As I was writing yesterday, I realized more than ever what a stalwart the Bibb house had been for dozens of people who had known her, or lived with her, frequently visited her, or simply admired her. The following is from an article in The Birmingham News, 1935, and illustrates one reporter's appreciation for the mysterious old lady.
"…The wide walk leading up to the front portico might have accommodated a coach and six. Sweet smells, Southern smilax, a mixture of box, magnolia, wisteria, and hidden shrubs most fragrant were in the yard despite the scurrying cars and gasoline odors without the fenced area….the ornamental eaves of the spreading roof and the small, slightly ornamented columns of the veranda bespeak of the simplification of the Greek revival to the town-house type leading to the encroachments that were to follow later. The ample veranda was well-supported with the rockers of that period…"
More from The Birmingham News article on the house's interior:
"…Rather dark, and slightly chilly is the wide hall, but soon we were in the spacious parlor where with light streaming through windows unretarded, a great warmth prevailed. The parlor is the first of the suite of three rooms that sweep the length of the house, each connected with the other by double sliding doors, which when slid into the walls made of the half of the house, one room capable of accommodating hundreds on state occasions."
She went on and on in an effusive, yet affectionate manner to describe details of the house, its furnishings, its inhabitants, and decorative arts, and ended by saying--
"The Bibb Home is a veritable storehouse of discriminate collecting. It stands a symbol of the ante-bellum days, when gracious living was a traditional part of Montgomery’s everyday life. And it continues to lend its charm to the present day life of our city."
The article is included in its entirety in my book.
I know the dark hallway she described. Like I mentioned earlier, I knew that house intimately. Amongst those who revered Moulton Street manor, as I did, were those who sometimes feared her. As a child, I had my moments. From my book and recollections:
"Time and staleness had taken their toll on the outside of the Bibb home and had permeated the walls with decay by the time I was old enough to notice or recall my grandmother's home. By the early 1950s, the antique furnishings original to the house, nursed by four or five Bibb generations, showed serious signs of malnutrition, as did the house. The floors had blackened with an oily covering that easily darkened my bare feet as I romped through the house. The exterior planks of pine grayed like their last breath had been drawn. Yet, for me, the mysterious house oozed magic, nothing less than a laboratory for my imagination. Who lived at the top of the creepy dark staircase? What secrets remained behind the locked doors up there where no one went anymore? What fate awaited if I fell off either side of the old brick path encircling the home?"
And again, my perspective on the old home:
"The ante-bellum house, draped in black like my great grandmother, stood back from the street, separated ominously by an ornate dark wrought iron fence originally conceived as decoration but now a warning to pervasive commercialism and curious passers-by to STAY OUT. The fence sent the strong and protective message to any who deemed the house either haunted, or abandoned, or both.
My earliest memories of any sort began there in the mysterious environs of Moulton Street, to this day mentioned as that scary old house downtown or as the house that never should have been torn down."
Yes. Torn down. More on being torn apart tomorrow.
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