Articles by Rufus Ward
Ask Rufus: Native flowers
Through spring and summer, we have been enjoying the vivid display of color of our common flowers, many of which are native to this area.
Ask Rufus: The U-boat war along the Gulf Coast
Last weekend I was visiting my friends, Bruce and Faye Bennett, in Pine Apple, Alabama. Bruce and I were talking about how there is so much of our history people do not know. The topic of how German U-boats operated in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II came up.
Ask Rufus: Not seeing the forest for the trees
Last week I helped Nancy Carpenter and Visit Columbus show our town to a German travel writer who was on a tour of Mississippi. I found his comments about Columbus and what appealed to him as a tourism asset most interesting. It was the walkways, historic vistas and slices of natural history that surround downtown or are only a short drive away.
Ask Rufus: A day of mixed emotions
Thursday was a day of mixed feelings. The day started when I attended the Change of Command of the 43rd Flying Training Squadron at Columbus Air Force Base.
Ask Rufus: The Amazing Life of Frank Bell
Last week I started the story of Dr. Frank M. Bell who was born and raised in Columbus, was an aviation pioneer, a “leading spirit” of the Catalina Island sailing community, had the first automobile in El Paso, was the hero of a trainwreck in Kansas, was tried but acquitted of murdering his brother-in-law in San Francisco and died in 1914 after an “aeroplane accident” in Meridian.
Ask Rufus: Real or Fantasy, the Amazing Life of Dr. Frank Bell
Every now and then I come across a local figure or event that is almost too amazing to be true but contains a definite thread of truth woven throughout the story.
Ask Rufus: A Mexican silver dollar and a Civil War mystery
There are all kinds of stories and legends floating around about $110 million dollars in gold and silver from the Confederate treasury being buried at the end of the Civil War.
Ask Rufus: The Jenny Lind and the Freshet of 1851
On February 22, 1851, the Columbus Democrat reported, “Our river has again overflowed its banks, and reached within a few inches of the great freshet of 1847.”
Ask Rufus: The Giants Among Us
Last week Chance Laws and I were talking about the World War II veterans we had known and how so many of them never talked about what they had been through or what they had done.
Ask Rufus: Columbus, an architectural mixing pot of style
The site where Columbus now sits has for hundreds of years been a cultural crossroads. That diversity of people led to Columbus having an almost
Ask Rufus: The Muckraker
A couple of years ago I wrote a column about a family trip my mother took to the coast in the 1920s. It was an almost yearly summer vacation spent with Kimbrough cousins at Aston Hall, their beach house at Mississippi City between Gulfport and Biloxi.
Ask Rufus: Columbus, Alabama, established 1819
Over the past couple of weeks several people have asked me about whether this year is the bicentennial of Columbus becoming a town since Columbus was chartered in Mississippi in 1821.
Ask Rufus: A proper Southern porch
There is nothing like a good front porch in the summer. In the South it is traditionally a favorite gathering place to visit with family and friends, hear a good story and enjoy a cool beverage on a hot day or muggy evening.
Ask Rufus: Riding into Rome on the back of a tank
The D-day invasion of June 6, 1944, is the event of that date and time that captures the public imagination. There was, however, an especially important and historic event that had just occurred hundreds of miles to the south of the Normandy landing.
Ask Rufus: Memorial Day
More than 24 cities and towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. As the day to honor and remember those who made the supreme sacrifice for their country, its roots go deep into many places. It evolved out of a common practice of placing flowers on soldiers’ graves.
Ask Rufus: The Confederate Monument
On Saturday the process of dismantling and moving the Confederate monument that has stood in front of the Lowndes County Courthouse since 1912 began.
Ask Rufus: A Lost Choctaw Silver Mine?
Three years ago I wrote a column about a lost Choctaw silver mine in the Columbus or Macon area.
Ask Rufus: A Basket of Sorrows
In the 1970s, I found an old Choctaw basket in the attic of my great aunt Marcella Sykes Billups Richards‘ home in Columbus. It was not a tourist-trade basket but a well-made, reinforced work basket more than 100 years old.
