NATCHEZ &045;&045; In her day, Roane Fleming Byrnes was hailed as Queen of the Natchez Trace Parkway, a title she won by her tireless lobbying of state and federal officials during the 35 years she served as president of the Mississippi Division of the Natchez Trace Association.

Byrnes died at age 80 in 1970, long before completion of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Friends and relatives said she would be thrilled about the ceremony on Liberty Road today at 2 p.m., celebrating the completion of the Natchez-to-Nashville road.

Byrnes did not fulfill her wish to &uot;walk on the Natchez Trace before she walked on the golden streets,&uot; a sentiment she held recalled this week by Alma K. Carpenter.

Carpenter’s mother, the late Alma Kellogg, and Byrnes were close friends, and Carpenter remembers following along on trips to Trace meetings with the two.

&uot;I remember that Sweet Auntie always had a star at those meetings,&uot; Carpenter said. &uot;She always had someone important from Washington.&uot;

Byrnes, and her husband, Ferriday Byrnes, had no children. Young relatives named her &uot;Sweet Auntie,&uot; and the name became well-known, just as did &uot;Queen of the Trace.&uot;

Byrnes led the Trace Association from 1935 to 1970, said Kate Don Adams Green, whose late husband, Lawrence Adams, was a close relative of Byrnes.

&uot;If it had not been for her enthusiasm and compelling drive during the 35 years she served, …I doubt if the Trace would have been completed by now,&uot; Green said.

&uot;She was so clever and delightful, too, in the ways in which she pushed for action by encouraging her friends in Congress to go forward with securing the necessary funds while the Trace was being built, step by step.&uot;

Byrnes and her husband lived at Ravennaside, a large house on South Union Street, where she entertained and coaxed important people to get behind Trace efforts.

There was a room in the house that became familiar to visiting officials &uot;It was called the war room,&uot; Carpenter said. &uot;The war room was actually the bar. She gave it the name. It was part of her war for the Trace.&uot;

In his 1968 article on the Trace for National Geographic magazine, the late Mississippi writer Bern Keating described the room:

&uot;In her study, papered with hand-tinted photomurals of Trace scenes, I saw the pen Franklin D. Roosevelt used to establish the Natchez Trace Parkway in 1938 and a plaque honoring Mrs. Byrnes on completion of her first quarter-century as Trace Association President. In the pantry, while she mixed us the traditional mint juleps of Natchez hospitality, I studied the strip map of the Trace she has pasted on the wall.

&uot;Federal and state highway engineers drop in regularly to savor a julep and to ink in portions of the parkway paved since their last visit. The atmosphere is decidedly that of a war room, with progress charts and strategy maps, and it fired my enthusiasm to explore the Trace old and new.&uot;

At the time that article was written for National Geographic, about 311 miles of the parkway had been completed, and many officials agreed Byrnes helped the project to continue and progress. She, in turn,

gave credit to members of the Natchez Garden Club and Pilgrimage Garden Club for their efforts, as well.

She told Keating, &uot;During the Depression, we kept interest alive by entertaining state legislators with moonshine and meatloaf.&uot;

Green said she remembers all the time Byrnes spent going to meetings away from Natchez &uot;and taking an entourage of enthusiastic friends and family with her.&uot;

Carpenter said Byrnes was &uot;the original iron fist in the velvet glove. She was absolutely determined about the Trace.&uot;

Today, Green and many others who knew her will think of Byrnes. &uot;I only wish that Sweet Auntie had lived long enough to see the completion of the Trace into Natchez,&uot; she said. &uot;She would have been so pleased.&uot;