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What is this?
photo by Marcus Frazier
Peg E. Rollans, a descendant of Stanton Hall’s founder Frederick Stanton, places a circa 1850 statuette in the house Friday. The statuette is original to the house. Rollans inherited the pieces and others like it several years ago. Below, the statuette depicts a mother disciplining two children.
Statuettes returned to Stanton Hall by relative
Published Monday, November 10, 2008
NATCHEZ — When Peg E. Rollans left California Wednesday, she was packing more than just a change of clothes for her trip to Natchez.
Rollans’ great-great-great-grandfather was Frederick Stanton, Stanton Hall’s original owner. When she arrived in Natchez last week she returned some of the home’s original adornments.
Rollans returned two statuettes that she inherited years ago.
Rollans said she only knew the statues by the names her family gave them.
“The happy mother and the sad mother,” Rollans called them.
One depicts a smiling mother looking over two children at her feet.
The other isn’t as quaint.
It shows a mother about to discipline her two children with what looks like a stick.
But Rollans said the way the sad mother looks now isn’t the way she always looked.
The stick is actually a whip handle, over the years the whip was lost leaving only the handle, Rollans said.
“I remember it was very impressive when I was younger,” Rollans said of the whip.
And when Rollans was a girl she was getting an up close view of Stanton Hall and all it’s unique pieces.
Rollans was raised in southern California, but every other summer she came to Natchez to stay with family.
Back then, when Stanton Hall was family owned, Rollans said she loved to play in the giant old house.
“I felt like a little princess,” she said. “It was wonderful.”
But Rollans said it was difficult to relate her tales of summer at Stanton Hall back her to friends in California.
Rollans said she would mainly use books and photographs to show her friends what she did over the summer.
But even today Rollans doesn’t always share her unique connection to Natchez’s history with her West Coast acquaintances.
Rollans also has family ties to the Martin family that built Montaigne.
Rollans said since many people still have stereotypical views of the South, it’s not a topic she regularly brings up.
“It’s a world a way from California,” she said of Natchez. “But it’s a world I love.”
She said bringing back the statuettes was important to her in order to help preserve the house’s rich history.
Rollans also said she wanted to return the statues, like a gesture of thanks, to the people who now run the house.
“The love and devotion people have for this is not insignificant,” she said.
Over the summer Rollans also had an original dresser shipped back to the house.
And Mimi Miller said its people like Rollans that are helping to ensure Natchez’s historic past is as rich, and accurate, as possible.
Miller, Historic Natchez Foundation’s director of programs, has helped Rollans in identifying pieces of furniture that were once at Stanton Hall.
“It makes an authentic picture of the past,” Miller said. “What you’re looking at is real.”
And Miller said people like Rollans help make Natchez unique in that many of the area’s historic local homes have original furnishings.
Comments
Posted by Blasterhappy (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 3:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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Posted by redusmfan (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 6:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Geez what a nice article.....
Posted by BoobWatch (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 7:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Koob the Boob strikes again....
"And when Rollans was a girl she was getting an up close view of Stanton Hall and all it’s unique pieces."
In this case it should be "its" not "it's" Mr. Boob.
This has got to be the worst Democrat staff ever (and that is saying a lot). They can't get names right, can't even spell simple one syllable words correctly.
If the Democrat will not proof its (see i got it right) writers than I will. Let the boob watch begin.
Posted by Riffian1964 (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 8:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
How old is this lady? Stanton Hall was owned by the R. T. Clark family until the Pilgrimage Garden Club purchased the property so how did she play there as a child unless she is almost 90 years old? Interesting and puzzling
Posted by BoobWatch (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 8:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Good point Tim. Except I don't get paid to write right. It is amazing that someone can make so many mistakes and still have a job.
Posted by itsjustme (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 8:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Thanks Tim. People like that are so annoying. They want to correct everyone and they can't even spell correctly themselves. Everyone makes mistakes but we don't want to hear about it constantly.
Posted by sunkitty (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 10:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Can someone shut Blasterhappy down, please.
I was wondering the same thing, Riffian1964. Very interesting. Does anyone out there have an explanation. Ms. Rollans looks to be about my age. So when I was a kid, Stanton Hall was owned by the Pilgrimage Garden Club and there were no kids running the halls of Stanton Hall - in the swimming pool, yes, but in the house - no.
Posted by destiny (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 1:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
BLASTER>>>> This is the second article I've read so far and you have blasted both. Stop it !!!!!! If the N.D. annoys you so much, stop reading it and go somewhere else.
Posted by dottie (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 2:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Please someone, on which street is Stanton Hall
located?
Posted by natchezsouthside (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 2:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Great article. It never fails to impress me that the decendants of these great families continue to care about and for Natchez. It's wonderful.
Posted by sayitloud (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 4:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Stanton Hall is an entire city block at High Street to the front, Pearl Street on one side and Commerce on the other with Monroe street behind it. PLUS it was 1938 when the Garden Club purchased it so I am also confused about this woman running the halls as a small child.
Posted by redusmfan (anonymous) on November 10, 2008 at 6:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Her mom must have worked there as a caretaker.
I once ran around the grounds of Longwood, because I used to help a vet-student work the front gate when I was 11 years old...lol...But my family never owned nor lived there...nor wanted to. It was too big to clean...lmao
Posted by abc747 (anonymous) on November 11, 2008 at 12:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Judging from the photo, these figures appear to be about 100 years old or less and, frankly, not the quality you would expect of original Stanton family possessions. The fable this woman tells of her childhood adventures in Stanton Hall makes me think she's delusional, and her donation to the house is entirely suspect, in my humble opinion. She wouldn't be the first whacko to come through our fair city.
Posted by NameThatTune (anonymous) on November 11, 2008 at 10:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I, too am puzzled by this article. It was difficult enough to get through the article, but when I got to Boob's comment, "They can't get names right, can't even spell simple one syllable words correctly," I went into a fit of giggles again! Boob, do I know you?
Posted by sunkitty (anonymous) on November 12, 2008 at 9:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I wish our comments could include music because the theme music for "Twilight Zone" seems appropriate here. I am still baffled by this article.
Posted by sayitloud (anonymous) on November 12, 2008 at 10:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'M WITH YOU! Someone in the know needs to explain this.
Posted by pegedavis (anonymous) on November 18, 2008 at 8:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hello All - I am Peg E. Rollans. While I very much appreciate the attention the paper paid on November 10, to the return of items original to Stanton Hall, and hope it will encourage more descendants to do so, there were a few specifics I want to correct, for those interested. The statuettes were the Happy Mother, correctly noted, and the Angry Mother, incorrectly noted as the Sad Mother. A mother with a whip is not sad, she's angry. (The whip broke off, but hopefully, we can get that restored at some point.) I don't believe the statuettes were placed originally in the main salon, as they are smaller than most pieces in the room, but possibly in the dining room or elsewhere. Mimi Miller of the Historic Natchez Fdn. recognized them in a very early photograph of Stanton Hall, which is why I brought them back to share with Stanton Hall visitors.
I am truly not 90 years old, or would indeed be selling face cream! I did swim in the Stanton Hall pool, and played at my great aunt Margaret Martin's and grandmother Elizabeth Stamper's home on South Commerce Street, where we visited every other summer, as a child. (I was honored to be asked to play the part of my great aunt, Margaret Martin, at the Angels on the Bluff fundraiser for the Natchez City Cemetary this year, and happily complied, which was one of the reasons I was in Natchez.) The article made it sound like I had played IN Stanton Hall, which is inaccurate.
I am also extremely proud of my southern heritage, including ties to Monteigne via Gen. William T. Martin, and share that with anyone who expresses interest, regardless of where they reside. I love Natchez and have tremendous respect for those who work so hard to preserve such an amazingly special history.
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