With this I begin a new series of “Deep South Stories,” some in narrative form, others in poetic form, and all inspired by my mother’s memories and my own. In the 92nd year of her life my mother, Mamie, died. She and Hugh, my father, are buried beside my father’s parents in Vidette Cemetery. Vidette is a trackside town on the Waynesboro-Louisville Road. “Baby”, as family members called her, was surrounded at graveside by more than 100 people, including one of her high school teachers at Vidette High School, all gathered to celebrate her return to the red clay of Burke County Georgia. Her death inspired this reflection.
Little remains of “downtown” Vidette today as you can see from Brian Brown’s photo (published with his permission), one of the many thousands of wonderful photographs on his monumental website “Vanishing Georgia.” To the left once stood the office of Dr. McCarver, a physician, businessman and my grandmother’s brother-in-law. The trackside towns of East Georgia were a small world unto themselves, where an emerging rural middle class was rising only to be crushed by the disastrous events of the 1920’s.
Vidette
The crossroads place known as Vidette has one store and a neatly mown cemetery, lovingly kept. The village name means (from the French) an outrider, a cavalryman who ranges along the edge of the columnto warn the troops of the enemy’s approach -or, to sound the alarm If hostiles wait in ambush.
I cannot say how the town got its name, but there it sits to this day between Waynesboro and Louisville, near where Sherman’s ravaging army passed by, laden with chickens and followed by another army, one of slaves celebrating freedom, families were to be abandoned by their liberators as the mighty blue ribbon stretched toward Savannah.
Here my mother and father lie In the arms of eternity, free of the illnesses that took them yet able to see at last clearly the joys and anguishes they shared. They see us from their vantage point beyond time:, outriders who cannot warn us. Witnesses whose voices are lost to us.
“Vidette” from Library of Congress.
Our cousin, Denise Youngblood is wanting to receive your Longleafjournal subscription.
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Nina Hudson from Gough was her grandmother. Please welcome her to your wonderful family history stories. Thank you Joe.
I love this! It also makes me wonder who thought of such an elegant name for this small track side stop. Maybe one of your future entries will highlight “Dover” near Statesboro. Of course, Dwight and I had to go find this tiny forgotten rail stop. One weekend in 1970 I was in Atlanta for a job interview and had the privilege of riding the Nancy Hanks home to Statesboro. The stop in Dover was the closest station back then. As the train slowed for the stop, the conductor made sure that I had someone waiting to meet me. The ‘station’ was actually abandoned with one streetlight shining in the dark. Dwight and some other friends were there. I don’t think that he wanted to wait alone in that forgotten place.
Pam,
Great to hear from you-especially mention of the Nancy Hanks. My short story “Riding Home on the Nancy Hanks” was winner of the Fleming Literary Competion a cople of years back. I plan to publish it here later. As you see, I am devoted to keeping alive small town Georgia and unerstanding what destroyed so many of these. Hope you read my recent piece on the fraudulent bank scheme that broke so many small towns-as well as their newspapers. Be sure to check out my friend Brian Brons website “Vanishing Georgia.”
Joe
Well done, Joe
I’m glad that you posted it. Thanks.
George
Hi Georgie,
Great to catch up with you. Hope you will continue to read and comment on my posts.
Joe
Fascinating facts around Vidette – a French name. So very interesting how the original townspeople established a viable town for themselves. But…with time, residents went elseware and the town buildings remained. It is wonderful to be able to know this about your family history! Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks, Marnette. As you will see, I am leaning in hard on the stories of rural Geotgia towns and their rising middle class in the World War I era and 1920’s. Theirs were the remnants of wealth and culture lost as a result of the Civil War and Reconstruction. It seems so ironic to me that what we assume to have been the culture of the south has been preserved, while the consequnces of that aristocratic, slaveholding elite is still idolized and seems to be the only history that southerners cling to. I am attempting to offer a new version of deep south history.
Vidette is interesting on several levels. It was one of many small towns that sprouted along the new link in the Georgia-Florida Railroad (Keysville, Gough and Vidette among them). I don’y believe any were ever actually incorporated, but each had its own doctor and elementary school. Of the three, only Vidette had a high school, which my mother attended. Almost thirty years later my brother attended Vidette High after the family moved back to Gough (I was in grad school at the time). Since it was possible to step on a passenger train at least once a day, people along the route maintained ties of frienship, church affiliation and spots. The main off highway street in Vidette was called College Street as I recall-college being an equivalent of a high school “academy.” My father’s aunt and uncle lived in Vidette -sister and brother-in-law to my grandmother in Gough-and the two branches of the family were deeply involved in bisuiness schemes, Masonic activities and banking.