7-25-2010 Richmond

In the morning we slept in, had breakfast at the Marriott Buffet and then decided to venture out. It was already high in the 80s by 10am but we thought we'd give it a try. We went down to the Capitol area and walked around the State Capitol building.

There was an old Gothic building nearby, the Old Town Hall, and we found a couple sitting on the steps by an open door. We asked if we could peek in (they were cleaners for the building) and they said yes, and then let us go in. We found beautiful decorations inside, really something to wonder at and no people around. Great!

Then we went over to St. Paul's Episcopal, the church of Jeff Davis and RE Lee, to see the Tiffany windows. There was a "Mass" going on so we stayed for it - just like our Catholic Mass, except for the lady presiding. Same words, same songs, same beliefs, except for that pesky thing about the Pope. And extremely friendly folks - we must have had 7 people come up to us after the service to introduce themselves and ask where we were from. After the service, there was a docent lead tour of the Church, to talk about the history of the building, the community and the windows. So we stayed there for quite awhile - and outside it just got hotter and hotter.

The Tiffany highlight of the Church is the glass mosaic of the Last Supper over the altar. This is a very unique Tiffany work. I have also put pictures here of three of the Church’s windows by Tiffany. Interesting stories on two of them. The first shows Moses leaving the house of Pharaoh to lead his people to the promised land. This window is right above the pew that has RE Lee’s name on it and it shows the reverence the South holds for Lee. The second is the inquisition of St. Paul by the Roman Herod Agrippa. Jeff Davis was in prison 2 years, just like Paul, and the portrayal of Paul in the window looks very similar to Jeff Davis. There is a pew with his name on it in the Church and this is the place where he was when word came from Lee that the Southern defensive line had collapsed and the retreat was on. The third window is just one I really like a lot, called the Kiss of Charity.

After that we went over to the Museum of the Confederacy and the White House of the South (J. Davis' house - it's actually grey, not surprisingly). We looked around the museum while waiting for a tour of the White House. Didn't go into the material in any great depth, just looked at the artifacts, clothing of the heroes and some just plain folks. It is interesting to see the history of the Civil War from the perspective of the struggle for state's rights and the preservation of language that's written into the Constitution (Article 4, Section 2, second paragraph – Look it up - hmmmmm). The war of Northern Aggression some in the South call it.

The tour of the White House lasted about an hour. It's in great shape having been restored and populated with returned furniture. Almost 70% of the original furniture has come back now. It was a good tour, but warm. Outside it was cooking.

We left Richmond for home at about 3. We stopped in Fredericksburg for dinner with Amanda and Sal. We missed the big DC thunderstorms and got back in at about 8pm. We drove up on Highway 2 and that was a very nice quiet drive with great scenery.