It was not long ago that sitting on a porch sharing stories seemed to have become a relic of former days. That is no longer necessarily the case.
As a child I was privileged, like many in the South, to have older relatives or family friends who loved telling stories, lubricated with a favorite libation, while enjoying the summer shade of a front porch. In family quarantine I am now sharing with my grandchildren those stories I once heard.
Be it on my porch or meandering along the Riverwalk, I can tell the kids how on that bank-side a riverboat burned, here my father once caught a 127-pound gar; and over there at the mouth of Moore’s Creek there was a tree with a rope tied to a limb out over the river. You could grab the rope and swing out over the river dropping in on a hot day to cool off. A lot of young people have no idea of the grand stories that are fading away or the lessons of life often told with a far-off look followed by laughter. Now is a great time to revive those stories and experiences for a new generation.
I recall the beverages of the front porch always being cool and refreshing. The adults had their libations as the children enjoyed Kool-Aid, sweet tea or a 6-ounce Coke in a bottle. Of course, to snack on there were cheese straws, toasted pecans and tea cookies baked with a pecan in the middle.
Probably my favorite porch was at the old Billups home at 905 Main St. in Columbus. It was the first house I lived in, though I have no memory of living there as my parents built and moved to a new house when I was only 2. A few years after that my great-aunt and uncle, Marcella Billups Richards and Dr. John D. Richards, moved back to Columbus and the old home. Uncle John had retired after many years as a doctor in New York.
As a child I spent many afternoons in what I thought were ancient chairs on the old home’s front porch listening to Uncle John tell stories. Two of those old chairs now grace my porch. Uncle John had been a physician whose patients included the Rockefeller, Roosevelt, Straus, Colt and Barrymore families, and he had been called to treat the injured survivors of the Titanic. His close friends, Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus, both were lost on the Titanic when Mr. Straus refused to enter a lifeboat before any other man, and his wife refused to leave his side. Their story has been a part of every Titanic movie, but Uncle John told it to me from first person accounts he heard on the Carpathia when the ship arrived in New York with the survivors.
He described the crowd and the tense expectation waiting at the dock as the Carpathia came into view. He told of White Star Line employees quickly sanding the name Titanic off lifeboats as though trying to erase its memory. His stories were spell binding. He also had a copy of Walter Lord’s book “A Night to Remember.” He said Lord had apparently talked to the same people he had, and Lord’s accounts were the same stories he had heard on board the Carpathia in 1912. In my great aunt’s scrapbook I found a pamphlet that was the deck and cabin plan for the Carpathia.
However, I think my favorite story was an occurrence that took place at a hospital in New York City some 100 years ago. There, Dr. Richards had a first-floor office looking out on a greenspace. Two nurses overhear some doctors discussing an unusual case. It turned out the patient suffered from a form of leprosy it had taken the doctors a couple of weeks to diagnose. One of the doctors commented, “That Dr. Richards thinks he is such a hot shot; let’s take the patient to his office for a consultation and see how long it takes him to realize what it is.”
The nurses then quickly hurried down to Dr. Richards’ office and told him what was afoot. Richards took off his shoes, opened the window behind his desk, propped his sock feet on his desk and started reading a newspaper. Soon a knock came at the door. He responded, “Come in.” The two doctors brought the patient in, and Richards could hear and sense a crowd of doctors and nurses beginning to gather in the hall outside his door.
The doctors said they had an unusual case they would like to consult on. Richards, never putting down the newspaper, said that would be fine. The doctors responded asking if he did not need to put the paper down and make an examination. Richards said he first just needed to ask a few questions.
After asking about 10 questions and with his head still buried in the newspaper, Richards said, “Well, that narrows it down to only two or three things.” He then put down the paper, squinted at the patient, put on his glasses, adjusted the glasses, squinted again and screamed, “Oh my gosh, it’s leprosy!” He quickly stood up, turned, jumped out of his office window, and started running away in his sock feet.
The two doctors and their rather unsettled patient then left the office, and as they passed through the wide-eyed crowd in the hallway were heard to say, “That SOB is every bit as good as he claims to be.” Oh, what wonderful stories were told on that front porch.
Another grand porch was the sunporch at Homewood, which is now the Colom family home on South Side. It once stood where Regions Bank now is on Main Street and was the home of my great Uncle “Jamie” (James Sykes Billups) and Aunt Vesta. One fall when I was about 11 or 12 and a big Ole Miss fan, my mother informed me I would start going to Uncle Jamie’s to listen to football games on the radio with him. I protested “Why?” She just responded it would be a good experience.
I begrudgingly went, and Aunt Vesta welcomed me and said the radio was kept on the sunporch. As I went back to the porch, I noticed she was removing almost everything from the porch except places to sit, a pillow and the radio. I began to wonder what I had gotten into when the game started. However, everything else seemed normal until the Ole Miss quarterback threw an interception. Uncle Jamie suddenly let loose with a #S$G&& and threw the closest thing he could find, which happened to be the pillow, at the radio. He settled back down, and everything was fine till Ole Miss messed up again. I learned to really enjoy listening to ball games with Uncle Jamie and watching Aunt Vesta clear the porch and shake her head.
And not forgetting those important porch sides, I can well remember the summer iced tea my grandmother would make. It was an old recipe from Whitehall. Start with a quart of unsweetened tea and add: “juice of six lemons, juice of two oranges, one # of sugar (to taste). Just before serving add bottle of ginger ale.” Often it would be made without the ginger ale.
For the adults, the family recipe for mint juleps served at Whitehall, Snowdoun and Waverly was always popular but that’s another story.
I still think it is hard to beat a great story and a cool drink on an inviting porch, and now is the perfect time to rekindle an old Southern tradition.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
