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Storyteller Carden to open 25th season of ‘Summer Evenings’
“We may not want to admit it, but time does indeed fly,” said Webster Historical Society President Joe Rhinehart of the fact that the “Summer Evening in Webster” series of July entertainments is embarking on its 25th season.
According to Rhinehart, it was 1981 when the Historical Society decided to initiate a summer series of music and drama to honor Professor and Robert Lee and Ella Madison, Webster neighbors who often, on a summer evening entertained their neighbors from their front porch with a concert featuring Ella Madison on piano and Professor Madison on flute.
“Little did anyone suspect on that hot July afternoon in an even hotter Webster Methodist Church that a program of organ music, played on the recently restored Estey Organ by Webster postmaster and society president Mildred Cowan, would stretch into 25 years and present, in more than 125 programs, an array of local talent that could be hardly be matched anywhere,” Rhinehart said.
This Sunday afternoon at 5:30 p.m. the Society will open its 25th year with a program by one of Jackson County’s favorite sons, storyteller Gary Carden.
This is not Carden’s first “Summer Evening” show, Rhinehart said. Through the years Carden has presented four other programs.
“It was at a ‘Summer Evening’ that he told his ‘Blow the Tannery Whistle,’ tale; then a few years later he did ‘The Raindrop Waltz,’ and, in 1985 to commemorate Professor Madison’s 1885 arrival in Jackson County, he did ‘The Night Traveler Died,’ the story of a young Madison watching the funeral march in Lexington, Va., of General Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveler,” Rhinehart said. “This Sunday afternoon he takes us back to those days when he will again bring those memorable stories back to Webster.”
Other programs planned for this celebration year include:
– July 16, Thomas Crowe and Nan Watkins of Tuckasegee in a program of of original Celtic music and stories.
– July 23, David Magill of Webster in a concert of piano music that will take you to the Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans or the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center.
– July 30, Paul and William Stern of Tuckasegee’s Canada community in a piano and violin concert of their favorite classical pieces.
All “Summer Evening in Webster” programs are free and begin at 5:30 p.m. at the historic Webster Methodist Church. A reception to honor the artists always follows in the churchyard.
For information, call Rhinehart at 586-0921.
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