The Hostesses of Brookgreen Gardens
One of my greatest treats as a child was to spend the day with Cousin Corrie at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Here in the warm Carolina Lowcountry, Twentieth Century philanthropists Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington had created America’s first public sculpture garden among the ancient, moss-draped live oak trees of four historic rice plantations: Brookgreen, Springfield, Laurel Hill, and The Oaks.
Back in those simpler days of the 1950s, visitors to Brookgreen Gardens turned off the narrow pavement of coastal Highway 17—the King’s Highway, of Colonial times—onto two parallel strips of gray-white concrete, spaced just far enough apart to support the wheels of a car.
Visitors drove slowly along those concrete ribbons through the fragrant pines of the wooded deer park and past an island built up in the black-water swamps to display a larger-than-life white marble sculpture, Youth Taming the Wild, to a sandy parking lot near the Diana Pool, with its snowy white blossoms floating among thick green lily pads. There, they left their cars in as shady a spot as possible and entered the Gardens on foot, with no admission fee or gatekeeper.
After a leisurely stroll through the majestic Live Oak Allee, with perhaps a detour into the sunny Palmetto Garden, alive with darting blue-tailed skinks, a peek inside the Old Kitchen, and a dip of the fingers into the cool water of the Alligator Bender Pool, visitors arrived at the low, wide porch of a simple gray-brick building. This structure had housed the overseer and his family when Brookgreen operated as a busy rice plantation. Now it served as the Museum and the entranceway to two open-air galleries for small sculpture.
Inside the Museum, tinkling sounds of splashing water from the Frog Baby Fountain, in the first gallery, created a feeling of sanctuary from the summer heat that often grew oppressive by mid-morning in the Lowcountry.
This Museum served as the Visitors’ Center of its day. Here, two smiling and lavender-scented “sixty-ish” Southern ladies in sturdy shoes welcomed visitors. These two Hostesses represented the only staff in evidence throughout the Gardens, other than the occasional groundskeeper trimming ivy.
In the cool dim interior of the Museum, Miss Genevieve and Cousin Corrie sold postcards, gave directions, and told stories to visitors interested enough to ask questions about the Gardens.
Boxy glass display cases formed a counter along the front wall of the Museum. Mostly, these cases held stacks of picture postcards. Black-and-white cards sold for five cents, sepia cards for ten cents, and colored cards for twenty-five cents each. Books and pamphlets about the Gardens were also available. Intermixed with this literature stood other objects, not for sale, that stimulated frequent questions and often led to Miss Genevieve and Cousin Corrie’s stories.
Cousin Corrie, my first cousin one generation removed, was born Cornelia Sarvis Dusenbury in 1888, as her home state of South Carolina emerged from the chaos of Reconstruction. She spent much of her childhood at Murrells Inlet, a fishing village on the South Carolina coast, and then worked for many years as a schoolteacher and librarian in the larger town of Florence.
In retirement, Cousin Corrie returned to Murrells Inlet where she joined writer, artist, and local historian Genevieve Wilcox Chandler to become a Hostess at Brookgreen Gardens.
Miss Genevieve was just a bit younger than Cousin Corrie. As a youngster, she had come to Murrells Inlet with her family from Marion, South Carolina, but stayed, married, and raised five children here. She often supported them by writing articles on local subjects after the early death of her husband. When the Huntingtons created Brookgreen Gardens, they asked Miss Genevieve to become its Hostess.
During my visits to Brookgreen Gardens, Cousin Corrie and Miss Genevieve—as I called her, using the traditional Southern form of address for a grown-up family friend—let me help them with their hostess duties, much to my delight. I also enjoyed playing hide-and-seek among the sun-dappled sculptures and looking for painted river turtles sleeping on logs that floated in the old ricefield swamps. I loved darting from the shelter of one live oak canopy to the next as gentle summer showers brought forth earthy aromas from the garden undergrowth.
I especially thrilled at wading in cool out-of-the-way sculpture pools when no one was looking. But my very favorite treat was listening to Miss Genevieve and Cousin Corrie tell stories of Brookgreen and the Carolina Lowcountry to spellbound Garden visitors, me included.
Each Hostess had her own distinct repertoire. One never encroached on the other’s territory. “Now you will have to ask Mrs. Chandler about that,” or “Miss Dusenbury can tell you that story,” were common responses to visitors’ queries. If one or the other of the ladies were absent that day, then the unlucky visitor left without hearing her special tales.
Miss Genevieve tended to cover historical figures and folktales. She had collected local stories for “Mr. Roosevelt” as a writer for the 1930s WPA government employment program and had an ear for lowcountry dialects.
Cousin Corrie focused on hurricanes, family tales, and accounts of Confederate and Yankee conflicts along the Carolina coast. Her stories related more to her own personal experiences. Of course, each cherished her own unique collection of ghost stories.
I heard some of these narratives repeated to countless visitors. The tale of the haunted Wachesaw beads became a favorite. Other stories, I only heard once or twice and remember only in snippets, although I have often been able to fill in gaps from other sources. All these stories excited my interest in the historical figures and everyday people who came here before us to the broad ricefields and wooded uplands that became Brookgreen Gardens.
These are the stories Miss Genevieve and Cousin Corrie told, as best I remember them. In my mind, these tales weave themselves together with swaying Spanish moss, sparkling splashing fountains, and the gray-brick latticework walls winding through Brookgreen Gardens. They create visions of the timeless spirit forever living in the heart of the Carolina Lowcountry.