The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

We’re also very proud of our little garden club, the Dahlias. In case you don’t know about us, we would like to tell you that our members have worked together for many years to make Darling the prettiest town in Alabama. Our club is named for Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone, who left us her beautiful house and gardens on Camellia Street, along with a weedy vacant lot that we’re turning into a big vegetable garden, which is important in these hard times, because some people are out of work and others are out of money and—


But we don’t like to dwell on things like that. Folks may not have much money, but Darling is still a pretty wonderful town, even though there may be one or two who (for their own personal reasons) want what belongs to other people and don’t much care how they get it. But that’s part of Mrs. Albert’s story, so that’s all we’ll say about that.

Anyway, while there are a few dark and underhanded doings in this book, there are plenty of bright places in it, and bright places all around us, too. We Dahlias are not Pollyannas, not by a long shot. We are perfectly aware that there’s a lot of trouble in this world. But we do like the old saying that Aunt Hetty Little has embroidered into a beautiful picture for our club wall. We keep our faces to the sun so we can’t see the shadows. It’s why we manage to stay (mostly) cheerful during these depressing times. And it’s also why we plant yellow and orange sunflowers and marigolds and cosmos in among the collards and sweet potatoes and string beans and okra in our gardens.

We hope you will, too.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Lacy, President

Ophelia Snow, Vice President & Secretary

Verna Tidwell, Treasurer





The Darling Dahlias Club Roster, April 1931

OFFICERS

Elizabeth Lacy, president. Secretary to Mr. Moseley, attorney at law, and garden columnist for the Darling Dispatch.

Ophelia Snow, vice-president and secretary. Wife of Darling’s mayor, Jed Snow.

Verna Tidwell, treasurer. Manager of the office of the Cypress County probate clerk and treasurer.

Bessie Bloodworth, club historian. Owner and proprietor of Magnolia Manor, a boardinghouse for genteel ladies next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse and gardens.

CLUB MEMBERS

Earlynne Biddle. Married to Henry Biddle, the manager at the Coca-Cola bottling plant. A rose fancier.

Fannie Champaign. The newest member of the club, Fannie owns Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux, on the west side of the courthouse square, where she has a flower garden. She says that her flowers are the inspiration for her hats.

Mrs. George E. Pickett (Voleen) Johnson. Wife of the owner of the Darling Savings and Trust Bank and president of the Darling Ladies Club. Specializes in pure white flowers.

Mildred Kilgore. A collector of camellias, Mildred is married to Roger Kilgore, the owner of Kilgore Motors. The Kilgores live near the Cypress Country Club.

Aunt Hetty Little. Oldest member of the club, town matriarch, and lover of gladiolas.

Myra May Mosswell. Co-owner of the Darling Diner, co-owner and operator in the Darling Telephone Exchange, and champion vegetable gardener. Lives in the flat over the diner with Violet Sims and Violet’s little girl, Cupcake.

Lucy Murphy. Married to Ralph Murphy and lives on a small farm on Jericho Road. Lucy just planted a peach orchard to help make ends meet.

Miss Dorothy Rogers. Darling’s librarian and a spinster. Miss Rogers knows the Latin name of every plant and insists that everybody else does, too. She lives in Magnolia Manor.

Beulah Trivette. Artistically talented owner/operator of Beulah’s Beauty Bower. Loves cabbage roses and other big, floppy flowers.

Alice Ann Walker. Bank cashier. Enjoys iris and daylilies because they don’t take a lot of work. Her husband Arnold is disabled but tends the family vegetable garden.





ONE

The Dahlias Get Down and Dirty



Elizabeth Lacy took off her floppy green straw garden hat and fanned herself with it. The late April sky was leaden gray and the young leaves on the live oak trees hung limp and unmoving in the languid Saturday afternoon air. Lizzy hadn’t checked the thermometer beside the back door of the Darling Dahlias’ clubhouse, but she’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the temperature was nudging ninety. And judging from the weight of the air and the way her blue blouse was sticking to her shoulders, the humidity was way up there, too. She glanced nervously toward the clouds in the west, which were tinged with a darker, more ominous purple. As she watched, a flash of lightning zigzagged from the base of the cloud.

Lizzy raised her voice to the women working in the large vegetable garden next to the clubhouse. All three of them—Ophelia Snow, Verna Tidwell, and Bessie Bloodworth—were club officers. Ophelia was the vice-president and secretary; Verna was treasurer; and Bessie was the newly elected club historian.

“Hey, everybody. Let’s finish up as soon as we can. We don’t want to be out here in the open when that storm hits.”