Girl Meets City: Mobile
Mobile may not be the first city you think of for a vacation, but my family can tell you- it should be. My only regret, as always, is that we didn’t have more time to explore.
Our trip actually, technically, started in Montgomery. It’s a good place to stop when heading over from our home state of Georgia and I was wanting to step into the newly opened National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It might not be the most obvious stop to make on a vacation, but I very much believing in educating my children about all aspects of their Southern heritage. Even the ugly parts.
Before visiting, you should go to The Legacy Museum first, then the Lynching Memorial. The reason being is that you can buy tickets for both cheaper if you go to the museum first.
I don’t have any photos from the museum as they don’t allow it, but you’ve likely seen various news reports about this museum. One part that stood out to me, among many, were the jars of dirt. Jars of dirt where men and women were lynched. Where they died. Many times, in front of throngs of people smiling at the cameras in front of their hanging bodies. It’s difficult to put into words what it was like to see these things.
It may not be ab obvious stop for a vacation, but its history. And it’s a history that we need to own. Especially when, like me, your ancestors were key participants in the slave trade. In owning people. In perpetuating it all.
Honestly, that part of my visit deserves its own post later on and I plan to do so. This part of my visit has haunted me so much that I had to put writing this post on hold for several months while I just dwelled on it and read more about it.
But for now, I’ll move along. Which brings me to heading back down the interstate to Mobile, a beautiful city where my ancestors were quite the movers and shakers. Helped by the plantations and people that they owned. But a beautiful city nonetheless, and quite progressive- as a Macon friend of mine who is from Mobile would later tell me. I was excited to see for myself.
Whenever you travel, I recommend calling ahead to your hotel to ensure that they have your reservation. I had a mild panic attack when I did so while driving and almost in Mobile and they couldn’t find our reservation. This was also because I used a third-party site to help find a hotel (and a deal) and sometimes that site uses my maiden name oe even both my maiden name AND my divorced last name.
Upon arriving in Mobile I was pleasantly surprised to realize the downtown area had a number of tall buildings, like any major metro area would. I know that may seem silly but I didn’t have this picture in my mind of Mobile having the feel of Birmingham or Atlanta or Chicago- albeit on a much smaller scale. I always had in my mind that Mobile was very much like my hometown of Macon, and when you enter Macon from the interstate you don’t do so flanked by large glass facade buildings.
It was a little tricky navigating traffic to get into our hotel, but that was because of the backup at the Bankhead Tunnel, which I vaguely remembered from my youth because it goes under the water. But we did manuever around to pull up to the Admiral Hotel, where a valet helped us with our luggage and parking the car. This was also when my eight year old, loudly let me add, asked what a valet was and why was he helping. This was also the moment I realized I must not have taken my kids to very many nice hotels. *sigh*
All my children had been talking about was going swimming. When were we going swimming? I had told them we were invited to dinner at our cousins home, and that they said we could swim there. But no, they wanted to swim beforehand at the hotel. So once we checked in, I let them do that. It was actually quite pretty! It was a smallish sized pool, but I thought they did a nice job with it. My assumption is that a pool was not original to this historic 1940’s hotel.
As for the hotel itself, it was absolutely beautiful. I felt tacky taking a photo inside the lobby, so I’m grabbing this one from their social media:
The rooms are also a decent size, I stayed in a similar hotel in Chicago about a year prior and the rooms were itsy bitsy! I still felt like there was plenty of room even with two kids here at the Admiral.
Later that evening we went to a cookout at my cousins Herndon and Amanda Inge’s home off of Old Shell Road. I really wish I had gotten photos of their home because it was absolutely stunning! But more than that I got to meet a bunch of cousins who I had never met before and got to hear these old family stories and… it was just exactly what a dinner with Southern family should be: with gracious hosts and superb guests and people who are bound to you by blood and welcome you the instant they meet you. I am grateful and humbled.
The next morning, the kiddos and I would set off on our own. I knew that our cousin Herndon was planning on taking us out around noon and in the afternoon to show us around town so we set out on a walk. We could have opted to actually go to my Great Uncle’s funeral, as he happened to have passed away a couple of weeks prior, but I thought it would be too much for my kids. My grandmother did come into town with my uncle and aunt, which meant we would meet up with them for a Mobile tradition the following day. But I’ll get to that later.
The Admiral is nicely situated right in downtown, and in easy walking distance to a number of hot spots. Cousin Amanda said we should check out this farmer’s market, so we headed that way first. It was right in the middle of Cathedral Square, in front of the Cathedral Basilica of The Immaculate Conception. There was even this beautiful fountain- although one little one kept swearing she was getting bitten by bugs (she wasn’t).
Then it was time for some breakfast! Google Maps assisted me in finding a spot close by: A Spot of Tea.
This adorably British-themed restaurant was opened in 1994 and they’ve got an array of teas with a full service presentation and all.
Afterwards, we really just walked around and took in the views on the streets, including stopping into the Moon Pie shop!
The Lost Garden sign was super interesting to me, and once I got home I was able to do some research and learn a little more about it. A Google search brought me to their Facebook page, and this info below:
“The concept for The Lost Garden began with local artist, Colleen Terrell Comer, who approached the Alabama Contemporary Art Center with a proposal for an outdoor garden/art gallery. The proposal was approved. Colleen built several multi-colored open-framed ‘houses’ while the garden team from Mobile Urban Growers got busy making beds and planting veggies. The houses were installed amidst the plants, creating a welcoming place for adults and children alike where they could enjoy art and learn about gardening and sustainability.
The project was originally intended to be temporary, just for a few months during the summer. The following summer Mobile Urban Growers decided to do it again, this time they started earlier and then brought a proposal to the Alabama Contemporary Art Center asking to keep the garden open throughout the year. The proposal was approved.
The Lead Gardener for the garden is Patricia Hall from Mobile Urban Growers. Pat volunteers in many of the community gardens in the Mobile area. She hosts work days from 10-12 the first Saturday of every month (weather permitting) at The Lost Garden. Pat also plans educational opportunities related to gardening and sustainability and sometimes craft projects for each LODA ArtWalk and also for other community events. And she occasionally makes home made bread, treats from garden produce, and tasty red zinger tea which she then brings to the garden for people to taste.
The current murals in the garden were painted by artists: Lucy Gafford, Kathleen Kirk Stoves, Kathy Parsons Friedline, Zach DePolo, and Joanne Brandt. One of Colleen Terrell Comer’s original house structures also remains.
Karen Bullock, a local photographer and a part-time pastor, is the Art Curator for the garden. Each month during LODA ArtWalk the Lost Garden features a new Artist of the Month. It is a great opportunity for emerging artists and a wonderful space for an exhibit.
The Lost Garden was a finalist in the Mobile Arts Council Arty awards for ‘artistic innovation’ but like all gardens, we are always growing and evolving. Currently (2017) the garden team is working on plans to enhance the space.”
This seems to me something that more communities should do 🙂 It also reminds me of something that my friend and fellow Macon, Georgia resident but Mobile native Christy said prior to my visit: Mobile is an extremely progressive town.
I think this was also reflected in the History of Mobile Museum, with their exhibits that showed not just the history of Mobile- but also frankly spoke about slavery and the impact that industry had on Mobile.
There were also beautiful exhibits on the impact of World War II and Mardi Gras- but my absolute favorite was The Mary Jane Slaton Inge Gallery. The description on their website simply says: “Visit The Mary Jane Slaton Inge Gallery, our new permanent exhibit displaying some of the finer things of life in Old Mobile. The gallery is named for one of our longtime volunteers and friends, Mary Jane Slaton Inge, who was a lifelong resident of the Port City.
The exhibit includes some of the History Museum’s finest pieces, including Boehm porcelain, Baccarat crystal, Limoges china, souvenirs from several of Mobile’s oldest mystic societies, sculptures, paintings, and other decorative arts. A portrait of Inge by local artist Susan Downing-White now hangs outside of the exhibit.”
I don’t think that does it justice. No disrespect to them, but that exhibit is absolutely stunning. So many times those of my generation are ripped for not appreciating china and crystal and placeware but not me. I love these items, and this gallery allows us to experience so much of history just by looking over these fine items.
I also love this portrait and quote about my distant relative:
From here Cousin Herndon would drive us around Mobile to see all of the different, beautiful neighborhoods. I’m not sure why I didn’t realize there would be so many examples of beautiful home, but I hadn’t. I highly recommend picking up a copy of their Historic Driving Tour. Sadly, I can’t find my copy and I can’t find the exact one online either.
Next was lunch at The Dew Drop Inn. Herndon told me all about this place and what a staple it was in Mobile- my aunts also told me to make sure to stop by. Kiddos were honestly tired at this point and had fallen asleep during the driving tour (they had a mid-morning jaunt at the pool) and so I was happy to get them inside and fed.
For my local Macon people. this was like a combo of Sid’s Sandwich Shop with the style of the building and the food of NuWay. I didn’t grab a photo of our food but it was indeed delicious. I grabbed this photo from their Facebook page, so I hope they’re ok with that:
Next I got to see the grave of my great-great grandfather. Probably not of much interest to y’all here but I was very happy to get to see it.
But what I DO think y’all will love to learn more about is the Mardi Gras Museum. I get in an argument with someone at least once a year but yes, Mobile IS THE HOME of Mardi Gras. Not New Orleans. And as much as I love NOLA, I’m not sure I would enjoy Mardi Gras there. But perhaps that’s just my own Mobilian roots coming out 🙂
Later that evening, after resting again at our hotel, we went to eat fish on the river. Now… there’s a few places to go on the river. I highly recommend going at least to one of them because the sunset from this angle is breathtaking. I wish I had gotten some photos but honestly I was tired… kiddos were tired… so it was all I could do just to enjoy the moment.
I’ll add that we also went through the Bankhead Tunnel to get to dinner and I remember being a little kid and thinking that tunnel lasted FOREVER. I mean really, we would try to hold our breath and couldn’t.
*Note: the tunnel is named for the father of Tallulah Bankhead who was an elected official in Alabama. And, as it turns out, some kind of distant kin through my Mobile relatives. The more strong, Southern women I discover in my genealogy the more I feel like I can point to them for my temperament.
At this point, kiddos were tired but wide awake, so I introduced them to the concept of night swimming. We didn’t spend a lit of time at the hotel pool in the evening, but it was a marvel to my kids to realize that the pool had underwater lights and they could swim after dark. They had never done that before, and thus, another memory made.
I’ll note next that I generally stay away from hotel breakfast buffets, I’ve generally found them to be kind of expensive and I’ve never been convinced that my kiddos would take advantage of it. Well, after a little service mixup, we were granted free buffet passes to make up for it. This is also when I learned that my kids will, in fact, eat enough at the breakfast buffet so that it would be worth it had I paid for it. They’ve also got their own honey here, made from beehives on the hotel property, and i was sure to get some with my morning parfait. Everything was delightful! It was also my kids first experience hearing me say: “Get whatever you want, I don’t care if you finish it or not.” Ha!
From here we went ahead and packed up the car and got checked out, but we didn’t leave just yet. We went and looked at the house that my grandmother grew up in on Government Street. Which I always hear her say in the back of my mind with a perfect Scarlett O’Hara Southern accent. You know the kind- the one that has that certain slowness of speech and odd twang that doesn’t sound like it’s from the country but some other cultivated part of town.
We continued to drive around, and caught an early lunch/brunch at the Noble South. Really just because their social media photos were so incredible that I had to try it! They did NOT disappoint:
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The interior of @the_noble_south in @visitmobileal is just as beautiful as their food
From here it was to the Fort Conti museum. Now you might ask, why were you doing all this driving around? Why not go ahead and hit the road? Well, as it so happened, my great-uncle passed away about a week prior. So my grandmother, aunt, and uncle were in town the same weekend. We did not go to the funeral because I couldn’t imagine taking my two kids to a Mobile summer funeral outside. But we were going to meet up with my immediate family in Washington Square park with the deer statue. Three generations of Inge Mobilian were all photographed together that weekend. My kids took photos in the same trees that my father climbed, and the same deer statue that he once say on top of.
These are memories that we can never recreate, and it’s likely my grandmother’s last trip to her hometown. So we stuck around Mobile so that my children could spend some of that last time with her.
Even now, so many months after visiting, so many months after starting this piece… delaying finishing so that I didn’t have to let it go, I am wistful for this visit. But I am glad and grateful to have shared it with new to us family, my grandmother, and my children. We Southerners love our roots, we love knowing from where we come, because even though it may be new to us- it’s still home in our souls.
Love to all y’all,
Molly
