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| First, I want to thank the reunion committee for their tireless effects in making our 70th birthday party such a wonderful success. I was able to attend the luncheon at the Martin Davis home and the dinner at Bessie Smith Hall. Both events were well planned and a huge success.
The luncheon was held in two verandas and a screened in porch of this lovely home (museum) which is in a country setting. Although it was a very hot day, a gentle breeze kept us from getting too hot.
Anne Johnson asked me to write a short summary about the Martin Davis home in Chickamauga, Georgia. It was Anne, in her winning and convincing way, which persuaded the Martin Davis House Foundation to permit us to use this facility for our reunion luncheon. The site manager, Jim Staub, went all out to allow us to use this historic house and he gave guided tours explaining the significance of each area. Here is a brief history of this site:
Martin Davis (1809-1859), a Union Army supply officer, built the original part of the house in 1850. It was an unimpressive (by today's standards) house consisting of 3-4 rooms. The first known addition was in 1884 when a kitchen and dining area were added.
The Shaw family purchased the house and surrounding farm in the late 1940's. Frank Clements Shaw, Jr., a rural mail carrier who never married, was the last owner of the house, and he made it his life's work to transform the house into a museum of the nineteenth century era. He spent years purchasing and collecting pieces of period furniture and other memorabilia, and, as he ran out of space to display these items, he made several additions to the main house. Beginning in 1976, several rooms were added to the back of the house in piecemeal fashion, and three upstairs rooms (which were not open to the tour). Each of the upstairs rooms was connected to the main floor by a separate staircase and the upstairs rooms were apparently not interconnected.
The main house has two parlors and a hall (parts of the original house) which contain three square grand pianos and two small children's pianos; roll top desks; large marble top tables; multiple love seats, wooden chairs, étagères to hold china plates, a dining table set with place settings of dishes; an English grandfather's clock; and several old globe kerosene lamps. The walls of the parlor contained photographs, period maps of the area, and even the document for the purchase of the property deeded to the owner during the land lottery after the forced removal of the Cherokee Indians from the area about 1836-1839.
Other noteworthy rooms in the main house were 2 bedrooms, containing high poster beds, a small movable wooden stairwell (complete with an enclosed chamber pot) to be able to climb into the bed, and a wash stand which contained a ceramic wash basin and pitchers for holding water. One of the bedrooms contained the wedding dress of Frank Shaw Jr.'s great grandmother (Louisa Jackson Suttles Clements) which she wore at her wedding in 1874. There was even a picture of her wearing the dress.
Another room was called "the war room" which contained shelves of volumes written about the War Between the States, pictures of confederate officers, a table which contained an atlas of detail maps of the civil war battlefields
A small sitting room contained several quilts, which probably were over 100 years old, draped over chairs and a couch.
A small den contained an old dial up telephone, a Morse code machine, a roll top desk; a wall mounted crank telephone, and a bookcase.
Another large room contained a collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia, both old and modern, all bearing the Coca-Cola logo: trays, coasters, trucks, wall clocks, knives, bottle openers, shelves of coke bottles (including 6-paks of coke still in the bottles), and a Christmas tree decorated with coke cans, coke figurines, coke Santas, and coke ornaments.
Mr. Shaw continued to collect items for his museum, and he then constructed, one at a time, five small free standing outbuildings which were replicas of:
1. An outdoor kitchen equipped with: a huge wooden butcher's block, two pie safes, a dining table set with dinner plates, a fireplace to cook, a cupboard, and a small wooden baby cradle.
2. A blacksmith shop which contained: a large stone wheel to sharpen tools, a forge to heat medal, an anvil and hammer, various tools, and horse saddles.
3. A one room school house equipped with: a teacher's complete with ink well and feather pen, one large table with chairs for the students, a wall map, "kindle" size slate boards with chalk for each student, a pot belly stove, and a wall map. There were no books for the students.
4. A weaving room which contained: a large loom and shuttles, three spinning wheels, a basket of wool to be carded and spun into thread, and a quilt making rack. The other half of this building was a milk room equipped with: butter churns, butter molds, and crock pots for pickling.
5. A lawyer's office which contained: a secretary, a large writing table, a bookcase, and a large picture window with shelves of apothecary bottles.
The last out building constructed was a replica of a mid-twentieth century (1940's) general store compete with a small post office with individual mail boxes built into one wall; shelves filled with canned coffee, tobacco, and other canned goods; an old time cash register; sacks of potatoes; kegs of nails; scales; bottled drinks; and an insulated bottled drink tub to hold ice to cool sodas.
Mr. Shaw died in 2006, but his will stipulated that a foundation be set up so that future generations could learn and appreciate how life was like in the early days of Walker County, Georgia, as well as in much of the rural USA in yesteryear.
This was a wonderful place to visit, but it was made even more special by having time to visit with and catch up on the latest events in the lives of other class mates. We are truly blessed to have such a close, caring class. "There's nothing finer than a '59er!" |
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