Diversify Your Reading Challenge: Literary Fiction

The "Diversify Your Reading Challenge: Literary Fiction" choice this month is an easy slam dunk. Who better to represent September's category of Literary Fiction than Pat Conroy? 

The Beaufort County Library has a long standing interest in documenting the life and career of author Pat Conroy. 

Almost from the moment Pat Conroy arrived in Beaufort as a teenaged military dependent, he embraced the community as his own. It was a sometime contentious relationship as matters seldom were simple in his life. During the course of his writing career, he became internationally recognized as one of the best and best-selling authors of Southern literature.

Visit the BDCBCL: Links, Lists, and Finding Aids blog to explore all that the Beaufort County Library and its special collections and archives unit, the Beaufort District Collection, offers about this man and his work. 

I put in active links so that you can go straight into the SCLENDS catalog to borrow most of the items, provided, of course, that you have a valid Beaufort County Library card. 

Seeing as how September is always Library Card Sign-up Month, there's no better time to apply! 

Diversify Your Reading Challenge 2022: Young Adult

The selection in this month's Challenge category of "Young Adult" was easy-peasy as the Research Room has precisely the perfect title. It was authored by a native Beaufortonian who has been credited with starting the literary genre! And it also fits as a "50 Shades of Beige" item, too. 

Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones by Ann Head was on school reading lists for 50 years after its original publication. It remains in print and available through major online booksellers.  As her daughter Nancy Head Thode said during a BDC/ Pat Conroy Literary Center presentation on March 27, 2019, "I think having an out of wedlock child is what prompted her to write [it.] It's a story that has some similarity to hers. In the case of Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones, two teenagers struggle with an out of wedlock pregnancy." 

Ann Head's real name was  Anne Wales Christensen Head Morse. She came from a prominent Beaufort family. The author's grandmother, Abbie Holmes Christensen, came to Beaufort during the Civil War to teach the recently freed slaves on the Sea Islands. Her father was Niels Christensen, local businessman, land owner and South Carolina State Senator.  Born on October 30, 1915,  Anne grew up in both Beaufort and Boston, Massachusetts. 

Anne wrote her first novel in childhood though she "abandoned [it] when she became more attached to the villain than to the hero."  She married Howard Head of Philadelphia on February 26, 1939 but they divorced in 1944. Their child was the aforementioned and quoted Nancy Head Thode. Her second husband was Dr. Stanley Morse. He was the father of her daughter, Stacey. Head published over 50 short stories in magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, McCalls, Redbook, and Ladies Home Journal. She wrote four internationally published novels and was also Pat Conroy’s first creative writing teacher. 

Here's what that famed author wrote of her in The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes from My Life (2004): "She was the first novelist I'd ever met in the flesh. She looked like a woman who would not tolerate a preposition at the end of a sentence or the anarchy of a dangling participle... She required that my adjectives actually mean something when I landed them into one of my overloaded paragraphs." 

Anne Christensen Head Morse died in Beaufort on May 7, 1968 from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 52. At the time of her death, she was negotiating with a Hollywood studio to turn the book into a movie. A few years later her book was adapted into a "Movie of the Week" starring Desi Arnaz, Jr. and Christopher Norris in 1971. 

The Pat Conroy Literary Center recorded our co-sponsored lecture "Remembering Ann Head: Beaufort's Forgotten Author" presented by Nancy Thode on March 27, 2019.

The BDC Research Room contains copies of her novels, Fair with Rain (1957);  Always in August (1961); Everybody Adored Cara (1963);  and Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones (1967); and a fat vertical file of clippings and some of her magazine articles for our customers to study by appointment. To make the arrangements, call 843-255-6468 or email BDC@bcgov.net.

March 2022 : Women's History Month Display

The 2022 Women’s History theme, “Providing Healing, Promoting Hope,” is both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers and frontline workers during this ongoing pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history. But, I do not have enough materials to create a display to fill up the case in the Research Room. 

So ... I decided to revisit Local Women Authors of  (mostly) Non-Fiction Materials with interesting book covers. I added two green scarves and 3 purple and white checked scarves to indicate both St. Patrick's Day and Mardi Gras. I threw in some paper shamrocks to enhance selections for shelves 2 and 3. 

Usually I start at the top of the case. But to change things up a bit, I'm going to work from the bottom up this time. 

Shelf 4 contains two books, both of which are about Hilton Head Island. Long-time Island resident and author Margaret Greer tells some Lowcountry tales about critters, people and history on Hilton Head Island in Short & Tall Tales of Hilton Head Island (2004). This coffee table book is lavishly illustrated with photographs by Barry Lowes and items from her husband's sketchbooks, paintings, and photographs of life on the island. Learn about "The Blue Lady," the Leamington light, the Devil Gun, and Daufuskie's midwife, Sarah Grant. Borrow a copy from one of the Library's local history sections. Past mayor Drew Laughlin wrote that Hilton Head Island: Sand, Sea and Sun authors Lydia Inglett and Martin McFie (2012) "provide a unique, photographic guide to much of Hilton Head Island's beauty that continuously captivates and enlightens both residents and visitors."

Shelf 3 contains three books. A Special Place and Time by Judy Hutson is a local publishing company Lydia Inglett imprint. In it the author recounts tales of Palmetto Bluff Plantation and some of its inhabitants during the 20th century including the Wilson, Beach, and Harvey families. She includes a lot of personal family photographs as illustrations.  

Billie Burn moved to Daufuskie Island in 1959 and was a postmaster and school bus driver from 1963 until the early 1980s.  She wrote An Island Named Daufuskie (shown in the center of shelf 3) to leave “a permanent record of the history, stories, and accounts that I have collected—mainly from Daufuskie people”.  There are copies that you can check out in the Local History sections. 

I have always liked Debbi Covington's cookbooks. I think that her Celebrate Everything: Delicious Menus for Festive Gatherings and Easy Entertaining is the one that I use most often at home. You can find copies in the Local History sections at the Branch Libraries to check out.

This month I put the title card near shelf 2. Beverly Jenning's book Shrimp Tales: Small Bites of History (2020) "captures the stories that swim in the salty souls of shrimpers who made their living fishing the waters of the Atlantic." She spent a decade interviewing shrimpers and others associated with commercial shrimping to produce permanent exhibits for the Port Royal Sound Maritime Center and the Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head. This work served as the start for Shrimp Tales, a book that shows the old ways of shrimping evolving to the modern day. It reads not so much like a comprehensive history, but something tastier than that – a few good stories, some compelling insights, a collection of fascinating facts, some recipes, illustrations of tools of the trade and over 470 photos - some of which came from the BDC. 

Fripp Island : A History by Page Putnam Miller (2006) covers the development of the resort island over the past 200 years. In 2000 Miller moved with her husband, Charlie Davis, to Fripp Island. Active on the island and in the Beaufort community, she served as an elder in First Presbyterian Church and published a book about its history in 2012.  From 2000 to 2005 she was a Visiting Distinguished Lecturer in the Public History Program at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. She was instrumental in the early movement to have Beaufort County designated a Reconstruction Era historical site by the National Park Service.

Gwine Home: A Gullah/Geechee Saga (2019) is a novel by artivist and Queen of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, Marquetta Goodwine. Gwine Home takes the readers into a Gullah/Geechee intergenerational saga centered on their spirituality and healing practices. The Gullah/Geechee history of the family is passed down from the elders to the youths as each day on the Sea Islands unfolds when the youth realize that there are changes happening to the environment and that there are threats to the land that the family has held for generations. Goodwine has authored more than a dozen books that are housed in the Research Room. 

Fran Marscher, a former journalist for the Island Packet, turned her interviews with area notables born between 1880 and 1940 into short sketches about daily life in southern Beaufort County during the 20th century for the History Press. Published in three volumes all beginning with the title Remembering the Way It Was, the one shown came out in 2006 and covers residents of Beaufort, Sheldon and the Sea Islands.

For a scrumptious and entertaining cookbook - and family tales - one can seldom find better than Sallie Ann Robinson's Kitchen: Food and Family Lore from the Lowcountry. (And, I don't even like cooking). She includes dishes that I grew up with: "Black-eyed Peas with Okra" and some I didn't, but should have, for example, 'Fuskie Shrimp and Blue Crab Burger."

In some ways the celebrity that was and remains Pat Conroy tends to overpower the contributions of other fine (and truly native born) Beaufort authors. A case in point is Valerie Sayers. She is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. Valerie Sayers is the author of a collection of stories, The Age of Infidelity, and six novels. Who Do You Love and Brain Fever were both named New York Times “Notable Books of the Year, and a film, "Due East," was based on her novels Due East and How I Got Him Back.  Sayers’s stories, essays, and reviews have appeared widely, in such publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Commonweal, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Image, Witness, and Prairie Schooner, and have been cited in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays.  Her literary prizes include a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes for fiction. She has been honored with the Kaneb, Sheedy, and Joyce Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Her body of work is represented in the display by her novel, The Distance Between Us (2018) in which Due East once again represents her hometown of Beaufort.  

We maintain a vertical file of clippings about her and her work. We share copies of her interview with Patti Just for Writer's Circle on DVD; and we have copies of her first 5 novels in the Research Room as part of an effort to create a literary history of the area. Perhaps of interest to some: I used to sing in the St. Peter's Catholic Church Choir with her mother and sister.

Stay tuned for an exposition about the April 2022 BDC Research Room Display Case - topic as yet undecided.

Herstory: Phoebe Catharine Hamilton Seabrook, 1853 - 1927, Schoolteacher, Principal, and Novelist

If you've gotten here via my Facebook post on March 30, 2020, welcome. All units of the Beaufort County Library remain temporarily closed until further notice due to efforts to flatten the curve of COVID-19 spread.  Any changes to the schedule will be posted onto the Library's website. Read the news announcement.

The  Research Room has about 15 linear feet of novels, among them "Daughter of the Confederacy: A Story of the Old South and the New" by Beaufort's own Phoebe Hamilton Seabrook, 1906. The preface states:

"    In this little book the writer has endeavored to portray some of the features of Southern life during the war time as it really was in her memories. Sensational happenings with which many of the stories of the period are so embellished will be conspicuous by their absence. No doubt there were horrors, but they were remote, and not in the experiences of the writer, who has endeavored to sketch the Southern home life with its many simple pleasures, the bravery with which the war time trials were met, and their after results just as they happened in many Southern families. The kindness of the conquerors as exhibited by the friendly stationmaster was not an isolated instance, and to her mind these memories are more pleasant to dwell upon than the unpleasant incidents which have grown almost characteristic of the Southern novel."

Sarah Gardner places Seabrook's story firmly within the realm of "Lost Cause" literature reflecting the times in which it was written in both language and portrayal of Black characters, enslaved and as freed people.  The novel opens with an intersectional marriage: a Southron man to a Yankee woman.  Neither the white Southerners nor the enslaved could embrace the Master's young New England wife nor could his wife adapt appropriately to southern ways. For Seabrook's main character, the very idea of intersectional marriage was laughable. It was simply foolish to think otherwise! (1)

"La Belle Porte" stands in for the village of Beaufort and "The Point" refers not to the "Point" in downtown Beaufort but to "Bay Point". The plot centers on who will win the heart and hand of Di Marmion - God forbid that he's a Yankee! - as she learns how to adapt to her new circumstances.

Phoebe Catharine Hamilton was born on July 12, 1853 in Beaufort to Col. Paul and Catharine Hamilton, one of their eight children and the last to survive. She spent much of her youth in Virginia but married an older man from a prominent planter family, Joseph Whaley Seabrook (born 1835), in 1871 and moved to Edisto Island.  

Seabrook also came from a large family. Ephraim Mikell Seabrook (1797-1846) and his wife Elizabeth Mary Hanahan (1802 - 1888) had seven children. Joseph was the fourth son in the family of five boys and two girls. Ephraim died in  1846 a wealthy planter with four plantations and personal property worth $69,000, 175 slaves and at least 50 bags of cotton ready for market. Joseph's older brother Edward inherited Laurel Hill plantation and oversaw the planting of Brookland Plantation where his mother retained a life interest after which youngest son Henry was to take possession. In 1874 Brookland was sold to cover Henry's debt. (2)   

Phoebe's domestic situation is unclear. She had two children with Seabrook: Henry Hamilton Seabrook and Catharine Hamilton Seabrook. (3)

At some point she moved from Edisto leaving her husband (alive) on the Island and returned to Beaufort where she had her first experiences teaching school in the Beaufort Female Seminary with her sister, Miss Mary S. Hamilton. She remained in Beaufort until her own children went off to Virginia and Maryland to school. She held teaching positions at Fauquier Institute of Warrenton (VA), Hannah More of Reistertown (MD), and became head of the St. Agatha's School in Springfield (IL) under Bishop Seymour. In 1902 the sisters opened the Hamilton School on Lafayette Square in Washington, DC and continued under Phoebe's management until her health forced her into retirement. She then moved to Riverton, N. J. to be closer to her adult children and and two grandsons, Henry Hamilton Seabrook, Jr. and Archibald Fauntleroy Seabrook. (3)  

Her husband died on January 24, 1906  in Charleston.  The Palmetto Post newspaper published an obituary for him in its February 1, 1906 issue (4): 

Seabrook is buried in the Trinity Episcopal Church cemetery on Edisto Island. (5)  

Phoebe died in Riverton, N. J. twenty one years later on Saturday, February 19, 1927. The Beaufort Gazette obituary says of her: "To few people has been granted more charm of personality and attractiveness, combined with a deeply religious nature which showed itself in wonderful fortitude and patience throughout many vicissitudes and a long illness."(3) 

Her body arrived via the train on February 23rd where it was met by the Rev. Manard Marshall and immediately taken to the St. Helena Church for funeral services. She was carried by pall bearers J.S. Foster, H.G. Burckmyer, Leith Paul, J.S. Walpole, Dr. M. G. Elliott, B.E. deTreville, C.E. McLeod and Neils Christensen to the church. (3) She was buried in plot A-8 of the churchyard. (6)

Hathitrust has a full view of A Daughter of the Confederacy posted online for anyone with internet access to read. It's something you can do for entertainment during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep yourself occupied and social distanced. 

Sources: 
1. Blood & Irony: Southern White Women's Narratives of the Civil War, 1861 - 1937 by Sarah E. Gardner, University of North Carolina Press, 2004, pp. 181 - 186.

2. The Story of Sea Island Cotton by Richard Dwight Porcher and Sarah Fick, Wyrick & Company, 2005 has a section on the Seabrooks at Brookland Plantation, pp. 451 - 453 and a wonderful Appendix III: Plantation Families including Properties and their residents and genealogies on pp. 491 - 502.  

3. Published obituary of Phoebe Hamilton (Mrs. Joseph W.) Seabrook, Beaufort Gazette, March 3, 1927, p. 1.

4. Published obituary of Joseph Whaley Seabrook, Palmetto Post, February 1, 1906, p. 3.  

5. Joseph Whaley Seabrook (1835 - 1906), Find-A-Grave website, accessed 17 March 2020

6. Old Churchyard Cemetery of St. Helena's Episcopal Church Beaufort, South Carolina edited and published by Parishioners James Cawood Presgraves and S. Louise Presgraves, 1987, p. 30.

Research Room Display Case in March : Local Female Authors

This post is Kristine Spaulding Marshall's first for Connections. Kristi joined the BDC staff about a year ago. She is usually the first person one sees upon arrival in the Research Room and is the main Research Room helper to customers. Among her other responsibilities is keeping the Research Room display case stocked with BDC materials on a theme.

 

For March that theme was "Women's History" and Kristi decided to highlight works by female authors from our holdings. She divided her selections into three categories: Fiction; African-American authors; and Nonfiction and Remembrances.   -- Grace Cordial

Fiction:

The Distance Between Us by Valerie Sayers

Valerie Sayers was born and raised in Beaufort, SC.  She uses Beaufort as a setting in her six novels, however the fictional town is called “Due East”.  This book was chosen to highlight one of our local fiction authors.

Bed & Breakfast by Lois Battle

Beaufort resident Lois Battle was a New York Times best-selling author and known as the “Queen of Grand Entrances” by her friends.  Bed & Breakfast is set in Beaufort and is a holiday tale of Josie Taternall and her bed and breakfast. The BDC has several Lois Battle scrapbooks as well as a manuscript of Bed & Breakfast.  Battle’s other novels, including Storyville and War Brides may be checked out at your local Beaufort County Library. 

Truer Words by Kim Poovey

As a docent at the Verdier House, Poovey dressed and acted like a Victorian lady.  This inspired her to create her alter ego, Southern Victorian lady Emma Victoria Brown. She brought Emma to life in her novel Truer Words in 2012.  Poovey is a Beaufort resident and  school psychologist in her daily life. 

    

Always in August and Everybody Adored Cara by Ann Head

Ann Head, formally known as Anne Wales Christensen Head Morse, came from known Beaufort family known for breaking tradition.  Ann’s grandmother came to Beaufort during the Civil War to teach the recently freed slaves on the Sea Islands.  Head published dozens of short stories, wrote four internationally published novels and was also Pat Conroy’s first creative writing teacher. 

  

Always in August was Ann Head’s second published novel.  It was set in the Lowcountry, on the Coosaw Sound and captures the excitement and drama of the Old South, but in a modern-day (1960’s) setting.  The violence and passion that plays out in the novel always occurred in the hot, humid month of August, a month that is also known for hurricanes—which bring about erupted emotions, tragedy and misfortune in their wake. 

  

Everybody Adored Cara was Ann Head’s first mystery which follows the investigation of the murder of Cara Sumner, who was strangled to death with her own blue chiffon scarf.  

Learn more about Ann Head on March 27 in the Beaufort Branch Meeting Room as her daughter, Nancy Thode, reflects on her mother’s life as “Beaufort’s forgotten author and mentor to Pat Conroy”. Sign up to attend at http://bit.ly/2Ddyda6. Registration will close when the room's capacity is reached. This program is co-sponsored by the Pat Conroy Literary Center, the Beaufort District Collection, and the Beaufort County Library.

 

African-American highlights:

Mama’s Pearls by Patricia Bee is a book of poetry that captures the essence of Gullah culture.  The author is a native of Beaufort and wrote this book of poetry to serve as a manual for living and to honor her ancestors.  Almost each poem is accompanied by historical photos of African American adults and children as well as a bible verse.  Patricia Bee will be one of the featured authors at the Beaufort History Museum Annual Tea on May7, 2019. Reservations open April 1, 2019.

Never Too Late by native Beaufortonian Rosalie F. Pazant is an autobiographical account of the author’s life, experiences and accomplishments.  Pazant referred to herself as a Gullah woman and hoped to inspire her family and other readers that it is never too late to achieve a desired goal.  Pazant was a teacher, education administrator, and president & co-founder of the Gullah Festival, a project that has received national and international attention. The Festival runs May 24 - May 26 this year. To learn more about this accomplished woman, visit the BDC and check out our vertical file on her.  

Separation Song was written and illustrated by Patricia “Nolia” Biggerstaff for children to read, learn and enjoy Gullah language and culture.  The story is about a young girl, named Kissi, and her life in the Gullah community on St. Helena Island.  Kissi wants to learn about her great-grandmother’s childhood, which is a mystery woven into Mama Susu’s Gullah song. 

Nonfiction and Remembrances:  

Remembering the Way it Was at Beaufort, Sheldon and the Sea Islands by Fran Heyward Marscher is a collection of oral histories from residents of old Beaufort County—residents who remember Beaufort as a quiet, sparsely populated area.  Marscher interviewed both men and women, (blacks and whites) who recollected on their memories of living in Beaufort through hard times as well as prosperous and joyous times and who were born between 1909 and 1936.  Marscher also wrote Remembering the Way it Was at Hilton Head, Bluffton and Daufuskie , 2 volumes, in the same format. 

Reminiscences of a Country Doctor’s Wife by Mildredth Wolfe Black was a longtime resident of Beaufort.  She and her husband, Dr. Westcoat Adalbert Black came to Beaufort in the early 1930s.  Mrs. Black uses fictionalized names to describe the early years of her and her young husband’s lives in “Ribault”.

The Other Mother by Teresa Bruce is a story of a transformative friendship between Teresa Bruce and Byrne Miller, a former burlesque dancer and pioneer in the dance world.  The two met after then TV reporter Teresa Bruce interviewed the 82 year old Byrne Miller.  Through the years Bruce began to look at Miller essentially as another mother.  She wrote this book to tell the story of Byrne and Duncan Miller’s unconventional marriage to and share Byrne’s wisdom. 

 

Daufuskie Island was written by Jenny Hersch and sixth-generation Daufuskie native Sallie Ann Robinson as a part of the Images of America series.  This book is full of photographs and stories of those who helped shape the Daufuskie Island community.  

Stirrin’ the Pots on Daufuskie by Billie Burn is a compilation of original and favorite recipes and stories from those who lived or once lived on Daufuskie.  The recipes are accompanied by photographs and stories of those residents and their families.  Burn moved to Daufuskie Island in 1959 and was a postmaster and school bus driver from 1963 until the early 1980s.  She is also the author of An Island Named Daufuskie which she wrote to leave “a permanent record of the history, stories, and accounts that I have collected—mainly from Daufuskie people”.

Of course, there are many, many more female authors present in our holdings so if you don't see your favorite book by a female author listed here, search the SCLENDS catalog.  

Pat Conroy Remembered - Twice

Beaufort's most famous writer, Pat Conroy, is featured at the Books Sandwiched In Series on Monday, February 4, 2019 at Noon at the USC-B Center for the Performing Arts located at 805 Bay Street in Beaufort. Books Sandwiched In is the popular free series of book talks presented by the Friends of the Beaufort Library. This program features Jonathan Haupt and a panel of noted authors including Cassandra King Conroy, Sallie Ann Robinson and Bernie Schein who will discuss their memories of Conroy. 

Remembering Ann Head is set for March 27, 2019 at 5:30pm in the Beaufort Branch Meeting Room. Nancy Thode will discuss her mother's rather unconventional life and life choices, her impact on Conroy, her involvement in local political affairs, and her untimely death at age 52. Registration for this event co-sponsored by the Beaufort District Collection and the Pat Conroy Literary Center opened January 16th and will close when capacity is reached. http://bit.ly/2Ddyda6.