15 minute read
Mabel Chestnutt
Ill ustratio
Mabel
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The author, Patricia L. Woodard, with Mr. Gracie.
STORY Patricia L. Woodard n Kathryn Caine Ogden & PHOTOS Grant Merritt
Without a doubt, one of Whiteville’s most colorful characters for butterfly wings. This piano would be a major part of her legacy after a major part of the 20th century was Mabel Chestnutt. Forever she bought one for her home in Whiteville, where she would entertain linked to the brick and mortar of her unique home, she had an exuberguests while playing by ear (her preferred way of playing) in front of ant spirit that left an indelible mark on the small town in southeastern the tall Palladian windows overlooking the front yard of her Spanish North Carolina. People who knew her still laugh and grin when telling style house. stories about this Columbus County treasure who spread her fairy dust over the house that became my home. The many smiles she brought to the people who lived in this little community, and the stories that created those smiles, should always entertain us and be available to everyone who thinks they grew up in a small town where not too many exciting people live.
Before she bought that piano and settled into small town domesticity, however, she graduated from college and joined an all-girls band that traveled up and down the Eastern seacoast – in the style of the movie starring Marilyn Monroe, “Some Like it Hot.” They played in bars, clubs, and just about any place that needed lively party music.
MABEL AGUSTA CHINNIS CHESTNUTT February 16, 1902 - Brunswick County, North Carolina January 15, 1987 - Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,
Little is known about Mabel’s early childhood before she left Brunswick County to attend Salem College in Winston Salem, N.C. In addition to majoring in science education, she also found time to enjoy her considerable musical talents. She played the clarinet, saxophone, piano and probably other instruments, and had her first experience with the Art Deco-styled butterfly baby grand piano that was popular in the 20s and 30s. Originally produced by the Wurlitzer Piano Company for small apartments in New York City, it had 77 keys instead of the traditional 88 and had a double-winged slope design which mimicked
Mabel had an ebullient personality and enjoyed the attention of many suitors. While in Miami on one of her tours, one of the men most taken with her was an architect of the Spanish style houses so prevalent in the area. He escorted her around the city when they were not working and had long-term honorable intentions. He even went so far as to design a small house for her with brick patios, arches inside and out, white plaster walls, black wrought iron railings, a terra-cotta roof, and sketches for gardens, which he knew she adored. Giving her the plans 54 | 954 | Spring & Summer 2020
for that house must have seemed the most impressive way he knew to let her know that he hoped to share the house with her someday. That was probably a proposal. Alas, Mabel eventually left Miami, and her architect friend as well, taking along with her the plans for the house that eventually became her home. The story goes that her husband, Ches, didn’t object at all to using the house plans another man had drawn up for Mabel. After all, Mabel chose to marry him, not the architect. No one today really knows the whole story behind the origin of the house plans, but those who remember her say that none of it would be out of character for Mabel. I prefer to think that’s exactly what happened.
Physically, Mabel was impressive looking. Tall, robust, and sporting a 44-DD chest of which she was very proud, one can only imagine her presence in the high school classroom after she married, settled down in Whiteville, and started teaching science in the local high school. She married Norwood Bennett (Ches) Chestnutt, a North Carolina boy from Sampson County, who was a graduate of N.C. State University in Raleigh and a career Army man. He served in World War I and World War II and, after spending time in the Philippines during World War II, became Colonel N.B. Chestnutt.
Mabel and Ches settled in Whiteville in the mid-1920s and started their family in 1928, when their son Norwood Bennett Chestnutt Jr. was born. In 1927, just before the birth of “Chesty,” the Chestnutts bought property on Madison Street and, with the help of the Bank of Whiteville, started construction on their little Spanish hacienda. Ches continued to serve in the Army until he retired, sometime after World War II, and Mabel took on the main child-rearing responsibilities.
Both Mabel and Ches had academic backgrounds in botany and agriculture, and the development of their gardens reflected their expertise. The house was built on a lot that measured 75 feet by 230 feet, which allowed plenty of room for personalized landscaping. During their nearly fifty years in the house, they both contributed to the development of the gardens. From all accounts, it was beautiful and well tended and many of the red and white azaleas they planted in the spacious back yard remain. Azaleas, camellias, and hollies went in beside the already established magnolia, pine and pecan trees. There were plenty of majestic oaks as well. It didn’t take long for the azaleas to nearly cover the entire front yard and provide a glorious view for residents of the town and friends who visited. A small bricked-in fishpond was built on the patio outside the kitchen along with a fountain, which flowed most of the time. The open brick wall was also the home of a ferocious looking, but laughing, stone gargoyle, which eventually provided a second water feature above the pond. A small brick retaining wall outlined the brick patio and provided spots for exotic ferns.
Not long after moving into the house, Mabel was able to buy one of the butterfly baby grand pianos from her alma mater, Salem College. The smaller size was perfect for the living room with its 18-foot ceiling and the tall, stylish, arched European windows, which opened onto the front yard. Friends remember that she would sit at the piano in the early afternoons when the sun would hit the front of the house and the beautiful windows at just the right angle and cast magnificent shadows on the spacious white plaster walls. She would play until her heart was content and seemed to prefer the popular music of the day, probably typical of the kind of music she played during her girl-band days. When the weather was nice, she would open the windows and enjoy the breezes. In those early days there was no air conditioning. They say her arms seemed to float as they flew up and down the keyboard while she smoked her cigarettes and took sips from her tumbler full of bourbon, which always sat to her right on the piano top. When the ashes fell on her ample bosom she would wait until she had finished her song before brushing them away, always with a laugh. Some people say she would smoke an entire cigarette and the ashes would never drop until she flicked them off. One can only imagine the joy she brought into that house.
Mabel became well known in the community for her culinary and hosting skills. She loved giving parties inside and outside the house, and local residents valued invitations to her unique and lively home. Spanish style houses were not the norm in Columbus County at that
time and there was a lot of curiosity about it. From a small kitchen she whipped up some tantalizing food and carted it to the patio and back yard when the weather was nice and the mosquitos were not a serious threat. One guest, after commenting on an especially delicious country ham and asking what made it so good, was told that it had been soaked in the bathtub for a few hours. “Right after the dog had been washed”, Mabel said. Her raucous laughter could nearly knock people off their feet. She loved to laugh and make others laugh. Her favorite alcoholic drink, from all reports, was bourbon, and when she cooked, as well as when she played the piano, she always had a tumbler close by. With the gargoyle guarding the fishpond on the patio on summer evenings, with candles glowing and food and drinks plentiful, the ambiance at her parties must have been magical.
Mabel and Ches enjoyed traveling and seemed to have been right at the forefront of the new, exciting culture developing around air travel and trips to foreign destinations. In the days before tight security in airports, and when people dressed up to board a plane, Mabel and Ches took off on many trips. Even though security was not as tight as it would later become, passengers still had to go through a checkpoint that would detect anything metal. So, when Mabel walked through security on her way to some foreign destination and alarms went off, her first thought was her keys. Did she forget to remove them from her pocketbook? Maybe it was some jewelry.
“I don’t know what is making that happen,” she chortled. “I don’t have a knife or a gun.” She emptied her pockets and pocketbook and when the guard told her to go through again, she did. Once more, the alarm sounded. After a few more attempts to identify what was triggering the activity, Mabel was led to a room by a female guard. She was instructed to remove some of her clothes and there, in full sight, was her magnificent corset with the metal stays, supporting that ample bosom. There was no mistaking then what had set off the bells and Mabel was soon led back to the checkpoint, laughing and enjoying the look of amazement from the guard. What a treat that must have been for anyone close enough to have witnessed what had just happened.
Mabel delighted in telling the story of the male tailor she visited on a trip to China. A custom-made suit was on her list of must-haves. When she went for her first visit to have her measurements taken, the small Asian man must have been stunned by her size. She was not a dainty little woman! On subsequent visits for fittings he managed to touch and feel every bit of her chest as he made sure the fit was correct and proper. She never indicated that she was offended by his familiarity and told the story for many years to anyone who was interested. She wore the suit way past its fashionable time and probably delighted in the memories of her “China affair.”
Her fabled chest was often put to good use, such as the times she would need to write a check and found it more convenient to place her checkbook there than to put down her cigarette and find a tabletop. She could often be seen doing just that when she was paying her bill in the grocery store. Those were the days when people smoked anywhere and anytime they wanted to, so apparently no one ever suggested she do otherwise.
Mabel and Ches were both avid golfers and played at the local
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This laughing gargoyle watched over many of Mabel’s garden parties.
country club on many occasions. In fact, after Ches’ death, in 1968, nearly 100 golfers signed up to participate in the first annual N.B. Chestnutt Memorial Golf Spectacular at the Whiteville Country Club on July 4th. Mabel participated in most of the celebrations through the years and often played with her late husband’s friends.
One particular story about her golfing days gives everybody who tells the story another chance to feel good. She was the only female in a foursome one day and was wearing Bermuda shorts, the typical outfit for hot, steamy, eastern North Carolina days out on the links. The group walked around the course and when it came time for Mabel to place her ball on the tee, she bent over and felt a seam pop in her shorts. As she stood up, the shorts came down. The men hooted and guffawed but that didn’t deter Mabel at all. She looked at them and said, “What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you ever seen women’s pants?” With that she pulled up her shorts, secured them and kept on playing. No one knows how the scores turned out but that was somehow beside the point.
After Ches’ death in 1968, Mabel continued to entertain her friends and, by all accounts, enjoyed her parties and her music until the very end. Before her death in 1987, she moved to Charlotte to be near her son and his family and took the butterfly baby grand piano with her. The house remained empty a few years until it was purchased by Gil and Vivian Beresoff in 1980.
After two years in the house, my own efforts are well underway to refurbish and enhance what remains in the landscaping. The house itself took a big hit from Hurricane Flor
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ence just a few months after I moved in, but I’m confident a solution to the problems with the terra-cotta roof will be satisfactorily resolved before long. Most of the original windows had been painted shut but I’ve replaced many of them, and, for the first time in a number of years, they can now be opened when the weather is just right for catching the breezes. Two new sets of gas logs have been installed in the once coalburning fireplaces, one in the living room and the other in my study, a small room at the back of the house where I can do my work and look out at the garden. These are the times I feel an indescribable connectedness to the house and to Mabel and I can almost see her in the garden with her dog faithfully keeping her company.
I’ve planted a few camellias and gardenias, rooted from cuttings that were a gift from my sister. Three loads of dirt have been spread out in the back yard and one load in the driveway and I could still use more. A friend of Mabel’s who lives close by has offered some camellia cuttings, and if they turn out like hers, I’ll be thrilled. No perennials have appeared, but I’ve added a few daffodils and tulips with more to come. My prized contribution has been the addition of a lovely, graceful weeping willow tree, situated so that I can see it from my desk when I’m working, as well as from the patio when I’m outside. In fact, it has done so well I’m considering a second one. The fishpond has been filled in and herbs planted, and I’m learning which ones like the area and which ones don’t. My cat, Mr. Gracie, who was adopted a month after I moved in, has been drawn to the rich soil and mulch there, so maybe one day I can come up with a Mabel-style joke about the cat’s contribution – it’s his favorite spot in the yard. Mabel would love that.
As a final note, I was fortunate to locate Mabel and Ches’s grandson, Chet, who lives in Gastonia. We have talked on the phone a few times and he told me some of his memories of visiting his grandparents here. He especially remembers the gargoyle on the patio. “Scariest looking thing I’ve ever seen!” He also told me that he has Mabel’s butterfly baby grand piano and even sent me a picture. What a discovery! With that information, I now have a new goal either buying it from him or finding one somewhere that I can place in the living room in front of the long windows. When the sun begins to move across the afternoon sky and cast its magnificent shadows on the walls, I’ll think of Mabel, smile, and touch a bit of her spirit.
The Chestnutt home was inducted into the Reuben Brown House Preservation Society Historic Landmark plaque program in Columbus County.
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