NATCHEZ — Angela Smith has not missed a day of Natchez’s Fall Pilgrimage this year. She has missed very few days, if any, for the last decade.

Monday afternoon, the Springfield, Mo., resident was ending her last day of Fall Pilgrimage — Day No. 18 — receiving guests at Oak Hill on Rankin Street.

After she spent a night at Oak Hill with her daughter — just three weeks after the Natchez bed and breakfast opened — Smith has been coming back to Oak Hill year after year.

“This has been my home away from home ever since,” she said.

Smith said a family vacation to Natchez and the South in 1970, ignited her passion for the city.

“I just fell in love with it when I was 12 years old,” Smith said.

Now she shares her affection for the city with others.

For the last 10 years, Smith has not made the nine-hour trip to Natchez alone. The marketing and advertising professional has also brought much of her staff, a few friends and even clients to experience what she loves about Natchez, Fall Pilgrimage and Oak Hill.

During her three-week stay, Smith and her colleagues fill the guest rooms at the bed and breakfast and receive guests to the house when it is on tour.

“We book Oak Hill for the entire time,” Smith said.

She  furnishes the period costumes for both the men and the women who follow her south.

“There are guys that come that are dressed to the nines,” Oak Hill owner Doug Mauro said.

This year more than six staff members along with a few friends and family came for a visit.

“My goal is to bring them here and see all there is to see and then come back,” Smith said.

Surprisingly, many of those who travel to Natchez, who keep coming back for more are from the younger generation Smith said.

“We have millennials on staff who have been here three consecutive years,” Smith said. “I love it when I see their faces light up. Then they come home to share it with their millennial friends.”

Each year the excitement builds in her office as September approaches.

As pilgrimage nears, Smith sponsors a Natchez Day in the office, when staff members get to try on costumes and flip through many of the books Smith brings to her office.

“We get into the spirit of what we are going to do when we come to Natchez,” she said.

Monday Smith, one of her staff members and two friends were preparing themselves for the inevitable return home to Missouri.

Like every Fall Pilgrimage, the trip has been both exciting and restful.

“Then we go back to our regular lives,” Smith said. “It is so sad.”