The Willie Pape Scrapbooks: An Antebellum Alabama Child Prodigy

William Barnesmore "Willie" Pape

William Barnesmore "Willie" Pape was born February 27, 1850 in Mobile, Alabama, the son of William O. and Tabitha McBride Pape.  His talent for music was discovered at a very early age and in 1854, Willie’s father began giving him music lessons.  He was so gifted that even at the age of thirteen he was able to play many of the most demanding piano sonatas from memory.

Concert program, 1863.

Willie and his father traveled to New York in preparation to travel to Europe just as the American Civil War erupted.  Alabama, in fact seceded from the Union while they were traveling in January of 1861.  Rather than going abroad as planned, they stayed in New York for two years.  Willie continued his studies under Sebastian Bach Mills.  After brief concert tours to Havana, Cuba, and Canada, Willie and his father finally left for England in 1863.

Sheet music cover featuring Willie Pape

Willie's first public performance in England on 27 April 1863 was a huge success and eventually led to the patronage of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1864.  He spent several more years in England, performing and touring, until returning to the United States in 1875 and resettling in Mobile.  He retired from his musical career at the tender age of seventeen years old.  When he left England, Willie gave up the piano completely, though he did play church organ throughout his his life.


He was married twice; first to Ella Anderson (around 1880) who died on 9 August 1889; and then to her sister, Mary Anderson.  Ella and Willie had three daughters, Ethel, Ella, and Hazel; Mary and Willie had one son, William Sherwood.

He began his second career not long after he returned to Mobile, studying medicine. In 1882, Pape graduated from the Medical College of Mobile and began his practice in Mobile. He also served on the faculty of his alma mater where he was a Professor of Physiology and Hygiene.  He died August 30, 1901.

William Barnesmore Pape in later life

The Willie Pape scrapbooks were donated to The University of Alabama Libraries in 2012 by Dr. William Pape Wood.  We would like to thank the descendants of William Barnesmore "Willie" Pape for this generous and historically important piece of Alabama and music history.

A letter from Mother, March 21, 1861

The two Willie Pape scrapbooks offer interesting insight into his world as a young musician and performer.  The letters he received, as well as concert programs, reviews and other materials are contained in these rare scrapbooks.  They include impassioned letters from his mother and grandmother that discuss family business as well as the War, illness, disease, and death. We also know that young Willie Pape sent a letter to President Abraham Lincoln just two weeks before his assassination.  The letter spoke passionately about a young man's struggle to connect with his family during the Civil War and the heartache that the war and prolonged separation had caused him. 

It reads:

Willie Pape, 9 Soho Square London Pianist to the Royal Family at Marlboro House
By Command of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, June 6, 1864
March 29, 1865

Your Excellency --

I left my native town, Mobile, Alabama, for the purpose of pursuing my studies under the best musicians in Europe, on the 1st of March, 1861 -- now four years since. On my arrival in New York I was informed by my father who accompanied me that our State had seceded from the Union, & that we had better remain a while before we embarked for England. I remained in the North for two years studying and occasionally appearing in public for the benefit of charities. On my arrival in England I was permitted to appear at several Grand Concerts, at which the Royal Family attended, and I have been honored by the highest position attainable by an artist.
 

I have written my mother many times, and to my Grandmother, by the way all letters to the South go. (I don’t know how that is, only they are deposited in a basket at Bishopgate street, & prepaid), but I have not heard a word from any of my family since the mails were stopped.
 

I was fifteen years old on the 27th of last month, and have been absent from Mobile since I was 11. I am very anxious to hear from my Mother if there is means of doing so.

I am in daily communication with Her Majesty or the Prince of Wales. They are my patrons & friends, and despite jealousies of native pianists, they awarded me the highest honors. It has been a source of great dissatisfaction to the Royal Academy that an American should have been so honored, but in this country merit alone gives precedence in the fine arts.

The honor of your answer will make very happy one who, although raised to so high a pinnacle of favor, is at all times unhappy and despondent.

I am informed that property left me by Grandfather has been confiscated through our absence from the so-called Confederate States.  Our property was assessed at 25,000 dollars.

To the Hon. Abraham Lincoln.

The Pape scrapbooks will be on exhibit in the lobby of the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library beginning Friday, December 15, 2012.   The University of Alabama Libraries would like to thank the descendants of William Pape for their generous gift of these treasured and historically significant items

An Evening (on film) with Eugene Walter!

"A student of human endeavors on this busy planet." --Eugene Walter

Join us at 7 pm on Thursday, November 20 in Gorgas Library room 205 for a fun-filled evening with a screening of the new documentary film by Alabama native, Bob Clem (Waterfront Pix) on fellow Alabama native and Renaissance man, Eugene Walter!

Eugene Walter: Last of the Bohemians documents the life and career of a writer, poet, actor, artist and raconteur whose work celebrates the art of living and personifies the culture of the coastal South. Living in Paris and Rome, Walter (1921-1998) lent his unique personality and wide-ranging talent to a number of different endeavors, many of them at the heart of the postwar artistic renaissance in Europe -- winning numerous awards for his poetry and fiction, helping start the Paris Review, working with and acting in the films of Federico Fellini and other Italian directors, editing the poly lingual literary magazine Botteghe Oscure and meeting and entertaining many of the most famous writers and cultural figures of his time.

From his beginnings in Mobile, Alabama, Walter was blessed with survival skills that enabled him to live the bohemian life, dedicating himself to artistic pursuits without visible means of support. He ran away from home literally as soon as he was able to walk, moving in with his grandmother, then receiving shelter from Mobilians who recognized his talent and his brilliance.

He lived for a time in a warehouse, then in the back of the city's famed Haunted Book Shop (its co-founder and dear friend of Eugene Adelaide Trigg passed away last month at the age of 89),
then as the ward of local theater patron Hammond Gayfer. Walter would later be honored by his native city as an artistic 'Renaissance Man' for his achievements in so many creative endeavors.

Eugene Walter was one of the last of an increasingly rare breed -- the freelance, wandering poet, living day to day in pursuit of art, truth and beauty. Paris and Rome are no longer the inexpensive cities they were in the aftermath of World War II, where artists and writers could survive on a few dollars a week.

Most writers and poets today have an academic affiliation, or else a full time job with little time left to write, to dream and to live in the fantasy world that Eugene Walter inhabited every single day, to the delight of most everyone he met. His story is not to be missed! The film was funded in part by a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the Sybil Smith Charitable Trust, A.S. Mitchell Foundation, M.W. Smith Foundation, Malbis Memorial Foundation and Ben May Foundation.

Eugene's books are included in the Hoole Library's Alabama Collection. There is also a small manuscript collection relating to Eugene Walter at the Hoole Library. You can review Eugene's author information and some of his tangible contributions to literature via This Goodly Land.

Watch a preview! And please join us for a fun opportunity to celebrate this treasured world citizen!

Il y a longtemps... The Pélican Girls in Mobile and Yellow Fever Comes Full Circle

Detail of , Guillaume de L'Isle's map Novissima tabula regionis lvdoviciana gallice dictæ La Lovgsiane iam olim quidem sub Canadæ et Floridæ nomine in America Septentrionali [Nuremburg; 1730?]
From the Hoole Library's map collections.

Four hundred and four years ago today, on August 1, 1704, a group of French colonists welcomed twenty-three young women to their new home. These "well-bred" young women, nicknamed the "Pélican Girls", arrived from France under an order of Louis XIV aboard the ship called the Pélican. They were recruited to move from France to the wilds of Fort Louis de La Louisiane (the original name for Mobile) just two years after its founding in 1702. Their purpose was to marry the men and raise families in order to increase Mobile's population. They were also known, especially later when another group was sent to New Orleans, by the names filles du Roi (girls of the King) or filles à la cassette (“casket girls”) aptly named for their little boxes of personal belongings they brought with them from France.

The Pélican Girls' arrival was much welcomed, but they brought with them an unwanted guest - yellow fever, which was introduced to the ship in Havana. Most of the Pélican girls recovered from the illness, but a large number of the first colonists, along with many Native Americans in the surrounding area succumbed to the disease.

Fort Louis de la Louisiane, was the first capital of the French colony of Louisiana, and was founded by two French Canadian-born brothers Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville.

A list of the young women, clipped from the Google Books version of Colonial Mobile an Historical Study Largely from Original Sources, of the Alabama-Tombigbee Basin and the Old South West from the Discovery of the Spiritu Santo in 1519 until the Demolition of Fort Charlotte in 1821, by Peter J. Hamilton (Houghton Mifflin, 1910) which is available online here.

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Of course, there are copies of this book in the Hoole Library's Alabama Collection, including Hamilton's 1897 edition.

And speaking of yellow fever, there are some great materials available in our collections (and now available online) about W.C. Gorgas (see June 30, 2008's cool@hoole entry Great News! and Great Letterhead from Loving Son W.C. to his Doting Mother, Amelia.)


It is the public health work that Alabamian W.C. Gorgas did in Cuba that led to his success in eradicating yellow fever in Panama and making the Panama Canal a reality. The opening of the Panama Canal helped to make Mobile Bay a booming port city in the 20th century, long after the Pélican Girls, but an interesting link in the history of Alabama and the city of Mobile.

Laissez les bon temps rouler! Ou? A Mobile, bien sur!

Alabamians are quick to point out that New Orleans was not the first place, nor is it the only place that Mardi Gras is celebrated. While celebrations occur throughout the state of Alabama, it is Mobile's Mardi Gras tradition, which dates back to 1703 (!!!) that really gives Alabamians bragging rights.

Featured here are images from sixty years ago - the 1948 Mobile Mardi Gras annual program. This program is especially cool because it features drawings by Mobile native and favorite son, Eugene Walter. Walter was a true Renaissance man -- actor, poet, artist, editor, costume designer, playwright, puppeteer, translator, raconteur, author, chef, bon vivant, and so much more. Yes, really! He has also been called "the most famous man you never heard of". He knew everyone, and counted people such as Truman Capote (who he knew as "Bulldog" Persons as a child), William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, Judy Garland, and Frederico Fellini among his friends. His published works are featured in the Hoole Library's Alabama Collection.

And though he lived for many years in New York, Paris and Rome, he always considered Mobile (which he fondly referred to as "North Haiti") his home. So much so that he carried a shoe box of Alabama red clay dirt with him in his twenty-plus years in New York and Europe.

This program and its whimsical drawings offer a tiny glimpse into Walter's incredible gift for caricature and humor. We should all raise a glass to celebrate North America's oldest Mardi Gras and celebrate an Alabama favorite son, hero, and free spirit, who according to Dinesen, "ate the ripened heart of life", Eugene Walter.


Cover and details from The Mobile Mardi Gras annual (Periodical)
Mobile : Rapier House (1948)
Hoole Library Alabama Collection Call Number: GT4211.M6 M6

Exhibit Mashup No. 1: Dickens meets Goetzel meets the WPA

A new exhibit will be on display in the lobby of the Hoole Library beginning next week, which features some incredible little artifacts in our collections. These figurines were created as part of the WPA-funded project, the Alabama Visual Education Program.

The Alabama Visual Education Project came out of cooperation between The State Department of Education and the Visual Education Project of the Work Projects Administration. It provided a way for public schools in Alabama to purchase high quality visual aids for education purposes at a low cost. Some of these items are now housed in the Hoole Special Collections Library, including a catalog from 1940 listing items which were available for purchase by Alabama public schools. Also included in the collection are the instructional books Flags, Seals, and Coat of Arms of Alabama published in 1939 and History of Western Costume: prehistoric through nineteenth century, published in the 1930’s and featuring 114 full color plates with detailed descriptions.

We have chosen to exhibit this set of beautifully carved and painted wooden figures depicting characters from Charles Dickens novels. It is understood that decades ago, this set was used for teaching/visual aids by UA's English Department. Also created was a set of Shakespeare figures and Chaucer figures, but only two of the other figures are part of the Hoole Collections.

These tiny figures taken from Charles Dickens' novels and the hand-made wooden storage boxes are compelling and unique items to behold. The Hoole Library also holds a scale model of Shakespeare's Globe Theater, which was created as part of this project.

This exhibit features just the Dickens characters, as well as some of Dickens' works housed at the Hoole Library, as well as images from these books -- of course featuring his compelling and classic Victorian morality tale, A Christmas Carol.

The most important volume from our collections exhibited is an 1863 edition of Great Expectations printed by Goetzel in Mobile in 1863. This confederate imprint, though rebound at some point long ago in a library binding is an important piece of Alabama history. Please stop by and see this unique convergence of Victorian London, Confederate-era Mobile, and Depression-era Tuscaloosa. This exhibit was developed largely by Amy Allen, SLIS graduate assistant, working with Jessica Lacher-Feldman.