from the editor
A
ON THE COVER
Home Again
Meredith Tolleson of @thesouthernsource has brought her California-coastal-meetsfarmhouse style to her new home at Lake Wilborn, just down the road from where she grew up. Photo by Lindsey Drennan Design by Connor Martin-Lively
As I type this letter, we have hit the one-year mark since our world was forever changed by a virus. None of us had any clue then just how long this strange season would last, and even as more and more of us get vaccinated today, we now know there won’t be one magical day where suddenly everything snaps back to a pre-pandemic normal. What we do know is decades from now we’ll be telling stories from the pandemic of 2020 and beyond to kids and grandkids, so I am starting to think of just what time capsule our photos and magazines from this time will be. At first glance, this issue might not scream “pandemic magazine,” so I thought I’d share how it is, in many ways, very much one. Our Out & About event photos take up very few pages, and any events we preview in The Guide come with fine print to check for updates online before attending. Most of the writing in the pages that follow started not with our usual in-person interviews but with emails, old-school phone calls and Zoom calls. Our photography all took place with social distance, masked photographers and often outdoor settings. Our home feature tells the story of how Meredith Tolleson and her husband, Ty, built a house amidst the pandemic, and our story on a Ross Bridge homeschooling family talks about how they encouraged others who were unexpectedly schooling from home in the past year. Between those two stories you can read about how Archie’s Bar-be-cue & Burgers, formerly Golden Rule BBQ, changed its name in the midst of pandemic times too. Elsewhere in this issue, writer Chandra Sparks Splond introduces us to a set of young entrepreneurs who are sure to inspire you, and Amy Ferguson spotlights another entrepreneur who taught me a lot about what clean beauty means and awed with her resilience getting a company up and running as most of the world was staying home and changing their usual shopping patterns. In some ways this all feels like the pandemic that never ends, but today I write from on a glorious Alabama early spring day where the temperature hangs out around a dreamy 70 degrees. I moved my “office” to my front porch, feel like I could run 10 miles if I throw on running shoes and have plans to dine outdoors with friends tonight. There’s a lot we still don’t know about the future, but today leaves me confident in saying this: Spring has arrived. More vaccines are coming. And good things are in store. Wishing you well as days grow longer and trees grow brighter,
madoline.markham@hooversmagazine.com
HooversMagazine.com 5
