{"id":958,"date":"2016-11-11T17:27:31","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T17:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelittlecolonel.com\/index.php\/beechmore-the-little-colonel-years\/"},"modified":"2024-04-19T15:03:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T15:03:32","slug":"beechmore-the-little-colonel-years","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thelittlecolonel.com\/index.php\/beechmore-the-little-colonel-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Beechmore – The Little Colonel Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Beechmore”<\/span>
\nGreat-Aunt Sally Tyler\u2019s Home in \u201cThe Little Colonel\u201d
\nReal Life Home of Captain Thomas Floyd and Blanch Weissinger Smith, 
\nHattie Cochran\u2019s (The Little Colonel\u2019s) Great Aunt and Uncle
\nBeechmore: The Jennie Casseday Rest Cottage Years<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nBeechmore as it looked during the time it served as Jennie Casseday\u2019s Rest Cottage for Working Women. Originally built around 1830 by Michael and Catherine Souther, it was next owned by Catherin’s brother, Joseph Clore, and then by novelist and poet Catherine Anne Warfieldbefore<\/a> it was purchased by Captain Thomas Floyd Smith. After Smith\u2019s death, it became the Rest Cottage for Working Women until the 1940s, when it was sold to Mrs. Mary Crain for a nursing home. Following her death, the house quickly went to ruin and was eventually torn down. The 64-acre property is now the site of The Woods of Pewee Valley subdivision.<\/p>\n

Beechmore appears in the very first book of the \u201cLittle Colonel\u201d series. Though Annie Fellows Johnston never refers to the house by name, it is the fictional Lloydsboro Valley home of the Tyler family \u2013 the Little Colonel\u2019s<\/a> great-aunt and -uncle.<\/p>\n

The Tylers are first mentioned in Chapter II of \u201cThe Little Colonel,\u201d<\/a> published in 1895:<\/p>\n

“Yo’ great-aunt Sally Tylah is comin’ this mawnin’,” said Mom Beck, the day after their visit to the hotel. “Do fo’ goodness’ sake keep yo’self clean. I’se got too many spring chickens to dress to think ’bout dressin’ you up again.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Did I evah see her befo’?” questioned the Little Colonel.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Why, yes, the day we moved heah. Don’t you know she came and stayed so long, and the rockah broke off the little white rockin’-chair when she sat down in it?”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Oh, now I know!” laughed the child. “She’s the big fat one with the curls hangin’ round her yeahs like shavin’s. I don’t like her, Mom Beck. She keeps a-kissin’ me all the time, an’ a-‘queezin’ me, an’ tellin’ me to sit on her lap an’ be a little lady. Mom Beck, I de’pise to be a little lady.”<\/em><\/p>\n

In Chapter III, we learn that Sally Tyler is the Old Colonel\u2019s wife\u2019s half-sister:<\/p>\n

“My great-aunt Sally Tylah is to ou’ house this mawnin’,” she announced, confidentially. “That’s why we came off. Do you know my Aunt Sally Tylah?”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Well, slightly!” chuckled the Colonel. “She was my wife’s half-sister. So you don’t like her eh? Well, I don’t like her either.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And in Chapter IX, we learn that the Tyler home is located in Lloydsboro Valley, when Papa Jack<\/a> decides to take an ill-advised walk to the Post Office<\/a> to mail a letter while still recuperating from the long illness he contracted in the West: <\/p>\n

“The clouds have all blown away and left us their silver linings,” said Mrs. Sherman the day her husband was able to go out-of-doors for the first time. He walked down to the post-office, and brought back a letter from the West. It had such encouraging reports of his business that he was impatient to get back to it. He wrote a reply early in the afternoon, and insisted on going to mail it himself.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I’ll never get my strength back,” he protested, “unless I have more exercise.” It was a cold, gray November day. A few flakes of snow were falling when he started.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I’ll stop and rest at the Tylers’,” he called back, “so don’t be uneasy if I’m out some time.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Just as in the story, Beechmore was the home of real-life Little Colonel Hattie Cochran\u2019s great-uncle and -aunt, Captain Thomas Floyd Smith and his wife Blanch Weissinger Smith. Though Annie Fellows Johnston portrays \u201cGreat Aunt Sally Tyler\u201d as the half-sister of the Old Colonel\u2019s late wife, in reality, Blanch and Colonel George Washington Weissinger were full sister and brother, according to the Weissinger family genealogy below:<\/p>\n