he could fabricate it in no time,” Wells said. “He had hand-made tools that he used to make it work.”
“Once he started something, he finished it,” said Joey Lulue, another coworker and close friend. “He enjoyed what he did, and he was good at what he did. He had his own way of handling things. He could fix anything – there’s nothing he couldn’t do. … He was the go-to guy here.”
“I pride myself on being a trouble-shooter, and he was a good trouble-shooter too,” said Drury, remembering the huge job that faced the maintenance crew after Hurricane Sally damaged the Under the Sea scenes, one of the most popular sections of Magic Christmas in Lights. “There was so much destruction there, but once we started working on it, we were determined to get it done.”
Greg Hill works on a portion of the Underwater Garden in Magic Christmas in Lights.
In a 2020 interview for the Bellingrath employee newsletter, Hill reflected on the early days of making Magic Christmas in Lights. “We would try to make it bigger each year – we tried to outdo ourselves,” he said. “It was a challenge, trying to figure it out.”
His son, Greg Jr., a radio personality in Austin, Texas, said that some of his earliest memories were related to his dad’s work on the light display. “He would show me how he would just bend the metal any way and all of a sudden just make it into whatever they had planned,” he said. “I just remember every year going there and seeing that my dad did this, you know. I would tell everybody, ‘My dad does that.’ When I started on the radio I would tell people that my dad made all the displays. It was just really fun to brag on him over all the years.”
Hill’s survivors include his wife, Susan, Bellingrath’s Display Horticulture Manager; his daughter, Skye; his son, Greg Jr.; his stepchildren, Aaron, Andrew and Adam Brannon; his mother, Carolyn; and his brothers, Tye and Craig.
To casual acquaintances, Hill was a man of few words. But his colleagues at Bellingrath remember him as a relentless practical joker who loved nothing better than a good stunt, preferably at someone else’s expense.
“He was a real prankster,” Drury said, recalling an incident when Hill decided to hide a dollop of grease on the underside of Drury’s car door handle. “He knew exactly where I was going to put my hand!” (Drury, of course, retaliated as soon as possible.)
“He was always pranking us,” Wells said, smiling at the memory. “If you did something to him, he repaid it.”
“He was quiet to a lot of people, but he could really crack up, laugh, tell jokes,” Lulue said. “A lot of people didn’t see that. … He was very reserved, but if you went out with him after work, he was a cutup.”
“I just remember his dry sense of humor,” said Paula Moore, a tour guide in the Bellingrath Home. “He never seemed angry or upset about anything. He was always in a good mood and cutting up with the guides. … He had a dry humor, dry wit, which was always hilarious to me, because I like a dry wit.”
The Mardi Gras float was one of the last pieces Greg Hill created for the 25th anniversary of Magic Christmas in Lights.
During his off hours, Hill was an avid outdoorsman. He lived in south Mobile County, not far from the Gardens. Sometimes after work, he would return to Bellingrath to relax and fish in Fowl River, just as Walter Bellingrath himself had done, more than 80 years ago.
“He had a real passion for hunting. He enjoyed the outdoors and being in the woods,” Drury said. “We shared a lot of tales about growing up and hunting with our fathers.”
Hill’s art found a new audience during Mardi Gras 2021, when 16 of the anniversary pieces were set up in Mardi Gras Park in downtown Mobile for the public to enjoy. The city did not hold parades during the pandemic because of concerns for public health, but Hill’s colorful creations were a bright spot during the season.
Because of Hill’s private nature, many of his friends and colleagues weren’t aware of the seriousness of his illness. But Magic Christmas in Lights will always be a reminder of his life’s work and creative vision.
“I don’t think people realized the pain he was in,” Lulue said. “He was still coming to work every day.
“Greg did his job. He didn’t seek praise.”
On February 3, 2021, selected pieces from the Mardi Gras scene were temporarily installed in Mardi Gras Park in downtown Mobile in honor of Carnival season.
By Dr. F. Todd Lassseigne Executive Director
Hello, friends and supporters of Bellingrath Gardens and Home. I am honored to be writing you as the newly hired Executive Director of this great and wonderful, historic and horticultural institution.
When I was offered the position by the board of trustees of the Bellingrath-Morse Foundation in July, I certainly experienced one of those “out of body” sensations. So many thoughts flooded my mind: Moving to the Deep South after an absence of almost 30 years, the chance to take the helm of an iconic institution of the southern U.S., a new start for my wife, Heather, and me, being within a morning’s drive to my mother in my hometown of Thibodaux, Louisiana … Wow!
And then, of course, other thoughts flooded my mind: I was going to take over after the 20-year tenure of the great Dr. Bill Barrick – what was I thinking? I would be moving back to the hurricane zone (no more Oklahoma tornadoes to worry about, but sheesh!), and I was going to be within a morning’s drive to my mother in my hometown of Thibodaux, Louisiana? So many thoughts … so little time.
Damage to the Bayou Boardwalk after Hurricane Sally struck on September 16, 2020.
In all seriousness, my first month on the job – October 1 will be the start of my second month – has seen a whirlwind of activity, and literally quite the whirl of wind! I left Tulsa Botanic Garden with a staff complement of 31 to come to Bellingrath Gardens and Home with 57 staff members. Lots of new faces and names to learn, and remember. I knew I would be moving to Mobile where I knew few people, although I would know more Mobilians and “Baldwin County-eans” in 2020 than Tulsans when I moved there in 2011.
However, in driving down on August 28 to start the job on September 1, I was calmed by each mile, the mix of tallgrass prairie and “Cross Timbers” forests of Tulsa giving way to the mixed oak-pine forests of western Arkansas, these giving way to the Delta lands of southeastern Arkansas and western Mississippi, these leading to the Southern pine belt of southern Mississippi and Alabama. A green calming came upon me as I entered a flora that was so familiar and yet so distant in my memory. To know, now, that I would live and garden amidst live oaks, bald cypress, Southern magnolias, sweet bay magnolias, and so many other favorite plants of my childhood and formative years in horticulture is like a dream I’ve awakened to.
Even though the stronger-than-expected fury of Hurricane Sally did damage to Bellingrath’s Gardens – we lost a few hollies and pines, a magnolia, and various other plants – I was jokingly welcomed, according to my friends near and far, to this new job by none other than Mother Nature herself. This storm – what would be termed by ecologists as a “stochastic event” – is something that we know all too familiarly in the Gulf Coast region. It is a side of the natural world that has affected Bellingrath in the past (Frederic, Erin, Opal, Danny, Georges, Ivan, Dennis, Katrina) and will assuredly affect Bellingrath again.
Although the Bellingrath Home is regarded as an element that will be preserved in an unchanged state, the Gardens will always change – by their own nature, and by reactions to the natural world. My job is to shepherd both, going forward, so that current and future generations can continue to enjoy the splendors and beauties created by Mr. Bell and Miss Bessie and those they employed in service to this special place.
I greatly look forward to meeting and interacting with you all – as time and gathering limitations allow – and working together with you, board, and staff, to take Bellingrath forward toward its 100th anniversary.
F. Todd Lasseigne at Tulsa Botanic Garden, where he has been President and CEO since 2011.
By Sally Pearsall Ericson Director of Marketing and Public Relations
For the first time since 1999, a new captain is taking the helm at Bellingrath Gardens and Home. Dr. F. Todd Lasseigne, the former President and CEO at Tulsa Botanic Garden, will step into his new role on Sept. 1, 2020, replacing Dr. Bill Barrick, who retired in July 2019.
So, who’s the new guy, and how does he pronounce his last name? More importantly, which tailgates would he attend, if the 2020 football season were to permit him to do so? Here are a few pertinent facts about Dr. Lasseigne, gleaned during a wide-ranging Zoom interview:
His horticulture roots run deep.
Dr. Lasseigne grew up in Thibodaux, La., with parents and grandparents who loved gardening. “It was in my blood,” he said. ‘I knew in high school that I just wanted to do this.” He earned his first degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then moved on to the University of Georgia to earn his Master of Science degree in horticulture. In the midst of his studies, a new opportunity arose: The Martin McLaren Horticultural Scholarship from the Garden Club of America, which led to a 10-month fellowship in the United Kingdom.
“I studied gardens, horticultural history, plant conservation — everything you can think of,” he remembered. He learned about plant conservation at the Kew Gardens in Richmond, took classes at Reading University and visited, by his estimate, “probably 85 gardens” during his fellowship. “I put 13,000 miles on that car in one year, which is a big deal in England,” he said. “It really cemented for me a love for the garden side, because I thought I was going to be a college professor.”
After returning to Athens and completing his degree, he headed to N.C. State University in Raleigh, N.C., to earn his doctorate under the tutelage of renowned horticulturist J.C. Raulston, who was credited as a major force in introducing new plants and revitalizing the U.S. nursery industry. However, in a tragic turn of events, Raulston was killed in a car crash in 1996, at the end of Lasseigne’s first year of study. “It was a life-changing experience for a great many people, and certainly for me, because I wanted him to be my mentor,” said Lasseigne, who began taking on several of Raulston’s duties while continuing work on his Ph.D. in horticultural science. Lasseigne taught courses in plant identification and became an assistant director at the arboretum at N.C. State, which was renamed in Raulston’s memory.
He’s an international plant finder.
Raulston had been actively finding new plants and introducing them to the nursery industry and to the public, so Lasseigne took up the role of plant explorer as well. “I was kind of the head plant geek,” he said, working with nursery representatives and gardens officials across the country, particularly in the Southeast and Pacific Northwest. He also did expeditionary work in England and in the Republic of Georgia, which led to fruitful international connections.
“I was asked to present to the Japanese Nursery Association on Southeastern U.S. horticulture, and that began almost a decade-long career of me going to Japan about every other year and lecturing to these various groups, and I have developed a lot of really great relationships with these Japanese nurserymen,” he said. “ … We were able to introduce a lot of really interesting plants that had not before been introduced from Japan into the U.S. That was a lot of fun.” His international plant explorations include trips to southwestern China and Mexico.
Lasseigne’s next stop was tiny Kernersville in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, where he was hired by the Ciener family in 2005 to create the Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden. As its founding executive director, he led a small staff that transformed “an abandoned Dairy Queen and seven acres of kudzu” into a botanical garden with a volunteer group, a friends group, educational partnerships in the community and a calendar of events.
In 2011, he was hired to take the reins of the fledgling Oklahoma Centennial Botanic Garden, now renamed Tulsa Botanic Garden, where he oversaw a new master plan for its 70 acres of gardens, established the site’s first “Garden of Lights” holiday exhibit, expanded fundraising efforts and raised the annual attendance from 2,000 to upwards of 35,000.
Here’s how to say it:
The last name of this Thibodaux, La., native is pronounced “Lah-SANG.” “In truth, I barely say the ‘G,’ but it’s easier to explain by just telling folks the second syllable is ‘sang’,” he explained. However, he’s fine with the simpler, familiar address of just plain “Todd.”
Todd and Heather Lasseigne
He’s a cat person.
He and his wife, Heather Toedt, are the proud parents of four feline fur babies. “When I moved to Tulsa in 2011, I was single but had two cats – cleverly named ‘Boy’ and ‘Girl,’” he said. “As things would go, I ended up meeting the woman of my dreams almost instantaneously through the great connected universe of horticulture and gardens.” Heather Toedt’s grandfather, Dale Toedt, was one of Tulsa’s first landscape architects in the 1950s, and she grew up working in her grandparents’ garden center. The couple married in 2013 and set up their blended family with Heather’s cats, George and Gracie.
“Heather and I share a passion for plants, connecting people through plants, gardening, gardens, and landscape architecture,” Lasseigne said. “When we travel, we look for wildflowers, cool natural areas, beautiful gardens, nurseries and garden centers, and anything horticultural.” (During their honeymoon, they visited Bellingrath Gardens, of course.)
He’s a huge football fan.
He professes a deep-rooted love of the SEC, but – “much to the chagrin of Alabama fans” – he roots for Georgia, where he earned a degree, and LSU, the flagship university of his home state. He’ll also cheer for Auburn if the situation merits it.
He’s glad to be back home.
“Having not lived in the Gulf Coast region for 30 years, I look forward to this return to my original horticultural zone,” Lasseigne said, noting that Thibodaux is only a three-hour drive away, so it will be easy to visit his mother and many members of his extended family. “Heather loves the beautiful pines and oaks of the Deep South, and so she’s excited for new gardening adventures, including visits to Alabama’s famed beaches, where she’ll be looking for seashells.”
Walter D. Bellingrath with Fred Holder, who became the first Executive Director of Bellingrath Gardens and Home, at Mr. Bellingrath’s 80th birthday party in 1949.
By Sally Pearsall Ericson Director of Marketing and Public Relations
On March 12, 1953, Walter D. Bellingrath gave a speech in Montgomery, Ala., to commemorate the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Coca-Cola franchise.
Mr. Bellingrath and his older brother, Will, had purchased the franchise in June 1903 from C.V. Rainey, principal stockholder and president of the company.
In the speech, Mr. Bellingrath notes that the brothers, who were only one year apart, had always wanted to find a joint business venture. “We were always close buddies, and shared each others’ joys and adversities throughout our childhood and adolescent years, as well as our adult life,” he said.
In the spring of 1903, Will was a purchasing agent for several commissaries for the Woodstock Iron Company, with headquarters in Anniston; Walter was a merchandise broker in Montgomery. When the Woodstock Iron Company notified Will that it was going to close down indefinitely, the brothers decided the timing was right to begin a new business venture together.
Walter Bellingrath, right, with a customer in his Montgomery brokerage firm’s office in the late 1890s.
Will had noticed the popularity of bottled soft drinks among the Woodstock workers, and the brothers believed that Coca-Cola would be a sound investment. They had a few setbacks as they struggled to raise enough money to supplement their savings and complete the purchase. It is believed that the brothers invested about $5,000 each in the bottling plant.
The stakes were high. “We were sinking everything we had (into the business). We had to succeed,” Walter Bellingrath remembered. “We … realized that if we failed, we would possibly never have another opportunity to enter into the business world on our own.”
Later in the speech, reflecting on the success of the company across the globe, Mr. Bellingrath proudly calls Coca-Cola “the kingpin of all soft drinks.”
Will Bellingrath died on March 11, 1937. In 1941, Walter Bellingrath stood in for his brother at his niece Suzanne Bellingrath von Gal’s wedding.
At the conclusion of the speech, Mr. Bellingrath invites everyone to come and visit “my gardens,” noting, “one is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.”
Hear his speech below.
(Sources: “Mister Bell: A Life Story of Walter D. Bellingrath,” by Howard Barney; Museum Home Director Tom McGehee)
Following Mrs. Bellingrath’s death in 1943, Walter Bellingrath hired a local antiques dealer to inventory the contents of his home. Nell Curran had sold Mrs. Bellingrath a number of pieces in the collection and in writing the inventory she added comments about many of these beautiful and unique objects.
But it was not just the fine antiques she inventoried. When she came to the kitchen she listed the contents of all those cabinets, answering the question posed by many of our guests.
Pots and Pans
The list includes saucepans, a pressure cooker, double boilers, pots, several roasters (including three stored in the oven), biscuit pans, cookie pans, pie plates, cake pans (both round and square), a tea kettle, a coffee urn and three coffee pots. Interestingly, the vast majority are described as having been made of aluminum, and in several cases the familiar Wear-Ever brand is mentioned.
A 1930s-era waffle iron, with removable trays.
Wear-Ever aluminum cookware was introduced in 1903 and forever changed the American kitchen. Up until that time cookware was largely cast iron and besides being heavy, it was prone to rust. The use of aluminum changed all of that.
The only cast iron to be found in the kitchen in 1943 was a Dutch oven, a graduated set of frying pans and two pans for cornbread shaped like corn.
In addition to metal cooking implements were some items made of Pyrex glass, including a double boiler, an electric percolator, three mixing bowls in graduating sizes and 28 “individual bakers” or ramekins. Pyrex was created in Corning, New York in 1915 and was used for laboratory equipment as well as kitchenware. Opaque glass was added in the 1930s.
Equipment
There were a number of pieces of kitchen equipment listed, including three meat grinders, a potato ricer, a flour sifter, a churn, a glass rolling pin, two large strainers on stands, a kitchen scale, a pair of ice cream freezers, three electric waffle irons and a Sunbeam Mixmaster. The Mixmaster had been introduced in 1930 and became so popular that it was immortalized on a U.S. postage stamp in 1998.
Also stored in the cabinets were a “leather lunch kit” with two Thermos bottles, six Thermos pitchers with matching trays and “a large Thermos cooler for bottled drinks.” The Thermos brand name has been a household word since being coined in 1903, and derived from the Greek word for heat.
The kitchen scales.
Those Thermos pitchers would have been filled each evening with ice water for the bedrooms in the Bellingrath Home – a reminder that air conditioning had not yet arrived and an electric fan and a glass of ice water made those summer nights more bearable.
Sadly, little of all that kitchenware survives. There is a breadbox, a chrome percolator, a tea kettle, the kitchen scales and a couple of the Thermos pitchers. The remainder of all the items once so necessary for a busy kitchen apparently vanished long ago.
Over the years, it often seems as if far more emphasis has been placed on the life of Walter Bellingrath than that of his wife. The definitive history book for sale in the Bellingrath Gift Shop is called “Mr. Bell,” when a more appropriate title may indeed have been “Mr. and Mrs. Bell,” since the story of Bellingrath Gardens and Home is intertwined with both of their personalities.
Walter Bellingrath set up the Bellingrath Morse Foundation, charging it to maintain his home and its gardens as “a fitting and permanent memorial to my wife,” not himself. Part of the issue may be that he did outlive his wife by a dozen years and during those years he was repeatedly interviewed by news reporters – especially following the announcement of his having created a foundation to keep the Gardens and his home open to the public for future generations.
Bessie Morse Bellingrath was born on May 20, 1878, in Mobile, Ala. She met Walter Bellingrath at some point in 1904 or 1905, when he hired her as his stenographer at his Coca-Cola Bottling Co. in downtown Mobile. The couple were married on November 14, 1906. After 37 years of marriage, Bessie died suddenly on February 15, 1943, at the age of 64, during a vacation to a resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Although relatively little has been written about Miss Bessie, two individuals who knew her well offered some insight into her personality. These stories reflect a warm and very generous person with a good sense of humor.
C. Ernest Edgar Jr.. seated in front, is shown with his parents and the Bellingraths circa 1916. From left are Walter Bellingrath, Daisy Morse Edgar, Bessie Bellingrath and C. Ernest Edgar Sr.
A Favorite Nephew
C. Ernest Edgar Jr. was Bessie Morse Bellingrath’s oldest nephew, having been born in 1906. That was the same year she had married Walter Bellingrath. Both the Edgars and the Bellingraths lived on Ann Street, so Ernest grew up underfoot.
After returning to Mobile from Davidson College in North Carolina, Ernest worked for his uncle at the Coca-Cola bottling plant. In 1934, Ernest drove the Bellingraths to the west coast and back with his wife Amelia by his side. It wasn’t long after their return that construction began on the Bellingrath Home, making it necessary to demolish the building which had housed the kitchen and dining room.
One early morning, Ernest said, his aunt called him at work and asked him to come by the Ann Street house. She and architect George B. Rogers needed to go down to the building site and they wanted him to drive. A picnic lunch was being prepared.
Unbeknownst to his aunt, Ernest had a very late night on duty with the National Guard and was exhausted. He called up a couple of friends to ride in the front seat with him and help him stay awake, but none could leave their jobs for the excursion.
The picnic lunch was far more than sandwiches. Containers of fried chicken, gravy, vegetables and all the trimmings were placed on the floorboards of the limousine as Ernest watched. Finally, his aunt and the architect got in the back seat armed with piles of magazine clippings and books with ideas for the new house, and off they went.
As the limousine sped southwards, its driver repeatedly nodded off, and then awoke with a start. Peering into the rear view mirror, he realized his passengers were too busy with their house plans to notice. When they were less than a mile from the gates, Ernest missed the turn into the property and sailed past, sound asleep at the wheel. The car veered into a ditch and fell on its side, cracking an axle.
While no one was injured, the lunch had gone airborne, coating Mrs. Bellingrath and her architect with a warm sampling of the planned meal. As the three stood beside the wreck, who drove up but Walter Bellingrath, who quickly sized up the situation.
“Dammit, Ernest, what have you done now??” Before he could even think what to answer, Bessie Morse Bellingrath spoke up. “Bell, it wasn’t his fault. A covey of quail ran in front of the car and Ernest was trying to avoid them.”
The next day Walter Bellingrath confronted Ernest, who confessed. His uncle’s response: “I knew it. I knew we didn’t have any quail down there.” And not another word was spoken about the incident.
Once the Bellingrath Home was completed, Ernest, Amelia and their young son, Ernest III, were frequent weekend houseguests. On a memorable Friday afternoon Ernest recalled walking in the front door and seeing his son running around the dining room table making airplane noises as he held a sterling silver peacock above his head. After looking around and seeing no sign of his aunt, Ernest, horrified, stepped into the door way and whispered, “Ernest, put that down carefully. Now, you know not to touch Aunt Bessie’s pretty things!” As he stepped into the room, he realized that his aunt was sitting there watching her great nephew.
“That’s all right, Ernest,” she said. “I told him he could play with it. If he breaks it, he breaks it. Don’t worry about it.” And little Ernest revved up his engine and continued his play.
Edward Carl
One of the butlers, the late Edward Carl, recounted going to work for the Bellingraths around 1936 after graduating high school in Mobile. His uncle, Alfred Watson, was the senior butler. Edward said that soon after taking the job, Mrs. Bellingrath asked his assistance in cleaning out a chest of drawers. After wiping out the first drawer, Bessie Bellingrath placed everything back in place, and he put the drawer back in the chest.
He pointed to the next drawer, but Mrs. Bellingrath said, “No, that’s enough for today. I’m getting a little tired. But wait a minute.” And with that, she handed him a folded $20 bill (more than a week’s wages in Depression Era Mobile), with the instruction of “Now, not a word!” That was one of many such gifts she freely handed out, and always with that same admonition.
A while later, she asked him how he was getting to work. Edward explained that he caught a ride with a co-worker who lived nearby. “Now, Edward, you need to be independent and have your own car,” she told him. “Well,” he explained, “I have been saving up and found one I like.” Mrs. Bellingrath asked about the car and the price and said, “I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow when you run my errands to town, stop by the house on Ann Street and Maria will have an envelope for you.”
To his considerable surprise, that envelope contained the full purchase price of the car. Edward later got the vehicle and drove it to the Gardens to show Mrs. Bellingrath. He told her “Now, Miss Bessie, I had saved some money for the car, so I will give that to you and then we can decide on how much to deduct from my pay each week.”
He recalled that without hesitating, she said, “Now Edward, that was not a loan. But … not a word!”
Edward also had a story about a very young Ernest Edgar III who called him “Bub,” since he could not pronounce “Edward.” The little boy was just beginning to talk, and stood among the three butlers in the kitchen, who found to their delight, that he would repeat almost anything said to him – and the words and phrases got saltier by the minute.
As Ernest III tells it, a day or more later he was in his high chair at the lunch table surrounded by adults when there was a lull in the conversation. In a crisp voice he said, “Would someone pass the damn butter?” His poor mother was aghast. “Where on earth did you learn that??” His grinning response: “Bub!”
Mr. Bellingrath went into the kitchen and told the men that the boy would learn that sort of thing in his own time and to cut it out. And what was his wife’s response? According to Ernest Edgar Jr., she was having a good laugh.
Edward entered the service during World War II and was overseas when Mrs. Bellingrath passed away in 1943. He recounted how upset he was that no one wrote him the news and that he only found out about it upon his return. Walter Bellingrath begged him to come back to work for him, and in 1955, it was Edward Carl who sat with him daily at the hospital. He had just returned home at about 9:00 p.m. one evening when he got the call that Mr. Bellingrath had died.
We are indeed fortunate to have these memories from two gentlemen who were very close to Mrs. Bellingrath. While we know of the generous prices she paid for antiques – often far more than their value – the perspective of her life from a family member and a trusted employee reveal a very special lady. It is an honor for every employee at Bellingrath Gardens and Home to work towards maintaining her home and beloved gardens as a fitting and permanent memorial to her.
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Purchase Tickets
The Bellingrath Camellia Legacy
By Sally Pearsall Ericson
Catie designed and built the bat boxes with advice from Roger Clay of the Alabama Department of Natural Resources. Her team included 15 volunteers and resulted in 215 service hours.
The boxes are 17.5 inches wide and 31 inches tall, with grooved wood at the back and base to make it easy for the bats to get a grip and climb in. The boxes have Ondura corrugated asphalt roofing to shed water, and are mounted at a height of 15 feet. The well-designed structures fit nicely into their surroundings in the Gardens. Catie and her team also built a clear-sided bat box that Bellingrath will use as an educational resource for guests to learn about bats and their habits. This bat box will be placed on display in the Entrance Building.
By Dr. F. Todd Lassseigne
By Tom McGehee