Nina Lucretia Weaver Dodge

Good evening, Family Trails readers. As readers of this family blog, I am just curious…are you descendants of Nettie and C.S. Weaver?… Are you friends of the Weaver family?…. Or just interested in the ramblings of a family in search of its roots? Whatever your reason is for checking in this week, I am glad that you are here. This is a welcoming spot for anyone who finds our family or any of the topics in this blog interesting. If you have been reading along for the past year, you are familiar with the Weaver family…the family that we call the "roots" of this Family Trails blog.  We definitely dig deeper and beyond the story of Nettie and Charles Sisson Weaver, but for this week, let us meet and remember their ninth child, Nina Lucretia Weaver Weaver Dodge. Nina was the ninth of ten children. She is the smaller girl standing to the right of her mother in this picture below.

 As you have read before, I think this picture is stunning! Just think of it… a mother and father with their 10 children, dressed in their summer finest for an outdoor photograph in front of their house…the oldest sons looking very dashing, the oldest daughters very fashionable, the younger children so precious in their sailor tops and heirloom dresses. 

This photograph looks similar to photos taken of passengers on the Titanic or the members of Tzar Nicholas' family, the last royals of the Russian Empire…the clothing styles, the arrangements of the children, the sepia tones, the expressions on their faces. This is all enough to make one pause and think…this was a very remarkable time in history, and yet …this is our history. This photograph was taken of Our family in Talladgea, Alabama, the fastest growing city in Alabama at the time. The family members in this photograph are Our parents, Our grandparents, Our great-grandparents…

When we stop to think like this, it was not that long ago. 

In this picture,  four year old Nina is standing next to her mother, looking to her right. 

Nina is standing in this picture in the green dress. 

Aunt Nina was a school teacher at the now Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. She was a good cook too! Any time her family and friends came to visit, she and her sister, Lora, baked home-made treats to serve their company. Nina continued as a teacher to her extended family long after her retirement from school. She indulged her extended family with educational gifts at Christmas and on birthdays. 

We have written about Clairmont Springs many times in our family blog. When I think about Clairmont Springs, I, of course,  think about Aunt Nina. She loved going to Clairmont. She and Tee received so much joy having children spend time there. Nina and Tee drove us all down narrow country roads to find wild blackberries, then they baked deep-dish blackberry cobblers for us. Nina and Tee took us to neighboring farms to meet the farmers and their wives. We helped milk a cow, and we watched as the farmer's wife strained the warm milk before she churned it. The farmer allowed us to gather eggs from his chickens and his quails. Aunt Nina and Tee knew that learning how other people lived was part of having a good education. 

Then back to Clairmont Springs for swimming and catching frogs...These ladies never got tired!

Family Trials is honored to remember Nina Lucretia Weaver Dodge during her birthday month of September. 

Love,

Mariellan

A Tip from the Tip Jar!

I just added six new photos to the blog post, "Bright Mountain" . They are pictures of the springs from the last time I went to Clairmont. I went with sister Rebecca and our cousin, Suzanne, and Uncle Robert. It was very difficult to walk the path to all of the springs, but these are the springs we were able to reach. We were there in the month of August. As interesting as it is to look closely at the spring boxes that have been there for over 100 years, also look closely at the woods surrounding them. The trees and overgrowth are so beautiful with hundreds of shades of green. 

Love,

Mariellan

"The Highest and Coolest Resort in Alabama"

What a great title for this week's blog post!  I found it on a copy of an old panoramic postcard that my sister gave me. 

Clairmont Springs has a rich history in the story of the state of Alabama. The land in the foothills of Cheaha Mountain of the Appalachians was inhabited by American Indians and appreciated for the many springs flowing out of the mountain. The ownership of the "Clairmont Springs" land after the American Indian dates back to 1830.  The Clairmont Springs resort is 18 miles from Talladega, in the northwestern part of Clay County. After changing ownership of the land over the years, in 1909 the Clairmont Springs Company developed the land with a hotel, a dance pavilion, and  lots for summer cottages. The development was on the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad.

This week's blog is based on the book,  Historic Alabama Hotels and Resorts by James F. Sulzby, Jr., copyright 1960, and the lines in italics are direct quotes from this book. 

During World War I, trains stopped at the hotel for the passengers to obtain meals, since the railroad had no diners on this route. These arrangements lasted through 1920. Many of the passengers later came back to the resort as guests, never forgetting the meals they enjoyed on their their stopover at Clairmont Springs.

A recreation hall and a swimming pool, facilities for dancing, tennis, and horseback riding, and a five-acre lake for fishing and boating provide entertainment for the hotel guests. For those who enjoy rocking and talking, there is the usual spacious screened porch.

It is a beautiful spot where one may rest and appreciate the beauty of living. It is "off the beaten path," and those who come that way come for a purpose. The purpose could easily be a pleasant week end or a longer visit at this 'marvelous-time' place, where simple living reigns and where mountain breezes blow.

The old hotel register shows names from Georgia, Florida, the District of Columbia, Illinois, North Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, New York, Mississippi, Kentucky, California, and from all parts of Alabama. Perhaps the largest clientele has come form Birmingham, Talladega, Ashland, Lineville, Alexander City, Roanoke, Opelika, Montgomery, and Bessemer. 

I like this old book about historic hotels and resorts. I like the way it is written in the present tense for Clairmont because when this book was published, Clairmont Springs was still a busy resort. There is one detail the writer left out about the resort's activities that I can actually remember, and that is the sport of "Horseshoes!"  I remember while walking to the pool in the afternoons, we stopped to watch the men playing "Horseshoes" in the lawn across from the hotel.

So, Clairmont Springs History 101 has come to a close this week.  I hope you have enjoyed reading excerpts from this book and seeing these pictures. Come back to next week's edition of Family Trails as we continue on this month's trail through Clairmont. 

Love,

Mariellan