Life after war

Prior to the Civil War, the Scott family enjoyed all the benefits of wealth. For example, Rebecca and the chidren made the Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East, as was customary in the education of privileged American children North and South. During the Civil War, Rebecca and her sons lived comfortably on Colonel Nixon's cotton plantation, waited on by black slaves. The Colonel continued to cultivate and harvest the cotton, although the Union naval blockade of Mobile prevented the planters from shipping their product to the mills in the United Kingdom where it was spun into cloth.  The cotton bales were piled up on wharves up and down the Alabama River waiting for a resolution of the war that would open up trade again.

After the last two Scotts departed for the North, the war came to an end with the surrender of Lee and Joseph E. Johnson's armies and the fall of Richmond to the Union forces. Sometime after that, camp followers from the North descended upon the Nixon plantation, looted it, burned the manor house to the ground, and set fire to four years' crop of cotton on the wharf.

Presevation of the Scott fortune

When the Civil War broke out, Rebecca Scott, the second wife of Alfred Vernon Scott, was living in Washington DC with her three minor chidren, Alice, Alfred V. Scott, II (as far as I know, our family never went for the honorific "Junior"), and Willie, named after Rebecca's father and her brother, both named William Owen Nixon, who lived on his plantation in Lowndes County, Alabama. Rebecca, "a dyed in the wool Southerner," had no desire to reside in the US capitol, so she plotted to move her family to her uncle's home until the Confederate states whipped the Yankee's butts.

Rebecca was successful in slipping across the Potomac River into Virginia; but, taking her money along was out of the question. The group made their way to Richmond where Alice met and married Dr. Algernon S. Garnett, who already had a distinguished record with the United States Navy prior to resigning his commission and accepting an equivalent one with the small Confederate Navy. Alice remained in Virginia while Rebecca and her sons proceeded on to Alabama.

As noted, this narrative is based on the stories Grandpapa related to his five grandchildren, my two cousins, Joan and Cynthia Scott, my two older sisters, Anne and Kay, and me, many times over the years. (It is also well documented in published research.) Grandpapa was 64 years old when I was born and I knew him only as our old but energetic "Grumpapa," the nickname one of us (probably Kay) bestowed on account of his cantankerous nature.

So, the Civil War dragged on for 4 years at the end of which it became evident the Confederacy, as Alfred Scott predicted, would suffer total defeat. Before that humiliation came to pass, the younger Alfred died tragically. On the 22nd of June, 1863, Alfred had gone hunting accompanied by a young slave. Having wounded a squirrel that fell to the ground, Alfred attempted to finish it off with the butt of his gun. Unfortunately, the weapon fired striking Alfred in the head. The slave ran back to the plantation house shouting, "Come quick, Marse Alfred done shot hisself!" Alfred was dead and when the family went through his belongings, a Confederate uniform in his size was found hidden in his closet. Alfred had intended to slip away and enlist.

Alfred's death left only his mother and younger brother of the family who had left Washington DC. With news of the impending defeat of the Confederacy, Rebecca learned that her money in the Northern bank was in danger of being confiscated. She and Willie had no recourse but to return to Washington DC to claim the intact fortune. And so they did.

Grandpapa

Frank Kernochan Scott, my paternal grandfather, was born February 13, 1888 in Washington, DC and died July 12, 1979, in Montgomery, Alabama, a city founded by settlers led by his Great-grandfather, John Scott. Grandpapa, as I knew him, was born into a wealthy, connected family and was raised as a spoiled aristocrat. He spoke with what sounded to me like a British accent, particularly noticable on the words he pronounced as 'tomahto' and 'potahto.' This must have been the way upper class Washingtonians spoke at the end of the 19th Century.

Grandpapa's father was the first William Owen Nixon Scott, youngest child of the first Alfred Vernon Scott. By the inscrutable workings of Fate, Willie Scott inherited the antebellum fortune of his grandfather who, anticipating the South's disastrous Civil War adventure, had liquidated his material wealth and moved it to Washington DC, then died on May 26, 1860, one year prior to the outbreak of hostilities. The money stayed in a Northern bank during the war to be clained by Willie's mother. Rebecca Nixon Scott, as the war ended.

Grandpapa loved to tell this story. I listened to it, along with other key narratives, at an early age on a visit to Montgomery and it became a foundational element of my identity as the only male descendant of William Owen Nixon Scitt of my generation carrying the Scott name forward, just as it was for Grandpapa.

Day of the Dead

Maureen and Cody are having a small church wedding on Sunday in Dallas, followed by a 3-day celebration including a second church wedding in San Miguel del Allende, Mexico, the following weekend. They are employing a Día de Muertos theme that is very cool aesthetically, a part of which entails assembling photos of deceased ancestors to place on an altar. Accordingly, I went through some of the boxes of family archives I brought home from Athens after Mom's death. The exercise pulled together several dimension of grief that converged into a wave of heavy sadness reminiscent of Poe's lament over his inability to hold on to any of the grains of sand slipping through his fingers into the void of yesterday.

Message from the ceiling fan

At its slow speed, the ceiling fan in our bedroom with each cycle makes noise sounding like a person talking. My brain automatically hears this as English speech and continues to do so, even though I know it's just machine noise. This morning I heard it saying over and over, "You have cancer."

Remembering Dad on his birthday

Dad was born on April 22, 1917, 102 years ago today, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

My family always had a modest and comfortable middle-class life that met all of our needs. After my Grandpapa, his father, died on July 12, 1979 (the day before I turned 27 years old), Dad and his brother, Alfred, inherited a tract of land in Alabama that had been in the family since the Civil War. They had to sell the land to pay Alabama inheritance taxes. My Dad invested his share of the remainder and enjoyed the benefit of a long bull market. Many years later, his financial advisor told me Dad should start gifting his children and grandchildren to avoid inheritance taxes at his death. I approached him about this and Dad's reply was "I don't want to do that." Why not, I asked? I want to make sure your mother is taken care of if I die first, he said and that was that.

Footnote: My Dad was 62 years old when Grandpapa died. I was 62 years old when my Dad died.

Stammer and Crumb

Dave Stammer visited last week while Mary Lou and Jenny were vacationing in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. I had played with Larry Bradford at Henry Turner's Listening Room for the first time 2 weeks earlier on March 24 and Henry had asked me to come back and play for 3 consecutive Thursdays. We worked up six songs with Dave and ended up playing four due to the appearance of two more artists (an individual and a duo) that evening. Both performances at Henry's went well. While Dave was staying at our house, he and I watched The Kids Are All Right, a documentary about the Who, and another documentary, Crumb, about iconic comic artist R. Crumb. The latter was a poignant and intimate glimpse into the strange life of Crumb and his bizarre and extremely dysfunctional family of origin. Through the cartoon art and Crumb's dark artistic vision, the documentary brought up vivid recollections of my rejection of American and indeed world society during my adolescence and my own dark view of civilization, such as it is. My thoughts have been haunted since viewing it over a period of three days. I want to write more to articulate the impact but will I? I'm doubtful but we'll see.