by Wade Toth

During Family Fun Day 2014, more than 1,700 children and adults attended our fun-filled event, and some of those children stopped by one of the craft tables to help make a gift for the youngest of children in the neo-natal unit at the Betty Cameron Women’s and Children’s Hospital of New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Volunteer Martha Rutter created designs on paper that children could select from, and they used crayons to color in the images. Volunteer Laurie MacFarland used a hot iron to transfer the colored images to fabric quilting squares. The children created enough squares to make three large crib quilts. Martha, Laurie, and Marci Williams then sewed and quilted the squares together and added colorful stripes and backing. Some of the children signed their squares which were then stitched onto the quilts. The photograph above shows the three quilts which were on display during the Christmas Stroll in December. The quilts were presented to the hospital in January 2015, as a gift to the newest and youngest from the Bellamy Mansion.

Children attending both Family Fun Day and the Christmas Stroll made ornaments that decorated a large Christmas tree in the lobby of Betty Cameron Women’s and Children’s Hospital at New Hanover Regional Medical Center during this past holiday season.

The Bellamy Mansion will present the tree annually to the hospital as a way to cheer up patients, staff, and those visiting patients. Volunteers Marcia Bruder and Wade Toth spent one December morning setting up the tree and adding lights and the handmade ornaments. Many compliments were received from hospital staff and visitors. The Bellamy Volunteer Committee and hospital administrator, Barbara Buechler, made this partnership possible.

During each of the children’s events at the Mansion this year, children will have an opportunity to again make additional ornaments. On June 7, at our Environmental Day event, children will be making tree ornaments from items found in nature such as sea shells and pine cones.

During February the museum welcomed a returning exhibit to the gallery level of the mansion. Grand Illusions: Historic Decorative Interior Painting in North Carolina was originally curated by Laura A. W. Phillips and created by former Bellamy Director Beverly Ayscue. Not displayed for many years it was set up by UNCW intern Tessa Cartrette and Site Manager Bob Lock. Grand Illusions was stored in a Preservation North Carolina property in Shelby, NC until being brought back to the Bellamy. It is a traveling exhibit that was funded by The Midgard Foundation of Asheville and organized by PNC and North Carolina State University Visual Arts Center.
Grand Illusions is a 24 panel exhibit that highlights the unique and historical interior decorating techniques used throughout North Carolina’s architectural heritage. Over 500 buildings in North Carolina display the techniques shown in Grand Illusions - the Bellamy Mansion being one of them. The exhibit captures the techniques used to decorate the interior of North Carolina’s historic homes and shares in the importance of their impact on North Carolina architecture.

John was in his 11th year when Fort Fisher fell and President Lincoln was assassinated. He says his father had already toughened him for war by making him and his younger brother George go barefoot during the winters so that when time came for them to go to Virginia, they would be able to stand the exposure of the battle fields.Voted Best Orator in high school and rising to the rank of Captain at Cape Fear Academy, John Jr. then entered Davidson College as a sophomore in 1871 where his mother was "hoping and expecting she would make a Presbyterian clergyman out of me."Despite his mother's disappointment, John decided to study law at the University of Virginia. He says nearly all of the universities of the Southern states were closed at that time. "Even my sisters had to economize and wear one less dress in order to save money [for my education.]" John was graduated at Charlottesville in 1874, receiving diplomas in the Schools of German, Medical Jurisprudence, History and Literature, and Junior Law, and a year later his Bachelor of Law degree. That summer, he became a friend and tutor to "Tommy" Woodrow Wilson -- future President of Princeton University, Governor of New Jersey, and 28th President of the United States.

Believing that life in Wilmington had been returned to "a reign of justice and peace," John and his wife Emma M. Hargrove, daughter of Colonel John Hargrove, of Granville County, NC, with their children Eliza, William, Emmett, Mary and Marguerite, acquired (and upgraded to an exuberant Queen Ann style) their home on 6th and Market Streets, within a few doors of his mother, sisters and brother Robert.