Tag: Pulitzer

Merry Christmas from Jekyll Island, Georgia

Jekyll Island is located off the coast of the state of Georgia. It is one of the Sea Islands and one of the Golden Isles of Georgia barrier islands. The island is owned by the State of Georgia and run by a self-sustaining, self-governing body.

The famous Jekyll Island Club Resort is the original hotel for the island dating from the 1890’s.

In the late 1800s, Jekyll Island became an exclusive hunting club for families with names like Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Pulitzer, and Baker. The once private retreat is now part of The Jekyll Island Club National Historic Landmark District, one of the largest preservation projects in the southeast.

Our hero at the Island for the Christmas light show.

Every Christmas the Island is decorated with hundreds of thousands of lights and you can do a self drive through the Island Historical District and see the homes that were once owned by the families of America’s Glided Age lite up for the holidays. Covered in over 35,000 lights, the Great Tree has more lights per square foot than the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York City. Along Shell road, visitors can glimpse the Twelve Days of Christmas light displays from the Great Dunes Beach Park to the Historic District.

The island is covered with old Live Oak trees that have thousands of lights on them. The span of some of the trees is 100 feet or more.

The entire island is covered in Christmas lights during the holidays. The holidays are wonderful here- carriage rides, trolley tours, a free museum & history movie. Not really “shopping’ on Jekyll, but on St Simons there are lots of quaint shops (about 20 min). No wonder the Vanderbilts & Rockefellers lived here all winter! Check www.jekyll.com frequently. There is a great, updated events calendar well in advance. Enjoy! Extremely quiet, laid-back, more residential with history on one side, and then beach places on the other. But the entire island is a national park, so there are no go cart rides or normal beach “strip” type of things. Upscale & wonderful place.

Enjoy the beautiful ancient trees covered in lights and Spanish moss, then head to the hotel for hot chocolate and pastries is the way to end a December evening on Jekyll .

The Poet and the Goats – Carl Sandburg House – North Carolina

On a visit to see my sister in the mountains of Western North Carolina not far from the city of Asheville, and the famous Vanderbilt home, Biltmore, lies the quaint mountain city of Hendersonville.  On a beautiful spring day we drove over to the mountain village of Flat Rock,  to see the home of Carl Sandburg, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet and writer. Connemara, the name of the farm, is run by the US National Park Service and houses the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. Connemara consists of a 264-acre site including the Sandburg residence, the goat farm, sheds, rolling pastures, mountainside woods, 5 miles (8 km) of hiking trails on moderate to steep terrain, two small lakes, several ponds, flower and vegetable gardens, and an apple orchard.

Though a Midwesterner, Sandburg and his family moved to this home in 1945 for the peace and solitude required for his writing and the more than 30 acres of pastureland required for his wife, Lilian, to raise her champion dairy goats. Sandburg spent the last twenty-two years of his life on this farm and published more than a third of his works while he resided here. In 1951, he won his 3rd Pulitzer Prize for his book of poetry, Complete Poems.

It was Lilian Sandburg who found the farm, already named Connemara. She was searching for the ideal place, large enough for raising her prize-winning goats and sufficiently secluded for Sandburg’s writing. While a writer and poet herself, Lilian’s legacy was a prize-winning goat-herd. She became famous in her own right for her goats which she started raising in Michigan. She purchased her first goat in 1935 and began to research the benefits of goats milk. Seeking a better climate (as well as a place where Sandburg could write) she chose Western NC. She improved the herd and had a thriving milk and cheese business. She became well-known for her ability to genetically select and produce improved goats. (1)

Our guide that day, a volunteer for the Park Service told us that often people would stop by the farm to specifically see Lilian and had no idea who Mr. Sandburg was. Lilian would become a household name in the world of dairy goats.

The goats living at Connemara today are descendants of the very goats that Lilian Sandburg raised. There are three types of goats: the Toggenburgs , the Saanens , and the Nubians (who have long, floppy ears). They keep a revolving herd of 15 goats on the site selling off the older goats as new ones are born. Guests are allowed to visit the goats in the pasture and barn. It is very funny to watch the young goats play and run around with each other. Be advised though when the goats decide to let go with a bodily function, it can get really messy real fast. Customer beware!

A very pleasant day in Flat Rock. A little family, a little history, a little nature all in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains. You can hike the trails at Carl Sandburg anytime without a fee or take the house tour for $10 adults or $6 for seniors. Check it out, it will be worth your time.

Plus literally across the highway from the Sandburg House, the Flat Rock Playhouse, a world-famous regional theatre offering plays, musicals and concerts in addition to workshops for children and students. If you like theatre or live performance, the Playhouse is well worth a visit as well.

(1) Lilian’s Goats, Blog Post, Mountain Musings, 2008.