Stepping Out

There's much more to say about Moulton Street and I'm undecided about which way to take her at this point in these postings. I'll say a few more things about my early impressions, then I'll leave her for now. From my book:

"I can’t imagine my life without the old house and the unforgettable early impact of its sweet sensations, for instance, the smells. The fragrances of certain things transport me to that place and time on Moulton Street. Like Nannie, my grandmother, once said, “Only age could give a house such patina”, or from my perspective, such a rich sensual palate. My love for a long hot bath must have been born there in Nannie’s old claw-foot tub with the sweet smelling pink Camay or Palmolive soaps she consistently bought at the corner A &P. Only a service station stood between her house and the grocery store and only a street stood between the store and the Paramount movie theater where I began my omnipresent love of movies. Perhaps those earliest, first sensations in every arena remain the most indelible impressions of a lifetime."

There will be more about Moulton Street. She will be mentioned again as I return to the line of ancestors I'm covering and cannot avoid telling of their alliance and interaction with the old home.

Sadly, for her and for me,  I'll opt for a description of the end of her long life.

 The Montgomery Advertiser

Monday, March 23, 1964

Business Tide Laps Around Faded Link to Bright Past

Time Closes on Historic Downtown Residence

Bereft of Magnolias, Bibb House Stoically Awaits the End

The historic Bibb home on Moulton Street, established by scions of Virginia aristocracy and once the gathering place of such Southern notables as Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, and Robert Toombs, may soon be going with the wind.
Indicative of the coming change was the cutting down of the massive magnolia trees which once flanked the walk leading to the brown frame house. Hidden for decades by the dense foliage, the house is now bared, in all its stark dilapidation, to the view of passerby.
The passing will be mourned by those who cherish Southern tradition, but time and the elements have so deeply scarred the old residence that its destruction would seem inevitable.
Patch-work repairs no longer suffice and a general restoration is not feasible, either structurally or financially. Over six decades have passed since it was last painted.
Mrs. Mattie Bibb Edmondson, one of seven generations in the same family who have lived in the house, said she expects to move out in a few months. She will live with her son, George B. Edmondson, at Thorn Place."