Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1906 — Fountain Park for 1906. [ARTICLE]

Fountain Park for 1906.

Already the program for FounI tain Park Assembly, which will be held Aug. 11 to 26. is being rapidly filled to the brim with the finest talent the world can supply, not all ofthe best talent the world can supply, not all of the best talent in the world, of course, but some of the best. We shall speak occasionally of different ones. Mrs. Martha Gielow, who unparalled success as an interpreter of plantation folk lore which has won for her renown in both England and America, holds a unique position on the lyceum platform. Making a specialty of the plantation folk lore and a detirmed effort to preserve the traditions and superstition of rhe old mammy she loved, Mrs. Gielow has created an art unique and beautiful, and has placed herself at the head of it. Her work is a mission, her programs something more than an entertainment; brimming over with fun, humor and pathos, with song tnat touch the heart and melt the soul with their exquisite tenderness, Mrs. Gielow stands without a peer as an artist, and paints with dramatic skill and the gift of genius, scenes from the old plantation days that are no more. One has said of her, “It is fitting that the New South should reverence and perpetuate the good things of the Old South and should herald them to the world. Henry Grady told to wondering ears how the Old South suffered; John B. Gordan told anew the story of how the Old South fought and it is Martha Gielow’s rare privilege and opportunity to hold aside the curtain of the past and show a picture of old southern home life in its relations to a dependent race. Would that such a woman had risen before!”