Semmes Heritage Day 2010

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Semmes Heritage Day Festival is May 15, 2010

• AL.com and Press-Register Correspondent JoAnne McKnight​

The Semmes Heritage Day Festival will be May 15, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Heritage Park, 3871 Wulff Road. The event will include an open house at the 1902 Semmes Schoolhouse, the oldest continuously operating school in Alabama.
Many events, games and activities will be going on at the festival, most reminiscent of an earlier time.
For example, at 10 a.m., Frankie Wood, a Mobile storyteller and former principal at Semmes Elementary School, will be telling one of her favorite yarns, “Sweet Patootie,” the tale of a little Colonial-era girl who had no doll and made out of a sweet potato.
There will be music by the Deep South Dulcimers, led by Joyce Harris. Though the name implies that only dulcimers will be played, other old-time instruments and the voices of singers will lend depth to the group’s 11 a.m. performance.
Both of these events take place indoors — storytelling in the schoolhouse and the dulcimer concert in Malone Chapel, a replica of the first Baptist church of Semmes.
Another musical performance will be presented by the Semmes Elementary School choir. Also performing will be the Lost and Found Orchestra, led by David Baker, a member of the Mobile Pops. That group will entertain visitors from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
A square-dance demonstration by the Square Dealers, a troop of special-needs dancers, is on the schedule for a noon performance.
Festival chairwoman Jeanette Byrd said the grounds at Heritage Park will be filled with a display of wagons and classic tractors, with various vendors and arts and crafts exhibitors. There will be a country store and food and baked goods for sale.
Among the vendors will be the Sandovals with their popular Kettle Corn; a company with SnoBalls for sale; and Thirty One, a booth run by Gloria Greene, Janice Ross and Sue Ann Dixon. They specialize in purses, lunchboxes, cosmetics and Watkins Products.
Semmes Woman’s Club members will be selling their cookbook, “A Taste of Semmes.” The book includes photos and drawings of Semmes historic buildings and other scenes.
SWC will also have for sale a Mary Rodning print of the Howell Home, an 1897 farm house that will become the third Heritage Park structure, joining the school and Malone Chapel. The print sells for $10, as does the cookbook.
Among the demonstrations and exhibits: a grist mill grinding corn, a wash or rub board being used and a quilt in the process of being completed. There will be games for children, the kind their grandparents played, and there are see-saws and swings on the school grounds.
There is no admission charge. Byrd is still looking for volunteers who would like to display old-timey crafts. Vendors and artists and crafters can still get a space for $20 by calling Terri Nelson at 251-649-3163.