The Evergreen Society Minutes Continue...

Green Mount.

March 17th, 1880

We opened exercises by reading 17th Psalm. Vir repeated a very sweet piece of poetry called "Wishing." It is great pity that every body does not make such wishes. Lucy read a piece viz. "Daughter and Wife." It would be very well if we would obey its advice. Lou played "Old Rosin the Bow." Mattie Kate played "The Last Smile" very nicely.

Green Mount

March 24th, 1880

It is not my duty to keep the record of this meeting, yet Miss Lou has imposed the disagreeable task upon me, and all on account of my talking so much. We opened by reading the 18th Psalm. Lucie played "Willie's Favorite". It is a very difficult piece & she plays it quite well considering the length of time she has been taking lessons. I think with her desire and determination she will soon be a fine performer. Miss Lou then read a very humorous piece by "Uncle Remus". The heroin was an old hare- was very cunning even more so than "Reynard" who is considreed the most cunning of all beasts. Sallie repeated a beautiful poem "Kohen Linden" (?). I didn't hear much of it but of couse it was done well. Mattie Kate repeated "The Rainy Day", one of my favorite songs. Comparatively these have been but few such days in my life. She also repeated The Inquiry. It is very beautiful & it is very pleasant to know that there is a resting place from sorrow & sin "In Heaven." Miss Lou read another piece - The Restoration of The Jews. The author seems to be of the opinion that they will not return to their earthly home- Palestine, but will forsake their sins and turn to God. Sallie played a very bright and pretty piece, Silvery Trumpets. I think she must inherit her musical talent. Vir repeated The Psalm of Life. It is a splendid piece as most of Longfellow's are. Lou read "The Reaper & the Flowers. "The Reaper will carefully keep the little flower until its mother goes to receive it again. The meeting was closed with some sweet music from Miss Lou. She alwaays adds much to our enjoyment by giving us some of the sweetest. I hope the next we meet dear Miss Florence will be here & we will enjoy her music as well as her presence. This is our last meeting before Easter. I hope we will all enjoy it, and come back refreshed & ready to work diligently until June.

I believe that "not brief" journal entry by a talkative student may have been written by Virginia Bagby, because below that entry, which so far is the longest one we've had, was written in what looks to be Miss Lou's handwriting the following note:

Vir. Bagby

Vir. was telling the girls how they ought to write, when I very quietly suggested that she should do it. She has kept such an interesting record that we have determined to give each one of the girls a chance to make theirs as much so. Among the valuable lessons they will thus learn is the one we ought all to know & practice. Viz: Put your self in the place of any one whose work you wish to criticize & you will find that it is very much easier to say how a thing ought to be done, than it is to do it.

While I'm thinking of it, I will add a list or roster of the girls in attendance the school year dated 1879 - 1880. Their names follow:

Virginia Bagby

Sallie Lee Blount

Bettie Lee Carlton

Mattie Kate Fauntleroy

Lucy Fleet

Sallie Browne Fleet

M. Lou Henley

Rosa V. Latane

Mary Reynolds

Lelia Smith (music)

I think that journal entry has been my favorite so far! I'll type out one more for tonight which will carry us through the end of March.

Green Mount

March 31, 1880

Cousin Lou seems determined much against my will to have me and the secretaries in the arduous task of writing down little interesting things that we will enjoy reading over by and by. I am detrmined to do my best but I think she will be strongly tempted to erase my name ffrom the illustrious list she has provded; however I'll proceed. We read a part of the 18th Psalm after which we went in the music room where Cousin Lou read us Vir's nice record of last week's performances which was followed by "The Brook" from Mattie Kate. She played it very nicely and I enjoyed it particularly as it is one of my great favorites. Then Sallie read More than Beautiful. The heroine of this piece was a lovely Christian woman, who wasn't pretty, on the contrary was naturally homely but in addition to this she was terribly burned once (while at an entertainment) which disfigured her for life, but instead of bemoaning her sad fate she continued doing good and making thousands of friends wherever she went. Not content unless she was making someone happy. Oh that we could (like her), scatter kind words and loving smiles along the rugged pathway of life & probably be the instruments in God's hand for reclaiming some sinner from the error of his ways. Lou then played "Le Tremolo" very nicely, which was followed by "Wishing" from Lucy by Mary Lawrence which Cousin Lou enjoyed very much as it advocated very strongly the virtue of work. Cousins Lou & Florence then played Turkish Reveile which we thought beautiful & beautifully executed also. I am glad to record the return of one of our most cherished members who also brought a very sweet little girl with her whose company we enjoy very much. With many apologies for this, I'll be pleased to resign on futher services.

S. B. Fleet

I will now add an exerpt from Sallie Lee Blount (Mahood's) autobiography because I'd like to share some photos taken in Richmond that show the place she lived before being sent to Green Mount. Sallie's father died in a shooting accident at the age of 46 so her mother was by this time a widow.

At the bottom of p. 12 in her autobiography Sallie wrote:

"After this, we went to Richmond to live. Uncle Charlie Morrison wrote Mother proposing that she quit teaching and make a home for him, Grandfather and Uncle John. Uncle Charlie had a prospering drug store on East Broad Street between 25th and 26th Streets."

This photo shows that block of Broad Street, between 25th and 26th. I don't know which exact storefront was the drug store, but would have been one of these.

"The furniture business in Petersburg had failed. Uncle John was a graduate M.D. so could easily take his place in the drug store.

We lived in a grey brick house on East Grace Street midway the block between 25th and 26th Streets on the side next to Broad Street. Our front yard contained box bushes, a beautiful bush of false japonica or flowering quince, a mimosa and a large locust or honey shucks tree. The back yard was long and had a plum tree and a large symmetrical English walnut tree, and a stable at the end. I could run out of the back gate, across a lot to the back of Uncle Charlies drug store. This is the block of East Grace which backs up to the same numbered block on E. Broad, where the drug store was. If you go midway down this block there is only one brick home and it has beautiful trees and shrubs on its side yard and a structure out back. I actually talked to the couple living on the left side of this brick home and they were so sweet. The man spoke to me mostly and said the house had been built in the 1840's and the structure out back could have been a stable, he hadn't ever thought of that. And that he did not know what the original color had been, but now it's painted this burgundy or dark red, which is quite attractive. I told him about Sallie and that when the large Walnut tree blew down she was heartbroken. But it was from the clay that upturned that she discovered her artistic talent. She molded animals from the clay and later in life she was a renowned artist in the Richmond and Lynchburg areas.

This red brick home, which is actually two dwellings is the only brick home midway of the block. I don't know if the house would have been divided as it is today. The photo of the side yard is to the left of the red brick structure.

When going around to the rear alley you see the backyard, now fenced in and the structure which may have been the stable. The alley being her easy route to her Uncle's drug store.