Welcome to the Garden Club by Jenny B. Tilbury EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Jenny B. Tilbury
- Language: English
- Genre: Literary Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Page: 210
- Price: Free
Stephanie
Thursday, September 9
Ah, the sunlight is in abundance now. It was raining cats and
dogs when I woke up. I kept thinking I’d need a pirogue to get
anywhere today. I step out on to Royal Street to hear the jazz
band playing “You Are My Sunshine.” I love that song. It
reminds me of one of many treasured memories I have of my
mother. She would sing a couple of bars and ask, “Do you
know who sang this?” I would proudly answer, “Yes, ma’am,
Governor Jimmy Davis,” and then she’d smile and continue to
sing.
It’s a challenge in any weather to navigate the cracked,
broken, and often wobbly sidewalks in heels, as I’m trying to
do now. I don’t know why in the world I chose these shoes. I
remember my grandmother saying, “You must suffer to be
beautiful, mon chéri.” But must I really chance breaking my
leg?
I need to go only a few blocks, but after only one I decide
not to walk and I wave like a crazy person at a passing taxi
whose driver ignores me. Wearing a wide-brim hat the size of
an extra-large pizza, I feel less like Carrie Bradshaw hailing a
cab on Central Park North and more like the Mad Hatter, for
surely if any city in America qualifies as a wonderland, it’s
New Orleans, specifically here in the area known as the
French Quarter, where my husband, Louis, and I live.
With parking at a premium in the Quarter, you’d think there
would be more taxicabs, like in Manhattan; but alas, that isn’t
the case. When I do manage to secure a ride, I can see the
driver staring at me in the rearview mirror—or at least at my
hat, which is completely understandable, as it’s a one-of-akind creation from Fleur de Paris, a custom millinery boutique
on Royal Street. The odds are extremely high that I will not be
the only fashionable woman in the Quarter wearing a
captivating chapeau today from this well-known shop.
Opening day of the Fleur-de-Lis Ladies Garden Club of the
French Quarter is our chance to express our inner southern
divas.
Yes, I’m in a club. Who would have ever thought? And such
a highfalutin one at that.
Highfalutin or not, I must say I have met some of my dearest
friends at the garden club (which is how most of us refer to it).
The club was started in 1840 by Lisette Prieur and Isabella
Bronzinelle, who originally developed the club to focus on the
“Beautification of the City of New Orleans.” (My best friend,
Gloria Bronzinelle Vincent, is a direct descendent of Isabella
Bronzinelle.) With a focus on flowers, fragrance, and finery,
the Fleur-de-Lis Ladies Garden Club became a French Quarter
institution that operated for nearly its first century with little
formal organization.
Things changed in 1946 after the war. The club added food,
wine, and guest speakers, and it adopted loosely written
guidelines according to which it has operated to this day. The
most significant changes over the years have been the
incremental increases in membership fees.
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