Getting Back to my Mississippi Roots

Getting away is always fun, and visiting family makes it even more special. Mark and I had an opportunity to visit his sister Wes and her husband Bob last weekend. They live in Vaughan, MS, home of the famous train crash in which the engineer, Casey Jones, died saving all the other people on the train on April 30th 1900. There used to be a depot and memorial marking the crash site, but another Mississippi town had no depot and therefore it was moved a few years ago.


The train was part of the Illinois Central Railroad, the company that my grandfather worked for when I was a child. He was the personnel manager. Paige and I were riding in the Ringgold, GA Christmas Parade and I was reminded of the first time I marched in a Christmas parade. Instead of riding in the back of a truck in a trailer, I was inside a train car that had been converted to ride on the street. My grandfather, Frank Nason, had invited his grandchildren to ride the train through downtown Baton Rouge.



Vaughan, MS is about 40 miles North of Jackson up Interstate 55. It had been a couple of years since we were there and so it was exciting to see the changes as we traveled up the Interstate. First we noticed that the town of Ridgeland had a new shopping center, Renaissance Center, a fabulous life-style center which we shopped and ate lunch at while in town. Next we noticed that the cell tower built to look like the Washington Monument had been moved as the Interstate had been widened. It is located in the town of Madison, the next town as we traveled North. Madison has the only red brick interstate exchange in the country, I’m told. The mayor insisted it not look like most on and off ramps. She also insists that all buildings look like train depots and that the Wal-Mart not look like a Wal-Mart (and it doesn’t.)


The last town we passed was Canton, MS which is home to the Nissan Factory. The factory has a device that shoots out sonic booms to disburse the clouds that might have hail inside it so that the thousands of cars on the grounds will not be damaged. Canton is also where the movie A Time to Kill was filmed. It being Christmas, the town square and courthouse were completely covered in lights with carriage rides rounding the square surrounded by antique stores, boutiques, and eateries. Canton calls itself the City of Lights this time of year.



Bob and Wes live on Rosedale Plantation that was built in the 1870’s and in which they are in the process of registering it on the National Historic Registry in Washington D.C. This will be the second time they have lived in an historic home. Their first plantation was Avondale in Clinton, LA a home they moved and rebuilt to its original state before selling it and moving north to Jackson, MS. Wes is a nurse for a cardiologist while Bob is a rural property developer. In his spare time, he is a carpenter and has built among other things a potting shed for Wes. A couple of years ago, Bob surprised Wes with a cabin in the woods which he calls “Camp Wesley Pines.” It’s only eight by eight but has two drop-leaf beds, a pot-belly stove, and a chandelier made of deer antlers.



Our day trip for the weekend was a drive up State Hwy 16 to Lexington then inn Tchula we picked up US Hwy 49E to Greenwood, MS. Suddenly we are in another little Delta Mississippi town. But this one was a little different. I’ll say. Greenwood is home to the Viking Range Corporation. We walked through the Viking Store (not appliances) just accessories and could see into the kitchen where a group of students from a girls private school in Jackson were making gingerbread houses. We saw a set of steak knives for $1,200 and decided to pass on them, but we did get some great bread just baked in the bakery which we shared at dinner that night. Lunch at the Crystal Restaurant was a real treat.

On the way out of Greenwood, Bob took us to the Greenwood-Laflore Airport on US Hwy 82 where we saw the most amazing thing – a graveyard for passenger airplanes. The General Electric Corporation takes the engines out and refurbishes them and sells off the rest of the plane for scrap. He said the manager there told him some planes fly in immediately after dropping off passengers on a regularly scheduled flight. They come in still stocked with coffee in the pot, trash not emptied, and food and drinks in the pantry. I found it so interesting I got as much information I could from Bob so that I could research it for a story for an aviation magazine.


And so we said good-bye to Bob and Wes, their two dogs Melby and Sidney and cat Max and headed back to Tennessee. Going back to the state I was born in brings back many memories and leaving it makes me sad in that I don’t know it like I do all the other places I’ve lived. I thank my sister-in-law Wes and her husband Bob for sharing their time and home and love for their state with me.