The 2nd Annual Wholesome Folsom Book Festival was held on Saturday, November 23, 2024, hosted by The Northshore Writers’ Group, The GiddyUp Coffeehouse, and The Wholesome Folsom Corporation. More than a dozen writers from the North Shore Writers group and other local writers were on hand to display their published works and talk with fans.
The event also featured storytime readings by children's’ authors, poetry readings and published authors reading from their works.
The old library museum also held a book sale, as it does every Saturday, with proceeds from the sales (and donations to the museum) going to the Wholesome Folsom Corp., dedicated to supporting the mission of the The Old Folsom Library and museum, which was placed on The National Registry of Historic Places in October of 2022.
The annual Veterans Day ceremony took place at 10 a.m. at the entrance of the St. Tammany Justice Center in Covington Monday. More than 100 people turned out for the event, which was hosted by American Legion Robert H. Burns Post No. 16.
Dennis W. Charlesworth served as master of ceremonies, and among the dignitaries speaking were Parish President Mike Cooper, Covington Mayor Mark Johnson, Lucy Vennen of Post 16 Auxiliary, Rachel Shaw with the Daughters of the American Revolution, and Matt Cole with the Marine Corps League.
Video from the Veterans Day Program
Click on the "Play Triangle" to view the video
The guest speaker was Tiffany McGary Cyprian, who told about her organization and how it is meeting the housing needs of homeless veterans in St. Tammany Parish.
Mia Ditta sang the national anthem and "God Bless America," and the American Heritage Girls led the Pledge of Allegiance. Arthur Bennet Jr. gave the invocation and the benediction. The St. Tammany Veterans Honor Guard took part in the Advancement of Colors, the three volley Rifle Salute and the playing of "taps."
Here are some photographs. Click on the image to make them larger.
Master of Ceremonies Dennis Charlesworth
The St. Tammany Veterans Honor Guard advanced the colors
The American Heritage Girls led the Pledge of Allegiance
Senior veterans of wars as long ago as World War II and the Korean War were honored
Parish President Mike Cooper and Covington Mayor Mark Johnson
along with Lucy Vennen of the Post 16 Auxiliary
Matt Cole with the Marine Corps League, Rachel Shaw with the Daughters of the American Revolution and Guest Speaker Tiffany McGary Cyprian with the Welcome Ministries Community Home
The three volley rifle salute
The American Heritage Girls group
Mia Ditta sang the "Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America"
The oldest two veterans in attendance
The entire group of veterans
A number of tables were set up giving out information about various services available to veterans, as well as book sales by author Allen Oxford shown above.
The Covington Fire Department brought out their big flag
Veterans Day was originally known at Armistice Day. It is a federal holiday observed on November 11, for honoring military veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. The event originally marked the end of World War I, which came in the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
Forty-seven years ago, in 1977, I took this picture of the Veterans Day program in front of the old courthouse on Boston Street.
The two day Three Rivers Art Festival was held on Columbia Street in Covington this past weekend, with hundreds of artists and art enthusiasts on hand, along with musical entertainment and informational booths. Food and drink were also available.
Saturday was a great day with good weather and a large crowd. Drizzling rain on Sunday thinned out the crowd, but the festivities continued. Here are some photographs from Sunday morning. Click on the images to make them larger.
Grayhawk Perkins was on hand in the children's tent area.
Links to past Three Rivers Art Festival Blog Posts...
In 1970 an article appeared in the St. Tammany Farmer telling about one person's recollections of excursion boats crossing Lake Pontchartrain back and forth to New Orleans. Here is that article. Click on the images to make them larger and more readable.
Here is the text from the article:
Good Days On The Lake Recalled
C. Allen Favrot, a resident of Covington and New Orleans, nostaglically recalls the good old days when paddlewheel steamers made excursion trips daily between New Orleans, Mandeville, and Madisonville. Recently he brought The Farmer an article about the SS Camellia, also known as the SS New Camellia. written in September. 1937.
The article says the vessel., a famous fun boat, along with others of her era. "share a common quiet grave in the Tchefuncte river near' Madisonville. Their grave is marked dramatically.
Sticking out of the water near the tree-shaded west bank of the Tchefuncte is what is lett of the boat: a leaning wooden walking beam , support, and parts of a piston, smoke stack and paddle wheel. "Below the surface can be seen shadows of the outline of the deck. At low water, a person in a boat can lean out, put one arm into the water, and touch the deck."
This ship was identified as the New Camellia, and the site is just south of Jahncke shipyard at Madisonville. However, a spokesman at Jahncke said the ship was picked up and moved six- or eight years ago.
The Camellia was renamed the New Camellia when it was rebuilt shortly before 1880. Originally, the paddlewheeler was built in Wilmington, Del. in 1852 and christened the Zephyr. It is estimated she was brought South in 1862, during the War Between the States.
After the war, she was purchased by a New Orleans cotton merchant, August Bone, and renamed the Camellia. Under that name, she was active in Gulf and Lake Pontchartrain trade. After being rebuilt in about 1879, she became one of the most famous of the lake excursion boats.
Damaged by a 1915 hurricane, she was still in service as late as 1917.
Tied up at a Madisonville pier after she was taken out of service because of old age, she quietly and unobtrusively sank one day in 1920. While docked at Madisonville, the New Camellia was utilized to accommodate shipyard workers, that business having started booming with World War I. As she grew more decrepit with age. the "boarders" abandoned ship, and a short time later, the New Camellia slipped gradually down into the river.
Another excursion boat, the SS Pleasure Bay, caught fire at Madisonville, was towed away from the wharf, and sank, sometime back in the 1920's.
Madisonville Mayor Eddie Badeaux, when a youngster, worked aboard the SS Madisonville, an excursion steamer. It went out of service here in 1935, he recalls, and was taken to New York City, where, according to Badeaux, it was still in use as a sightseeing boat a few years ago. He does not know if it still exists. The SS Madisonville was originally named the Hanover.
The boats had large dining rooms, spacious dance halls and top orchestras. They carried hundreds of passengers to St. Tammany beaches and woodlands for picnics, outings. swimming parties. etc. The departures from New Orleans were usually from Milneburg or Spanish Fort.
Other lake-faring boats included the Southland, Charles Dolive, Minnie 13, Margaret and Susquehanna. The lake crossings started early in the 19th century, and ended sometime in the mid or late 1920's. And with that ending went a delightful era of light-hearted fun and gaity, when the livin' was easy. and geared to the tempo and speed of the paddlewheelers.
It must he recalled that automobiles were fairly scarce in the 1920's, and there were no bridges connecting the Orleans side of the lake to the north side. Slow-moving ferries operated at Rigolets and Chef Menteur connecting poorly constructed roads. The old Watson-Williams bridge at Slidell was only a dream and the Causeway was an "impossibility" folk didn't dare dream of.
Following the steamboat excursions came the old NOGNRR's week-end pleasure junkets to all St. Tammany points, from Slidell to Folsom, carrying hundreds of passengers at special round trip rates.
That, too, eventually ended, along with all other train passenger service.
So the era of the passenger trains, like that of the lake and river steamboats, passed into limbo. Which recalls the present fight to save the SS Delta Queen Mississippi river paddlewheeler running from Cincinnati to New Orleans as a passenger vessel. It has been outlawed because it's wooden super-structure is considered a fire hazard.
