Yesterday after services, I attended a special meeting in regards to our church Youth Group’s upcoming trip to New Orleans. Spotsylvania Presbyterian is very active in mission work and has led several ministries over the last few years to the Gulf Coast. We also send groups annually to international places of need such as Haiti and Africa. My oldest son Dylan (and 20+ other kids) have pledged to help provide construction work, landscaping, and assistance at a medical clinic this June. We are extremely proud of him, as he could have spent his summer vacation sitting around the pool at home doing nothing. This trip to N.O. is his first mission, and a big step towards qualifying for another one to Africa next year where he will help to build schools before going off to his own secondary education.

This meeting reminded me about the state of some of the historical sites that were also devastated from the storms. Although I have always believed that the repair of living people’s homes should come before the dead one’s, I am very glad to see that the restoration of Beauvoir has been coming along well. According to their website 98% of the restoration is completed.

Beauvoir was the last home of Jefferson Davis and it was the site of his retirement. In 1877, the former Confederate president was looking for a quiet retreat to write his books and papers. While inspecting property on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, he paid a courtesy call on Mrs. Dorsey (a family friend). He told her of his plans to try to find a place to write his books and papers. She encouraged him to stay at Beauvoir, in one of the two pavilions of Beauvoir House to write his books. He agreed to do so only if he paid $50.00 a month for room and board. After two years, he fell in love with the property and bought it. 

Jefferson Davis died in 1889. His daughter, Winnie then inherited the property and when she died in 1898, Varina, Jefferson Davis' widow inherited the property. Mrs. Davis sold the property to the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans with two stipulations. The first was that the property be used for a Confederate Veterans Home for the veterans and or their widows at no charge to them and that was done from 1903 until 1957 when the last three widows were transferred to a private nursing home in Greenwood, Mississippi, when it was no longer practical to keep them at the site. The second stipulation for the sale of the property was that it be used as a memorial to Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Soldier; and that has been done from 1903 until the present time.