Amy FitzSimons recollections: Charleston girlhood, dancing school, St. Mary's, St. Cecilia balls
Book 2, Page 25 ·1900–1910
Transcription
being a very home sick — lonely little girl —
But being in town I went to dancing school and enjoyed it — and I took music lessons. My family knows with what results — :).
At X’mas I would have wonderful house parties. Four or five girls and as many boys — Harry Sass and [Jansey?] and DuBose Heyward — Lucas Simons — Hick deSaussure — Those were the regulars —
After a winter and a half in Charleston I went to St. Mary’s school in Raleigh N. C. I was only there ½ a year —
Things were changing in S. C. Rice planting was on the decline. They could not compete with La. — There was a new baby at home — [Janie?] — “Patch” — and help was scarce — So when I went home for X’mas — I way stayed —
I tried to help with the house hold chores — and with the baby — and I had a good time too — I went to Charleston often for week ends — I generally stayed with Harry Sass. Those were “cadet days” — Lots of dates — dances and pic-nics — There were lots of nice boys at the College of Charleston too — and we always had our Charleston boys as steady beaus —
I made my debut the winter of 1906 + 1907 while Theodore Barker was president of the St. Cecilia at that time. He always took me to the balls — You weren’t allowed to have a date for a St. Cecilia — a girl always went with a chaperone —
AI Notes
Handwritten page in blue ink on ruled album paper, continuing Amy FitzSimons’s first-person memoir of her Charleston girlhood. Recollections of dancing school and music lessons; the X’mas house parties whose regulars were Harry Sass, [Jansey?], DuBose Heyward (the future Charleston novelist), Lucas Simons, and Hick deSaussure; a half-year at St. Mary’s school in Raleigh, NC; help during the rice-planting decline (rice could no longer compete with Louisiana); the birth of her baby sister (“Patch” — likely Mary Annie, the future Minnie Allston); week-end visits to Charleston staying with Harry Sass during the cadets’ days at The Citadel; and her debut in the winter of 1906–1907, when Theodore Gaillard Barker was president of the St. Cecilia Society. Right edge of page shows binder-hole reinforcements.
DuBose Heyward (1885–1940), the Charleston novelist who wrote Porgy (1925), was three years older than Amy and from the same Charleston society set; Lucas Simons and Hick deSaussure are likewise Charleston-society peers. “Theodore Barker” who presided over the St. Cecilia in 1906–07 is Theodore Gaillard Barker (1832–1917), the Confederate veteran and longtime St. Cecilia Society president (a Barker–FitzSimons kinship — Amy’s paternal grandmother was a Barker). The baby called “Patch” is Amy’s younger sister Mary Annie (later Mrs. D. M. Allston Sr., the second of the “two Minnies”).