Woodlace. Although the name probably means nothing to you, it's a place rife with memories and family pride for me. I come from an old Southern family with a long history of plantations. It has always been sad for me to look back throughout the 20th century and see how the various family plantations were sold, one by one. All but one -- Woodlace.
Woodlace is located outside of Rayville, Louisiana. For most of its life as a working plantation, it belonged to my Great Aunt Belle and her husband, Edmund Williamson. Oddly enough, in the early years of the Great Depression an uncle of mine (on a different side of the family) ran the plantation for Belle after she became a widow. Around 1934, The Big House (as the main house was known) burned to the ground -- many priceless family artifacts went with it as Belle was the one who stored family memorabilia and heirlooms.
Her son, also named Edmund and my father's first cousin, was running "Belle's Place" as it was known and decided in the 1950's that it was time to have a proper homestead. He and his lovely wife Ruby built a home which was comfortable and pleasant. However, while driving through Monroe, Louisiana one day (the family seat) they spied an ante-bellum home which was scheduled for demolition because the land underneath it had been sold and the new owner had no need of the house. They purchased the home and arranged to have it moved to the family property. Because of its age, the back part of the house collapsed. However, the front was perfectly intact and was successfully transplanted. Because it was now only half a home, Edmund had it grafted onto the front of his newly-built house and, finally, an appropriate house graced the landscape. Edmund knew it needed a name, so he christened it Woodlace.
I was eleven years old the first time I visited Woodlace. I fell in love with Edmund and Ruby. And even more so, I fell in love with the house and the property. I still dream of Woodlace occasionally, just as Scarlett O'Hara dreamed of Tara in Gone with the Wind. I never lived there, yet the inhabitants of the land and their descendents are still very much a part of my life today. In the early 1990's, my mother was there and went through the house with her camera. This is a virtual tour of Woodlace, so that you can see a place which means so very much to me.
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