Returning the Deb to the Delta

Lizzie headed to brunch with her great and great great grandmothers looking over her.

Not many places are as committed to keeping their past alive like the Mississippi Delta. Which is why it continues to be tagged "The Most Southern Place on Earth". Even as somewhat outsiders, my family and I find ourselves no exception this weekend. This weekend we have traveled 5 or so hours north from our home in coastal Alabama to the farm my family started in 1867 in Minter City, MS. It’s the start of the Little Season for the Southern Debutante Assembly and my oldest daughter, Lizzie, has been honored to be a part of this heritage. I hope that this experience will connect her to this land and provide her with the peace and security that only an old family home, misted in memories and love, can provide. My hope for her is that the stories of her grandmothers, great grandmothers and great great grandmothers will weave into her own story and connect her to this home, this land, and the community in which it resides. I spend a few weeks a year at the old family farm. I drive up from my small town of Fairhope, AL to enjoy a family Thanksgiving every year. My six siblings and our families enjoy a week of hunting, reading, nights by the fire pit and some intermittent mischief. We mostly stay here on the reservation though. Then I try to fit in at least a long weekend or two alone or with friends to enjoy the Blues and see the crops and bulbs coming in at various seasons. But the musical trips take me to Clarksdale and the harvest stalking keeps me in the country.

The Smokehouse on the grounds is the oldest building in Leflore County - 1867

Lizzie poses in front of the Smokehouse before heading to the Garden Party

It’s been a few generations since any Watkins or Keys (my Dad’s family name) participated in Greenwood or Delta Society. My aunt made her debut here some 50 + years ago as did my grandmother and possibly her mother before that. Poking around the old place (where there are plenty of clues for posterity to poke at) I find an old news article covering a deb party hosted here on the grounds and featuring my grandmother as an honored deb. The date isn’t visible anymore, nor is the house it was hosted in, but there’s enough of the article left to recreate the climate of what was certainly a grand and eclectic event held here some 80 years ago.

Debut Party hosted by Lizzie's Great Great Grandmother at Rackrent Plantation for her daughter Elizabeth Fisher Watkins (Key) - 1938

Lizzie's Great Grandmother (right) being entertained at a Delta Debutante event

Lizzie's Great Great Grandmother hosting another party at Avent-Oaks (Rackrent)

So this trip to the Delta is something a bit different. For this time, we are honoring not the place, the home, but the community event that has brought these farms and families together since the Southern Debutante Assembly began. Before the kick off of the Little Season, we are provided with a small booklet describing various events of the season, what to wear, and who’s to attend. Mom and I reread this several times before committing to a dress or any decision completely. Dad reads it to see what connections he can make to the families who will be in attendance. Some outside the South may consider this structure and attention to tradition outdated. However, as an outsider with a different debutante background (Mobile, AL), I am grateful for this little guidebook someone took the time to organize and publish. It’s nice to have traditions and I want to honor them properly. Some will be familiar to me. I look forward to a room full of seersucker suits and simple pearls graciously meeting and greeting in a courtyard filled with blooming summer flowers and floating trays of finger sandwiches. However, no southern town is like another, there will be many traditions I'm unfamiliar with. I hope to appear a grateful patron among the veterans in upholding these Delta customs lost from my own family until now.

Lizzie's Great great grandmother reigns as Queen of Mobile Mardi Gras - 1918

Lizzie's Grandmother Alice Craig Murray (Key) - Mobile Carnival Association 1966

Lizzie's mom (4th from left) making her debut in Mobile same age as Lizzie - 1996

Reception line where guests meet the debutantes - 2019

Lizzie and I leave after my last day of school with our carefully selected wardrobe hanging neatly in the car. We arrive at the farm late and it’s too dark to see the fields. I don’t need to see anything though because the dust coming up from the dry fields flanking us as we drive in carries corn and cotton in the air. I can tell from the smell of blooming magnolias that we have entered the shaded safety of Avent Oaks. I also know if I roll down the windows we’d be swarmed almost immediately with the hungry mosquitoes and likely the sounds of a far off coyote.

2019 Corn

The big event of this weekend is The Garden Party. The garden party is the first of events of the “little season.” The debutantes, pages and page escorts will be presented formally in December at the Assembly’s White and Gold Presentation and Ball. This weekend Lizzie will “casually” meet the other debutantes and the majority of the season’s crew. A few of her close friends have taken the time to drive up here and support her, but mostly she will be stepping into a room of strangers. Mom and I find it remarkable how easily Lizzie has always managed herself among strangers. Today, as we make our way down the receiving line where she stands sweating in her long blue dress, we are not surprised to see her graciously smiling and chatting ignoring the heat melting her makeup and streaking her spray tan. While Lizzie and her friends from home change and prepare to go to a late night party for the kids, Mom, Dad and I grab Magnolias at the bar of Viking’s Alluvian hotel. We are glad to be in the company of family friends and organizers of the event who we couldn’t be more grateful to be guiding us along. After a nice dinner at Giardina’s, we collect the kids cars, see them off, and caravan back to our home in the Delta. In the morning I look forward to a full day of reading, writing and collecting bulbs. Possibly disturbed by one trip into town to search for a few antiques and a container to carry my plants home in.