Don't let political correctness rob us of Southern heritage        April 24, 2003

Joel P. Smith

For fear the Daughters will come back to haunt me, I'm devoting this column to Confederate Memorial Day, which will be observed Monday, April 28, in Alabama.

When I arrived in town to edit The Tribune in 1958, Confederate Memorial Day was observed with a parade and the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Children of the Confederacy placed flowers on the graves of Confederate soldiers in Fairview Cemetery.

There were eight or nine elderly UDC members and several younger members who met regularly. Confederate Memorial Day was their big day, though.

The Daughters were dressed "to the nines," with big hats and ribbons and medals draped across their bosoms. They could have been mistaken for Southern diplomats, but that was before the days of Margaret Tutwiller, and we didn't have many women diplomats then. They started the day with breakfast at the Town House in the Bluff City Inn. They ate heartily, too, because they put a lot into celebrating and commemorating the Confederacy.

The parade down Broad Street was next on the daylong program. Jennie Kendall Dean, the lady of the house at her ancestral home, Kendall Manor, ran the show, with considerable assistance from "Miss" Carrie McDowell, a most delightful little lady who continued to wear tiny high-heel shoes.

Miss Jennie rode in back of her vintage black chauffeur-driven Cadillac, with a Confederate flag flying from a fixed position.

One year she was fit to be tied: She had instructed the city policemen to stop traffic on North Eufaula Avenue so the parade could pass easily beneath the Confederate monument and proceed past the old Post Office. She was running a little behind schedule that day and was caught in the stranded North Eufaula traffic. She missed one of the cherished highlights of the day.

There always seemed to be some kind of snafu. One year, the parade chairman had to handle a sticky situation about parade protocol. A young boy who was invited to carry the Stars and Bars, the good Daughter realized, was a Yankee descendant on his maternal side. Rest assured, the situation was handled as discreetly as possible under the challenging circumstances.

Memorial Day, the parade was late getting rolling, and the young lawyer in town speaking at the bandstand orated too long. The young band player down in the cemetery, who was supposed to echo "Taps" on his trumpet, fell asleep in the warm spring sunshine. The Grande Dame held up the proceedings at the Rebel graves and sent a runner to wake up the trumpeter.

The spring luncheon, as the UDC called the big luncheon-held at the Rebel Restaurant in those days-was big doings, too.

His honor Marvin Edwards always got a kick out of the speaker. One year the erudite speaker wore a vintage celluloid collar and orated with the best of them. I thought about the mayor's studied description of that Southern orator when Miss Jennie invited me to speak to the UDC.

I demurred, declaring public speaking was not my forte. Then Miss Jennie flattered me: "it's the quality of the speaker, not his speaking ability that's counts."

I was new in town and had taken notice that the Confederate flag was flown every day outside the courthouse. The American flag was nowhere to be seen, and this bothered the handful of newcomers from the North who were stationed at the Air Force Radar Base.

Don't misunderstand; I too am a proud son of the South. I don't believe we should let political correctness nor politics rob us of our heritage. I hope my African American friends feel the same way about their history and heritage.

Looters attempted to take away Iraq's past during a raid on the famed Iraq National Museum, home of extraordinary Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian collections and rare Islamic texts.

Looters have done irreparable damage to Iraq's cultural heritage.

Eufaula is not about to bow to politically correctness. The Eufaula Heritage Association has retained a travel consultant to help interpret Eufaula's heritage for new generations of pilgrims. We can do this and have fun at the same time.

It is important that we as a community know where we came from-and where we're heading in the future.

The War Between the States is imbedded too deeply into our history to ignore the Confederacy. Edward Courtney Bullock, a member of the Eufaula Regency, accompanied Jefferson Davis to Montgomery for his inauguration. (During the Confederate Centennial celebration, Miss Jennie picked me to play Bullock in the tableau at the ball.) And the Eufaula Rifles formed a part of the escort.

An historical marker designates today the site of the old St. Julian Hotel-where the old Post Office building stands-where Jefferson Davis and his daughter Winnie spent the night of March 9, 1881. The UDC persevered through the Federal bureaucracy to erect the historical marker on the site.

©Eufaula Tribune 2003