Wedding Venue?

Our daughter Lillian and her fiancé, Jordan Friedman are planning a wedding for this fall. They haven't yet chosen the site for the ceremony. Today Lillian, with two of her close friends, Hillary Sawyer and Russell Evans with me and Sheila walked around the old waterworks building on Jackson Hill right in the heart of Rome. The city has remodeled the old building into an event center. They haven't hosted a wedding yet.

The old building has several things going for it, in my book anyway.

57 years ago our friend Michael Burton talked the city fathers into allowing the Rome Art League to host a coffee house for young folks in the deserted old building on city property at the top of the beautiful wooded hill off Turner McCall Boulevard above the Oostanaula River. Mike and Carolyn and their friends got busy hanging burlap to cover the rough walls, building a small stage in one corner, collecting small tables, borrowing sculpture from noted Rome artist MacLean Marshall to adorn the space, and recruiting for outstanding folk singers like, ahem, Terrell Shaw, Cleve Burton, Richard Ware, Gary Smith, Tony Baker and others.

Cleve Burton and I were probably singing something like "Ain't No More Cane On This Brazos"

Tony Baker

In the intervening years Jackson Hill and the adjacent Burwell Creek area has become one of my favorite places. So much so that when the city considered in the 2000s the idea of selling off part of the property to developers I helped organize a political action group, "Save Rome's Central Park," to oppose that.

Here are some of our pictures from to day.

 You will find more here:

The Star Spangled Banner

 And here:

The World's Largest Coffeehouse

 And here:

For Gary

And a little, very recently, here:

Christmas and Hanukkah 2022

Gleaning Facebook: Lisette

My niece Sarah Lisette Lewis was born a matter of days after our daughter Brannon. And since their family moved to Rome when she was still a little girl, she and Brannon and a little later their slightly older cousin Amanda (who moved to Rome in the nineties) grew up almost like sisters. Lisette's Mom, my sister Debi, often kept both girls and sometimes all three, along with her boys, at her house while Sheila and I were working. 

We love that girl. Yesterday we had to vicariously enjoy her happiness through her mother's messages and those of her Aunt Jan.  Lisette got married to a fellow named Dan Dill. We just wish her much joy and a long life of love and joy with Dan. 

This screenshot links to the photographers gallery of Lisette and Dan's wedding pictures.

And here are a few other pictures of Lisette from my albums...

Brannon and Lisette in their mothers' laps.

Lisette and Brannon at the beach.

(L-R) Matthew, Benjamin, Brannon, Me, Lisette, Andrew
at the lake at Floyd College (now Georgia Highlands)

Lisette in blue leaning into GrandShaw's lap. With her cousins (L-R) Josh, Matthew, Grandmother, Jessica, Amanda, Lisette, Brannon, GrandShaw, Andrew.

(L-R) Brannon, Amanda, Lisette, Jessica in their matching outfits at Mexico Beach,

(L-R) Lisette, Lillian, Brannon, and Rachel on the swing in our front yard at 608 Cedar Ave., Rome

Trinity's Children's Choir musical. Can you pick out Brannon and Lisette?

Lisette & Brannon

Lisette & Brannon

Brannon, Jessica, & Lisette at Mexico Beach

Mother surrounded by five of her granddaughters: 
(Clockwise from the left) Lisette, Lillian, Amanda, Brannon, and Jessica .

Brannon, Lisette, and Haley at Mother's house.

Lisette with Sheila at Mark & Shawna's wedding.

Lisette with our Clementine

(L-R) Lillian, Lisette, Caroline, and Renee in our backyard on the Fourth of July.

51 Years!

Sheila climbing the front steps of Tallahassee Heights United Methodist Church as my fiancé.
She and I would leave as wife and husband.

Fifty-one years ago today I married my best friend and the love of my life. I am an incredibly lucky man. Our anniversary last year was clouded by sadness at the passing of my Mother, and again this year we are in mourning for a dear family member, my sister Beth who died on August 5. But we know to count our blessings, and there is no greater blessing in my life than Sheila. 

Sheila and I have had an unusual and very emotional anniversary. We are trying to find and scan pictures of Beth. It still just seems unreal that she could be gone. Every picture I find brings, almost simultaneously, sweet memories and a sudden emptiness in the pit of the stomach.

Here is one of those pictures...

Beth on the day we brought Brannon home, with our sister Carol,
Carol's daughter Larisa, and my Grandmother Lillian.

I posted a link on Facebook to my post on the Limb a year ago that shows our "cut-out" posed here and there around the house. As a result we have had anniversary greetings from lots and lots of our old and new friends. 

That "cut-out" now stands near the end of our upstairs hall where is startles me regularly.

Gleaning Facebook: With Jan and Gil at the Wedding

From Janice Crouse's Facebook --

Gil and I with my brother, Terrell Shaw, and sister-in-law, Sheila Matthews Shaw. (At Lewis and Anna’s wedding)

Comments

Joan Shaw Turrentine
I’m so glad you got this. We dropped the ball at Natalie’s wedding.

Janice Shaw Crouse
I was so thankful Terry and Sheila were there. Terry went around and talked to so many people. I couldn’t and felt like that made us look aloof and unfriendly. I’m glad Terrell filled that need! Thank you, Bud! Terrell Shaw

Andrea Shaw Hayes
Great picture 

 

Time Machine: Our Wedding Day

We attended church at Tallahassee Heights United Methodist Church that morning then the wedding party met at Sheila's Aunt Dot Peebles' house for lunch. This picture was taken there.

-------------------

We recited poems to each other during the ceremony. Sheila recited :

If I can bear your love like a lamp before me,

When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness,

I shall not fear the everlasting shadows,

Nor cry in terror.

If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,

If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,

Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,

A lamp in darkness.

~ Sara Teasdale

I recited a poem I had written for Sheila:

Wedding Song

To Sheila

Let us possess one world;

each hath one, and is one. -John Donne

Through you, first love, gift of my God,

I taste the love of every Eve, innocently,

As the first and every Adam.

By you, sharer of my soul, I hear a song

resounding through the centuries within myself.

It is from you, primordial bud,

I know the fragrance of each and

all the blossoming days.

Dear heart of my heart,

they are your hands that have held mine

to nature's heart.

They are your eyes, graceful beauty,

which have shown to me meaning

in fathomless space and time.

And it is for all time and space,

for each and all the dawns and days,

for every blossom

and all the beats of that great collective heart,

my Eve,

our loves are one

and each. 

- Terrell Shaw

The wedding party: Ron Johnston, Mary Grace Cash, Gary Veale, Sharlee Caister Gipson, Judy Chastain, Sheila, Terrell, David Shaw, Carol Shaw Johnston, Kevin Moore, Debi Shaw, Jimmy Matthews

L-R: James Clarence Matthews, Esther Mavis Snell Matthews, Sheila Ann Matthews Shaw, Charles Terrell Shaw, Sarah Ruth Baird Shaw, Charles Columbus Shaw. 2011 Facebook Comment from Joan Shaw Turrentine: "It was a good day for the Shaw family. I got my 5th sister and a new appreciation for the many talents and strengths of my baby brother."

L-R: Judy Chastain (Maid of Honor), Sheila, Terrell, David Baird Shaw (Best Man)

8-8-71
Tallahassee Heights UMC
Tallahassee FL
2011 note: Charlie and Rhoda were fellow interns of mine in the National Teacher Corps in WV. Rhoda's husband Kevin was one of my groomsmen. Rhoda died of cancer several years ago. Bob and Sharlee Gipson are our dear friends from college days. As you can see Sharlee was one of Sheila's bridesmaids.
Comment:
Ruth Baird Shaw
Beautiful wedding and I got another wonderful daughter I love as my own.

L-R: Judy Chastain, Carol Shaw Johnston, Ron Johnston, Rhoda Moore, Charlie Yates. 2011 note: We attended church that Sunday morning, then the wedding party met at Aunt Dot's home on the south side of town for Sunday dinner before the afternoon wedding. We had originally planned to be married on Saturday the 7th, but found the church already reserved by another couple for that date.

Leaving for the honeymoon...

 

Engagement

from the Rome News-Tribune, July 4, 1971 

Time Machine: Joan & Jim, June 9, 1963