"Martinis were the drink of the event beause the Belmont allowed us to bring our own pitchers of gin."
“Natchez… Where the Old South still lives…”
Coined in 1932, that was the motto for the Natchez Spring Pilgrimage for over fifty years. Up pop images of happy black folks toiling merrily in the hot sun, while Miss Scarlett perches on a parlor settee, yanks down the front of her bertha to show her ample cleavage, all the while plotting how to steal the heart of her first cousin, once removed. (I don’t mean that his heart had been removed, but that he is her first cousin, once removed in the genealogical sense of the phrase, or as Yankees put it, her second cousin.)
Anyway, that’s what most people think of the Old South. Yet those of us who grew up here know better. We put up with this myth in order to sell tickets to tourists, thus preserving our true heritage and historic architecture. But to a native, especially a native belle, the Old South was a time and a place in which our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers found the time to don organdy dresses, hats, and gloves and enjoy long, leisurely lunches with the girls. Those of us who participated in the Spring Pilgrimage, reigning as Pilgrimage Queens, do our best to preserve our true heritage—we make it a point, at least once a year, to gather together and have a long leisurely lunch complete with martinis, bloody Marys, dainty food, and belly laughs; hats and gloves are optional. Natchez Pilgrimage queens do not compete for their titles. Our mothers do all the dirty work, leaving us the sweet dignity to enjoy our place in the sun without the regrets of back biting or backstabbing sorority-type activities sometimes necessary in women’s clubs, pageants, and PTA meetings.
Pilgrimage queens are elected by the club’s board of directors in honor of one’s mother and how much she has contributed to her club. (It doesn’t hurt if you have an aunt or a grandmother on the board, either.) Beauty is not a prerequisite, neither is talent, nor charm. These attributes are, of course, understood—we are from Natchez, after all.
Beauty is not a prerequisite, neither is talent, nor charm. These attributes are, of course, understood—we are from Natchez, after all.
We are a group of unwitting ex-royals of all types with one thing in common. We have all marched around the floor of the city auditorium wearing a sixty-pound beaded satin and lace hoop skirt and train, gracefully waving a scepter at an audience of twelve hundred pairs of bifocals—five nights a week for at least two weeks. Tipsy or stone cold sober, we had fun. Although we do not take ourselves seriously, Natchez does not have a country club society or debutantes, so parties given in honor of Pilgrimage royalty is our high society entertaining. During one’s reign, a typical day will start with a luncheon, continue with a “tea,” then a cocktail buffet, and the pageant and perhaps a ball or another cocktail party after the pageant. So you better be ready. When the combs of the crown are firmly stabbed into our teased big hair, in goes the sense of humor along with it.
In 1952, an especially witty queen, Miss Kathy Boatner (now Mrs. Blankenstein), was honored with a luncheon given by the former queens. “I think Rowan Forman, Sarah Magee, and Toni Carpenter were the original three that decided to have a luncheon for me at the Belmont [a swank and newly built motor hotel of the 1950s famous for having served massive amounts of whisky to John Wayne during the filming of The Horse Soldiers]… Martinis were the drink of the event because the Belmont allowed us to bring our own pitchers of gin,” says Mrs. Blankenstein. “We had such a good time that we decided to do it every year,” she says.
“We had such a good time that we decided to do it every year,” she says.
When the next year’s luncheon rolled around, Mrs. Blankenstein made a doddering royal doll for their mascot. “She’s dressed as a queen, of course, but she has gray hair, spectacles, and she holds a crutch under one arm and a martini glass in one hand. I also wrote a marching song,” she says with a chuckle. “It’s sung to the tune of ‘Just a Song at Twilight.’ It goes:
We are the aged monarchs,
gathered once again,
to discuss together every ache and pain.
Though we are all rheumatic, blind and deaf and gray,
we’ll drink one martini to you today.
To our new queens—tooodayy!
“Then everybody joins in a chorus of ‘Just a Song at Twilight,’ which nobody knows anymore, but me,” says Mrs. Blankenstein.
For newly inducted queens and those who may have already had a martini or two, lyrics are printed with the singing directions, which say, “Slow and shaky, but stirring, always stirring.” The official name is The Society for the Preservation and Maintenance of Aged Monarchs, or SPMAM; the crest is a coat of arms with a crutch and a cane crossed, a rose and a martini glass.
The highlight of the luncheon, as with most gatherings of Southerners worth their salt, si the reminiscent storytelling.
“One year, Vidal [Mrs. B’s daughter] was queen. They decided to invite the kings and their wives as well as our husbands,” she adds. “That created a furor, and it wasn’t any fun, so now we’ve gone back to just the queens.”
Ladies who lunch have gotten a bad rap of late with everyone taking themselves and their careers so seriously. I, for one, am all for us and with the help of SPMAM will continue to lunch, martini in hand, at least once a year… “To our new queens…”
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