Don't you just love surprises? The good kind, I mean. Like finding a $20 bill in the pocket of the winter coat you've not worn since last year. That's the kind of surprise finding Stately Oaks Plantation was for me...totally didn't expect it and totally enjoyed it!
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| Stately Oaks Plantation |
Last month, when conducting research—going on tours—for my recent Gone With the Wind Trail series, I'd arrived in Jonesboro, Georgia, about a half hour before the Road to Tara Museum opened. I was trying to beat traffic and boy did I!
Driving around town—and Historic Downtown Jonesboro is quite charming—I saw a sign for "Stately Oaks Plantation" and thought to myself, "What the heck...I have time. Go see if it's somewhere you want to visit when you're done at Road to Tara." I turned the car in the direction of the sign, hopeful that it wasn't too many miles down the road.
A few blocks later, I was at Stately Oaks Plantation, an antebellum plantation home built in 1839. I quickly determined that I would definitely return after my already planned tour just down the road.
When I got back, there were two costumed young women playing a game of "Graces" on the front lawn, a game brought to this land from France, designed to teach young girls feminine grace. It was a scene right out of Hollywood!
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| Stately Oaks Plantation |
I had the great honor of having three tour guides all to myself that morning, and each of them as charming as any proper Southern Belle could be. I really wish I could remember their names...I was so busy taking in all the details of the house that asking them to remind me of their names totally slipped my mind. But vividly remember that they were brilliant, kind, funny, sweet, and very knowledgeable about the home and the era. I was thoroughly impressed.
I listened attentively while on the tour, but photography is not permitted in the house, so the photos I'm sharing while talking about the house are of structures on the property of the "Margaret Mitchell Memorial Park", dedicated to the author of Gone With the Wind and home to quite a few historic structures.
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| Stately Oaks Plantation, Juddy's Country Store |
The house was built in 1839 by Whitmel Allen, 100 years before Gone With the Wind premiered here in Atlanta. It was moved to its current location in 1972, from four miles north on Tara Boulevard.
Reportedly, Stately Oaks is one of the homes on which Tara was based.
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| Stately Oaks Plantation, Barn |
I think I saw Stately Oaks Plantation back in the late 1980s. One of the first friends I made when I moved to Atlanta, Ken who had lived in Jonesboro, took me to see a house that looked a lot like Tara, but it was so many years ago, that I'm only 90% sure this was the house. Being back or seeing it for the first time, it was exciting to be here a few weeks ago.
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| Stately Oaks Plantation, Tenant Cabin |
The tour of the house was fantastic...we saw practically the entire home. The downstairs portion of the tour was led by the "woman of the house," the keeper of the keys. And the leading of the upstairs portion of the tour was shared by the two young ladies I'd seen playing Graces on the front lawn earlier.
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| Stately Oaks Plantation, Old Bethel School House |
Inside the home are quite a few original artifacts, some donated by local families and others by local history enthusiasts. Other furnishings are period and reflective of the day's traditions. The artifact records are quite thorough and insightful, so go prepared to absorb and experience!
The house is also on the National Register of Historic Places...always a telling designation.
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| Stately Oaks Plantation, Indian Village |
The young ladies enjoyed pointing out the etymology of some familiar phrases.
In one of the upstairs rooms is a cast iron tub...not a very large tub, to be the family bathing vessel. They explained that bathing back then was not daily as we practice today, but only weekly—if you were lucky. And the entire family would use the same bathwater...yuck! The order started with the father, down to the baby of the family. By then, the water was not so clean...thus, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater."
Another phrase was explained in one of the bedrooms. Beds back then didn't have the box springs or foam mattresses that we take for granted. Mattresses then were supported with a "net" of ropes. They would begin to sag after a while and would have to be tightened...thus, "Sleep tight!"
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| Stately Oaks Plantation, Outdoor Kitchen |
There is no kitchen inside the house, nor running water. As was custom in the day, kitchens were built separate from the main house to mitigate the danger of burning the house down. And water came from a well, which was in yet another structure on the property.
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| Stately Oaks Plantation |
Remember I told you I found Stately Oaks quite by accident? Well, it turns out that while I was in Jonesboro to see the Road to Tara Museum for my Gone With the Wind Trail series, Stately Oaks Plantation is part of that Trail, under "Rhett also recommends..." Serendipity at its finest!
I recommend tour the Plantation on a Saturday, when the docents are donned in period costume...that's just the fun kind of guy I am. And I hope you get the same tour guides I had. I've only scratched the surface here...there's so much to learn here—my tour lasted for a glorious 50 minutes! That's a rarity.
So, when you're visiting Jonesboro, make time to see both attractions...I think you'll be glad you did. And you'll experience tour guide hospitality in quite a unique fashion.
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| Stately Oaks Plantation |
