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Sunday, October 13, 2002

By Joe LaRocca

WHITE SPRINGS, Fla. -- Barbara Beauchamp has lived most of her life in this tiny historic hamlet of about 800 in north-central Florida. Since she was a child, she's been actively involved in the development of the state memorial park and folk cultural center dedicated to the musical heritage of Stephen Foster.

	Stacy Innerst illustration (Post-Gazette) Related article: While there's no place like home, South Florida comes close

Some 900 miles south of the Lawrenceville birthplace of the nation's first major professional songwriter, the memorial is known as Stephen Collins Foster Folk Culture Center State Park.

Beauchamp, a fourth-generation resident of the area, fondly recalls the cultural center's grand opening on a bright, warm "Chamber of Commerce Day" on Oct. 4, 1950.

Then a teenager, she had helped "pump" and serve countless cups of soft beverages to a teeming crowd of celebrants, while local garden and civic clubs ladled out potfuls of chicken pileau, a regional culinary favorite consisting of boiled chicken and rice. Among them, she vividly remembers, was famed New York Met tenor James Melton.

A native Floridian, he had been invited to the celebration to sing several Foster songs for the program, notably "Old Folks at Home" ("Swanee River").

The 250-acre park is snuggled on the green banks of the fabled river the legendary composer never saw, but whose name he made a household word in what is probably his best-known folk art song among hundreds he composed. Foster changed the river's name from "Suwannee" to "Swanee" so it would mesh with the meter of the lyrics.

Foremost among the park's physical assets, apart from the lush riverside grounds, are a distinctively appointed museum within a spacious antebellum-style mansion surrounded by acres of lawn and camellia gardens; and a slim campanile tower rising gracefully 200 feet above the park, housing what park caretakers say is the world's largest system of tubular carillon bells.

	If you go... Stephen Collins Foster Folk Culture Center State Park From Florida's Interstate 10, take Exit 43 to U.S. 41 South, nine miles along the Suwannee Valley to White Springs. From Interstate 75, take Exit 84 to Route 136 East, then travel three miles to White Springs. For additional park information and camping reservations, call 1-386-397-4331 or write Drawer G, White Spring, FL 32096-- Joe LaRocca

More than 70 years ago, Josiah Kirby Lilly -- founder of the leading pharmaceutical firm that bears his name, a fervent devotee of Foster's music and indefatigable collector of related and invaluable memorabilia -- urged state political leaders to develop the culture center, which is still a work in progress.

On a visit to Florida, he suggested that the state mount a tribute to Foster for bringing international attention to the state through his music.

In 1931, 1,800 acres of public land were set aside on U.S. Route 90 along the river and named Suwannee State Park, the first state park created in Florida. But work on a Foster memorial was put on hold for many years.

Around the same time, the Stephen Foster Memorial Commission was created, authorized to accept property and other gifts on behalf of a prospective memorial honoring the composer. The Florida Federation of Music Clubs, the first organization to throw its weight behind the idea, was given the first grant of 100 acres donated by private benefactors to initiate the creation of the park.

The commission shifted the proposed locale instead to the White Springs site on U.S. Route 41, famous in years past for the highly touted medicinal virtues of its hot sulphur springs. The springs haven't operated for years, according to Martha Nelson, a park information specialist, because of the area's diminishing water table.

Subsequent land donations by private contributors and state land grants at the current site now form the core of the center, supplemented with 400 more acres of adjoining timberland. Other more recent acquisitions bring the park's total acreage to about 1,000, Beauchamp says.

Planning for the memorial park began in 1935, after the state of Florida adopted "Old Folks at Home" as its state song. Beauchamp says the proposal to select the Foster melody as the official state song was unopposed at the time had the legislature's support. There have been repeated but failed attempts over the years to supplant it with other songs, mainly by those who are pushing their own compositions and their supporters, and by others who falsely characterize Foster's composition as racist, Beauchamp says. She's reluctant to discuss the topic for fear it may revive agitation for a change.

Asked which of Foster's songs is her favorite, she replies without hesitation "Of course, 'Swanee River.'" As we chat, chimes of the carillon can be heard in the background playing familiar Foster melodies.

In 1941, the state legislature appropriated $100,000 for more land acquisition, but the onset of U.S. involvement in World War II brought development of the park to a halt for seven years. However, the funds were used to hire an Oklahoman, Foster L. Barnes, who would have a hand in the future development of the museum, to survey and design the grounds. After the war, widely known Architect Mackey W. White, a former Florida resident residing in Washington, D.C., was commissioned to design the projected bell tower, the museum building, and a period gatehouse to frame the entrance to the park.

In 1947, the legislature appropriated another $500,000 to begin construction of the bell tower, but less than half that, $200,000, was initially made available. Since it wouldn't cover the half-million-dollar cost of the bell tower, it was used instead to pay for construction of the museum, estimated at $350,000.

Another $150,000 was privately raised, and the museum was completed in 1949. The outstanding feature of the museum, housed within the ante-bellum-style mansion specially designed for the park by White, is a series of eight stunning dioramas, each about 6 by 9 feet. They are fully inset several feet within the building's inner walls, each meticulously depicting scenes and characters, about one-sixth human scale, illustrative of some of Foster's most famous songs.

Two additional dioramas are ensconced on the ground floor of the carillon tower, which also features numerous artifacts and interpretive items. Some dioramas, such as "Camptown Races," feature subtle mechanized effects, in this case a panoply of racehorses in the background galloping down an oval racetrack, proportionately diminished in size by the time they reach the far side of the fenced-in track, as miniature onlookers watch.

Other songs they illustrate are "Old Dog Tray," "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Open Thy Lattice, Love," "Old Black Joe," "Oh Susanna," "Old Folks at Home" and "De Glendy Burk." Park officials say 14 Florida artisans spent two years creating eight dioramas, averaging 1,500 hours each.

The dioramas are rendered in unstinting historical detail. For example, the tiny firearms in "Oh Susanna" have authentically inlaid stocks. The paddlewheel on a model of the riverboat Belle of the Suwannee turns at exactly the same speed as the original.

Nothing in the dioramas was prefabricated. They were fashioned by artists using only raw materials. For example, individual plants in fields of cotton were made by "fastening leaves to metal stems, stems to twigs, twigs formed into a plant, painted and tiny bolls of cotton attached, all by hand," according to park officials.

The idea for the dioramas originated with Florida's state entry in the New York World's Fair in 1939, Beauchamp says. It was a large diorama depicting an artist's rendering of a conceptual Stephen Foster memorial complex situated on the banks of the Suwannee River. It was designed and fabricated by a firm in Deland, Fla., called Exhibit Builders Inc.

Foster Barnes, who worked for the World's Fair at the time, was subsequently instrumental in arranging for the selection and design of the dioramas for the Foster memorial here by the same company. He later served as the museum's first curator.

It wasn't until nearly a decade after the museum building was completed that funds became available to erect the majestic bell tower, which was finished in 1957, followed a year later by the installation of the $120,000, 97-bell carillon, said to be unique in the world. Most tubular carillons have 32 or fewer bells.

Designed to be played both manually and automatically, the carillon bells toll Foster melodies at regular intervals throughout the day. For special events, their lush harmonies reverberate gently throughout the park and the surrounding community.

Members of the Memorial Commission had traveled thousand of miles over several years auditioning various types of carillons, both foreign and domestic, finally selecting one commissioned to be made by the foremost American carillon manufacturer of the day, the J.C. Deagan Co. of Chicago. It was the last carillon made by the company, park officials say.

Other historical items and artifacts within the museum include the desk from his brother Morrison's office at the Hope Cotton Mill in Pittsburgh, from whom, in 1851, Stephen Foster sought assistance in selecting a two-syllable river name in the South for a composition-in-progress. On that desk, Foster wrote down the finishing touch to his best-known song, as his brother plucked from a map the name of the Suwannee River.

Stephen had rejected two others he suggested, "Yazoo," then "Peedee." The latter made it onto Foster's original hand-written draft score, but was crossed out and replaced by "Swanee." A copy of the draft manuscript is mounted on the desk, which was donated to the state of Florida in 1971 by Foster's niece, Evelyn Foster Mornemeck, of Stuart, Fla.

Also there is a small upright piano which Foster is said to have played frequently at a Pittsburgh neighbor's home, donated to the state by a great-granddaughter from Pittsburgh, Mrs. Ralph L. Malady.

At opposite ends of the spacious museum building -- a large showcase lobby flanked by two smaller, tastefully decorated exhibition rooms -- are two mural oil paintings, each measuring 62 square feet. They were rendered in 1948 and 1950, respectively, by American artist Howard Chandler Christy. One, a visual rendition of the song "Beautiful Dreamer," portrays Foster in a dream-like setting, seeming to fantasize upon the themes of this and two other songs, "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" and "Old Folks at Home."

The title of the second, labeled "Many Happy Days I Squandered," is derived from the second verse of "Old Folks at Home." It portrays Foster as a young man and shows a young girl by his side who may have shared what the artist has sentimentally characterized as Foster's halcyon boyhood days, within an idealized outdoor setting. It was completed two years before Christy's death in 1952.

He was paid $5,000 each for the two paintings which, Mrs. Beauchamps says, are now "priceless."

A third Christy painting memorializing Foster is hung at the Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardsville, Ky., which has adopted the composition "My Old Kentucky Home" as its state song.

Another Stephen Foster State Park is situated in the Okeefenokee Swamp at the headwaters of the Suwannee River, near Fargo, Ga. There the Suwannee River originates, flowing southward through Georgia and Florida for some 250 miles before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico about 85 miles southwest of here.

Like most public recreational facilities that rely to a large extent upon uncertain state budgets and user fees to fund maintenance, operations and programs, the Stephen Foster Culture Park has seen its ups and downs over the years. The admission fee is surprisingly low, $3.25 per car with up to seven passengers.

There is also a well-equipped recreational vehicle campground on the premises and private campgrounds nearby.

Events such as auto gas shortages in the 1970s, and the building of Interstate 75, which sped motorists swiftly past White Springs without stopping to visit the memorial, have depressed visitor attendance for some years. But Martha Nelson, a public information specialist for the park, says the memorial park's mounting visibility has steadily increased average attendance there, currently around 62,000 visitors per year.

Joe LaRocca is a writer from North East, Pa.