Happy Birthday, Miss Eudora!

April 13 was Eudora Welty's 100th birthday.
(She passed away in 2001 at the age of 92.)

The birthday party was at her home on Pinehurst Street in Belhaven.

Camera crews, reporters and others were there

to help celebrate and commemorate the occasion.

(Welty's Niece, Mary Alice White being interviewed)

It was a beautiful day that had been threatened with rain,
but the sun shone brightly all day long.

(The bottom fell out of the sky that very night.

QB & I got caught out in it during our walk around the neighborhood.

Were properly soaked.)

They served guests cake and lemonade.

There was even a speech by the Guv'nuh.

Two pretty little girls in matching pink dresses
were floating around the yard.

Bright pink and white striped camillia bushes on the side of her house.

Tours of her home and the gardens were given on the half hour.

A documentary film can be seen in the house
next door (which is also a part of the museum),
which I highly recommend.
I wasn't able to see all of it.
The tour of the house started at 1:30 p.m.
It was hard to pull myself away!

She donated her home
to the Mississippi Department of Archives
in 1985-6.
After her death they took pictures of everything
just as she had left it.
After the renovations
everything was lovingly restored
to its proper place.

Central heat and air was installed in the house.
Miss Welty abhorred air conditioning
and never used it.

I, personally, praise the name
of whoever invented CH/A.

Only a handful of objects are reproductions.
Everything else is original.
Books are stacked everywhere
just like she had it
and copies of manuscripts pages
that sat on the dining room table
for us to look at and touch.

I made a mental note of the P.G. Wodehouse book in her den.
The World of Jeeves.

Memorable quotes as we made our way through the house:

"I've only seen three books I've actually read!"
"Are you the last two [in the group]? The caboose?"

We saw the set of Charles Dickens books upstairs
that her mother
famously saved
during an apartment fire.

The bathroom at the top of the stairs was where she developed her photographs.

Copies of her first edition books
she gave to her mother
were kept in a secretary in the den.

Fans would knock on her door
to ask for autographs
which she gladly gave.

One fan went so far as
to send money
and asked if she would please
buy her books,
autograph them
and "Send them back to me."
And she did.

All of the prizes she won,
including her Pulitzer,
were found after her death
in the living room closet.
The one prize she did display
was a porcelain Raven statue
she received in 1995
for being the top Mystery book reader of the year.

When we were being shown through the house,
a lady named Eddie Polk spoke up.
She worked for the Weltys for 36 years.
Eddie came every morning to cook
Miss Eudora and her Mama breakfast.
Sometimes she would drive Eudora to the bank.
Other days Eudora would say,
"Eddie, let's not do anything today. It's just too hot."

It doesn't get better than that.