Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly, Joy Rubins Morris, Rainer Klauss, Bobby Cochran, Collins (CE) Wynn, Eddie Sykes, Don Wynn
Advisory Members: Paula Spencer Kephart, Cherri Polly Massey
Staff Photographers: Fred & Lynn Sanders
Contributers: The Members of Lee High School Classes of 64-65-66 and Others
We've got some interesting stuff this week, but have had only a few e-mails to share with you.
On a personal note, I want to take this opportunity to announce to you that my next book should be going to the printers by the end of next week. This new effort is a collection of Huntsville memories and uses a lot of stuff that I have written for Lee's Traveller and for Old Huntsville. I decided that I had enough stories in several places that I could combine them with some never before published memories to come up with another book.
This one is named While Our Hearts Were Young, Vol. 1 and I hope to have it available here on the site and in a few select bookstores well before Thanksgiving. I know one of you said you didn't want me to ever write another book, but this is stories from the Fifties and Sixties, and not recent stuff. It is smaller than my first one (about 100 pages) but I hope it is entertaining to the readers.
And while we are on the subject of books, I have offered my editorial services to help out the Rison-Dallas Association with a cookbook effort they hope to publish. See the article below and show your support by sending them some recipes.
T. Tommy
________________________________________
From Our
Mailbox
Last Week's
Lee-Bay Item
This Week's
Lee-Bay Item
Section of 1959 Map of Madison County
Roadmaps To
Our Past
by Collins (CE) Wynn
Class of '64
The University of Alabama has an intriguing collection of Alabama maps available on line and I’ve spent a little time over the past few weeks reading and studying some of the earlier editions. It has been an interesting experience. In previous editions of the “Traveller” several of us offered comments about Darwin Downs, the Big Ditch, and other parts of our old neighborhoods. My review of these maps revealed some little known (at least to me) facts about old Huntsville. Perhaps you readers would enjoy a quick look at this information. I was not previously aware of most of these entries.
1837
a. The name of the settlement atop Monte Sano Mountain was “Viduta”. Evidently it was a complete community and had no connection to Huntsville other than proximity.
Additional research via the web furnished the following informationas well.
Historic Viduta
"Viduta"-derived from Spanish "vida" meaning "life"
In a time when yellow fever, malaria, and cholera threatened, Dr. Thomas Fearn and his brothers Robert and George were drawn by the cool air and medicinal springs to establish a small colony on the northern section of Monte Sano Mountain in 1827. In 1833 the town of Viduta was officially established. This area contains a variety of architectural styles dating from the late 1800's.
Preston Yeatman was one of the earlier settlers of Huntsville, having come here about the time of Leroy Pope. (bef.1820). Yeatman was a merchant, builder, dealer in property, member of the city government and industrialist. He owned a store in 1820 known as Yeatman and company, dealing in hats, clothes, accessories, and food delicacies. The year 1833 saw the rise of the village of Viduta, on Monte Sano, the little town planned back in 1814. One of the its founders was Preston. He was one of the owners of the first cotton mills in the USA, known as Bell Factory.
b. Although it was undeveloped and would remain so for many years, the area we now know as Darwin Downs was then called as “Bonavista”.
1875
a. Big Cove Pike (later known as Big Cove Road) appears on the 1875 map crossing the mountain but it is not connected to the community on top of the mountain.
b. Bankhead Parkway is identified as Monte Sano Pike and is the only way to and from the community of Viduta.
c. The map has an entry “US Barracks” and drawings indicating tents implying an Army Camp is located on the south side of Oakwood Avenue near the intersection with current day Maysville Road.
d. The name “Bonavista” is gone from the map.
1909
a. Viduta is still there and there remains only one way up and down the mountain.
b. Dallas, Merrimac, and West Huntsville appear as separate communities.
c. The eastern part of Dallas is referred to as “Fairview” (this is the only entry for Fairview I could find).
d. Most of the land now known as Chapman Heights and Darwin Downs is owned by three ladies: Mrs. E. Matthews; Mrs. Julia W. Anderson; Mrs. R. L. Chapman.
e. “US Barracks” are gone.
1937
a. The map still shows Viduta and now includes Monte Sano State Park and the CCC Camp that housed the workers who built the park. The top of the mountain is now connected around Round Top to Big Cove Road so there are two ways up and down.
1948
a. The name “Viduta” does not appear on the map and is to never return. Perhaps some of our Monte Sano readers can explain.
b. Huntsville population is shown as 16,437plus the four mill villages that are shown as individual communities: West Huntsville (or Lowe Mill) 5,500; Huntsville Manufacturing (or Merrimac) 1,100; Lincoln 4,000; and
Dallas 2,500 (which also settles the argument of which was larger – Dallas or Lincoln).
1959
a. Memorial Parkway appears.
As side note, my Dad once told me that even in the 1930’s a trip to town (i.e., Huntsville) and return home from Big Cove, Hampton Cove, New Hope, etc. was a very big deal and an all day event which is why he and his family crossed the mountain as few times as possible. At the time Big Cove was truly the “hinterlands” of Madison County – my Dad told me he had never seen a telephone until he walked (yes, walked) over the mountain in 1939 to join the Army and leave hard scrabble farming behind forever.
Bobby Cochran, Class of '64, has donated to Lee's Traveller the original set of textbooks he used as a student at Lee High School. Although these may not qualify for the tax write-off he is looking for, we did think it would be fun to cover up the name of the book with @s and see if anyone can remember what class the book was used for.
Here is the first of many that we will offer to you over the next several weeks. We invite your guesses and any other coments you care to share with us about the books, the courses, the teachers of the courses, the school, the weather, or whatever else you want to write about.
___________________________________
Mystery Classmates
Of The Week
This photo was recently submitted to us and is of five lovely ladies that shared the halls of Lee High with us when we were students. Can you identify them? Partial answers are accepted.
____________________________________________
Jon Edmonds e-mailed us "That item of the week -- a Zotz! coin?" which is correct, but you don't really sound like you know exactly what that is, do you Jon?. Actually, coins such as these were given out as promotional items when you entered the Lyric Theatre to see the movie Zotz in 1962 staring Tom Poston as Prof. John Jones. It was a crazy movie, but a unique way to promote it. I remember getting one, and may still have it in my storage somewhere. I warned you it was hard.
_____________________________________
Subject: Writing a Rison-Dallas Association
Cookbook
From: Ann Schrimsher Franklin
"RisonDallas Association"
risondallas@bellsouth.net
The Rison-Dallas Association has decided to write and publish a cookbook. We've outlined our plans for the
cookbook at the Messages from the Association page of our website.
Your readers are invited to take a look at that page and, if any of them have a connection to either Rison
School or Dallas Village, they are encouraged to submit their recipes.
We would love to hear from you.
(Editor's Note: I am going to send them some recipes and I hope that some of you will as well. The organization needs some help, and we have a chance to assist them. Also, please remember the Lee Pre-Engineering Magnet Program is looking for some assistance as well.)
__________________________________
Here's an item that might well have been in some of your homes back in the Fifties and Sixties; I know we had one in ours. Today, it would not be politically correct I fear.
_________________________________
Charm School
submitted by Tommy Towery
Class of '64
Two delicate flowers of Southern womanhood (one of whom was from Lee High School) were conversing on the porch swing of a large white-pillared mansion. The first woman, who was not from Huntsville, said, "When my first child was born, my husband built this beautiful mansion for me."
The LHS lady commented, "Well, isn't that nice?"
The first woman continued, "When my second child was born, my husband bought me that fine Cadillac automobile you see parked in the drive."
Again, the LHS lady commented, "Well, isn't that nice?"
The first woman boasted, "Then, when my third child was born, my husband bought me this exquisite diamond bracelet."
Yet again, the LHS lady commented, "Well, isn't that nice?"
The first woman then asked her companion, "What did your husband buy for you when you had your first child?"
The LHS lady replied, "My husband sent me to charm school."
"Charm school!" the first woman cried, "What on Earth for?"
The LHS lady responded, "So that instead of saying, 'Who gives a s***?' I learned to say, 'Well, isn't that nice?'"
