The title is a mash-up because the day was a mash-up. It’s the kind of juxtaposition that enriches an urban environment and sometimes leads me to connections I wouldn’t otherwise make. Days like this past Tuesday display the textures of our city and make me feel good about what we have to offer.
The Urban Land Institute team, which I wrote about more fully about last week, arrived in Knoxville on Sunday and took a walking tour of the city on Monday. I was pleased to hear that they actually walked to each of the sites as well as around them. The sites they are looking at, as I’ve mentioned before, are the World’s Fair Park, Henley Street, Old Supreme Courthouse site, Jackson Avenue with the former McClung Warehouse site and the Knoxville Civic Auditorium and Coliseum.
The photographs included here are from Monday evening at the Knoxville Museum of Art. A press conference stating the goals of the visit preceded a reception for, well, a very large swath of Knoxville including the nearly 170 people slated to be interviewed the next day. A beautiful spread of food and drink, Norwegian Wood providing the music and the Great Hall featuring the Richard Jolley installation. Yes, outside the large windows sits a train track, dumpsters and a covered waterway, but some of that is up for discussion this week.
But I was writing about Tuesday, right? It started with this same group of people interviewing that mass of people. I was fortunate to have an early time for my group (residential stakeholders) discussion with the panelists. The fun hour-long discussion covers so much terrain readers of this blog are very familiar with that I felt I had each of you and the comments you’ve made and the discussions we’ve had when we’ve met as support. There’s not much I enjoy more than talking about our downtown with people who are just being introduced to the city.
An hour after leaving an urban discussion group, I took a seat in the Bijou Theatre for a presentation sponsored by the East Tennessee History Society. Siblings Randolph and Jennie Churchill, great-grandchildren of Winston Churchill and each named after his parents, their great-great grandparents, lectured, read letters and re-counted the relationship of their namesakes and the impact of Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie.
Churchill’s mother, born to a wealthy American family, met her future husband on the Isle of Wight. She vacationed there and mingled with British aristocracy including Sir Randolph Churchill. They fell in love immediately and were engaged within three days. Even though both families initially resisted the romance, the two married and settled into life in England. The current Randolph suggested that their oldest son, Winston, might easily have been termed a “wastrel,” as he serially failed at each school he attended.
His life seemed to change course upon his father’s death when Winston was only twenty years old. The current Randolph and Jennie suggested that much of what he became in his life resulted from the influence of his mother who was beautiful, musically and artistically talented, multilingual and, over the years after the death of her husband, extremely accomplished in her own right. She funded and operated the first hospital ship during the Boer War and worked with hospitals during World War I. She was termed America’s best ambassador to England and became beloved in the country, receiving numerous medals from Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and King George V. The medals were on hand at the lecture, worn by the current Jennie.
From urban discussions, to a Churchill lecture, I ended the day with a book launch reading and signing at the East Tennessee History Center. Laura Still, who many of you may know as a published poet and through her connections with the Knoxville Writers’ Guild and even more of you likely know because of her history and ghost walking tours of downtown Knoxville, which I wrote about last fall. With the publication of A Haunted History of Knoxville, she has entered yet another arena. Her story-telling background serves her well in the new venture.
The book covers forty different stories or legends of the unquiet dead all around Knoxville. Much of it, as you might expect, is centered in downtown, with stories focused on landmarks you will recognize, such as the First Presbyterian Cemetery, Blount Mansion, the Andrew Johnson Building, Park House, Mary Boyce Temple House, the Bijou Theatre, the Farragut Hotel, sites in the Old City and more. It’s equal parts history and ghost stories and would seem to be a must-have book for anyone interested in the history of the city. It’s available on Amazon, but to really do the Knoxville experience all the way through, I suggest you buy it via Laura’s website or walk into downtown’s actual book store and make your purchase from Union Avenue Books.
So there you have an Urban Churchill Ghosts sort of day. It’s a pretty wide array and I could have chosen an entirely different set of other fabulous events or activities. While I’ll continue enjoying the downtown night life, I’m appreciating the daytime Knoxville I had not previously been able to enjoy. It’s a great time of the year to get out there and find your own mash-up kind of day.