There was something rare and ineffably sweet about the gathering at the Trotter Center Saturday evening a week ago. “Goose’s Grand Gala” it was called, a party for Edwina Williams, known by many as simply, “Mother Goose.”
The event, hosted and beautifully realized by The Friends of the Library, was the culmination of a year-long celebration of Williams’ life and a successful $100,000 fund-raising effort to create an Edwina Williams endowment to benefit the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library where she has been children’s librarian for three decades.
Williams has been much more than that. She is an essential presence at any public gathering. As such, she’s been a good-will ambassador for the city and a nurturing advocate for the magic of books. Children run to her, arms outstretched.
The crowd of 240 Saturday was diverse, diverse as you could expect for a $50-a-ticket shindig. I don’t know if the Trotter has ever looked nicer.
The Gala had all the trappings of a spritzy society soiree: men in dark suits, women in furs and shimmering dresses, frilly catered food. Yet this was different, somehow; this was a community outpouring of affection for this beautiful, ageless lady, who had celebrated her 80th birthday four days earlier, and who, years ago, recognized a need and then reinvented herself to meet it.
Along the way, she became the most beloved and recognizable person in this community.
If you doubt this, ride alongside her on a float in the Christmas parade, as I have the past 20 or so years. I say “or so” because one year our float had a flat tire and MG promptly abandoned our ship (our “float” is Glenn Miller’s pontoon boat) and, without looking back, hitched a ride with Santa Claus on a fire truck.
I’ve liken my float-riding experience with her to standing next to Elvis.
“Hey, Mother Goose,” scream parade goers, young and old.
“Hey,” she sings back, waving.
It’s constant throughout the parade. You can feel the connection, the love.
A couple I was talking with at the gala asked me to take a cellphone photo of them with Mother Goose they could send their daughter, an alumna of “Story Time with Mother Goose.” Everyone there, myself included, wanted their picture taken with her.
The existence of Mother Goose and her widespread acceptance says something about us, too. Can you imagine Burlington, Vermont; Laramie, Wyoming; or Palm Springs, California, celebrating a Mother Goose? No, not really.
It’s one of the endearing traits of the small-town South, Columbus in particular: We embrace our eccentrics, our characters. We treasure them. We tell stories about them.
Here’s my favorite Mother Goose story.
It was a blisteringly hot summer day on Southside near the projects and Fuqua’s Grocery. I was driving to my brother’s house — he lives at the south end of Ninth Street — and saw a couple of guys setting up big speakers. I stopped to talk, to ask what was going on. A neighborhood party later, they said. By the time I left, the speakers were thumping with rap music.
On the way back to town I glanced down the same street; not much had changed. The guys were still there; the music was still booming. One thing was different, though: walking down the middle of the street toward the music, Little Goose tucked under her arm, was Mother Goose.
I circled back and stopped. By then, MG was talking with the fellows with the speakers. Someone told me there was going to be a party, and they invited me and Little Goose, she said.
Birthday parties, the Farmers’ Market, Market Street Festival, Catfish on the Alley, Wassail Fest … the list is long.
Mother Goose is always there, smiling, effervescent, arms outstretched.
Birney Imes is the publisher of The Dispatch. Email him at [email protected].
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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