Miss Annie Campbell of Kosciusko took up where Miss Susie McCutcheon left off in the Domestic Science branch of the Greenville school system.
By that time the town had a new high school, which cost all of thirty-nine thousand dollars to build, and Miss Annie, who would soon become Mrs. N. E. Wingate must have been justly proud of the five or six stoves and accessories which the school board "whanged loose" and purchased for her.
This reminds us of a line in our third-grade copy-book, quote:
"Great oaks from little acorns grow!"
That line could be the golden text for Mrs. Wingate's memoirs, if she ever gets around to writing them; how one average-sized school-room developed into the public school cafeterias as we know them today.
Lots of busy folks have hobbies and Miss Annie is no exception. Somewhere, and somehow, she has found time to become an authority on camellias. And brother, you can use up a lot of spare time just covering and uncovering those bushes to match the sudden changes of delta weather. We see where Mrs. Wingate addressed the Magnolia Garden Club a few days ago on the subject of camellias. And today we learned that she is every bit as generous with the flowers themselves as she is with her know-how concerning them.
Each Sunday morning, throughout the blooming season, each patient at Kings Daughters Hospital receives a Wingate camellia on his or her breakfast-tray. And all of us, sick or well, will travel a far piece before meeting up with another such gracious gesture.
We might add that these dainty flowers are delivered to the diet kitchen too, and that's where our old friend Ernie comes in. When Mrs. Wingate offered the flowers to Kings Daughters Hospital, Manager Stanley said the hospital would gladly furnish transportation. In that way, he explained, Mr. Wingate could get a little more sleep on the one morning in the week that extra shuteye was available.
"What time do you serve breakfast?" Asked Mrs. Wingate.
"At seven o’clock", replied Mr. Stanley.
"Well", said Miss Annie. "Wingate can bring the camellias and still get that supplementary sleep you're talking about. You see, he gets up at five every morning week-days, and five-thirty on Sundays."
Which shows how early training leaves its mark on a man. As night-dispatcher for the Southen Railroad, when the century was young, Ernie Wingate didn't have to get up. because he was already up at five AM.
Getting back to Miss Annie's lecture on camellias, we note that they were named for a man named Kamel who never even saw one, so we cannot suppress the; thought that it would be better to credit them to Mrs. Wingate.
After all, Miss Annie has scene plenty of camellias, and her middle name is Campbell.
Today, February 12th, is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. When we were a little boy, we spent our summers with Father's parents at Morristown, in East Tennessee. There was an old lady who lived there named Mrs. Donelson. Now that's a good name in the Volunteer State (Andrew Jackson's wife was born Rachel Donelson), but the old lady was distinguished, not because of her name, but because of an adventure. One of her sons had been a soldier in the Union Army. He fell asleep while on guard duty one night, for which he was court-martialed and sentenced to be shot.
Mrs. Donelson got word of the fate in store for him, and made tracks for Washington, by horseback, stagecoach, and train. The cabinet was in session, but somehow she gained admittance and made a plea for her son's life. She remembered how sad, how tired, President Lincoln looked, as he scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to her. She also remembered a fat man with a red beard, and how mean he looked, and how he tried to talk Mr. Lincoln out of sparing young Donelson's life. (That would have been Secretary of War Stanton.)
All of which recalls the couplet by Desoto County's Walter Malone, concerning Abraham Lincoln, quote: —
"A blend of mirth and sadness, smiles and tears,
A quaint knight-errant of the pioneers
A homely hero, born of star and sod,
A peasant-prince, a masterpiece of God!"
B.C.
