Review: A gem of a little book every Aikenite should read

     Recently, I was given a book titled Recollections:Church Letters and Essays by Elizabeth Teague.  While the title doesn't sound particularly interesting, it obscures the gem that this little collection of personal historical accounts really is.  Elizabeth Teague, born in Aiken in 1878, was a local teacher, librarian, and active member of St. Thaddeus Church.  While an elderly woman, she participated in a church program that sent letters to residents of Episcopal care homes and other home bound church members throughout the country.  Elizabeth's letters are charming descriptions of the life she lived in Aiken for 93 years.

      I love her first hand accounts of topics such as  the first airplane to land in Aiken before the first World War on Whitney polo field.

      "Finally the small boys in the trees began to scream, 'It's coming; it's coming," she writes from her perspective as a part of the "jostling" crowd eager to get a look at the flying machine.

       She writes tales of the winter colonist and gives vivid descriptions of the landscape she walked for nearly a century.  Another of my favorite letters describes The Aiken-Augusta Trolley which would take you to Broad Street in Augusta for $1.25 round trip!  Since the trolley was the only transportation out of town other than the Southern Railroad, many wedding parties would arrange to catch the trolley to Augusta so they could take an early train off to their honeymoon.  She tells a hilarious story about a trolley car decorated and rode on by the entire wedding party blowing whistles all the way to Augusta, much the way the groomsman decorate the groom's car today. 

Other tales include:

*A near visit from President Taft
*An airplane crash on the corner of Newberry and Park Avenue
*An old festival called the Schutzen Fest

     Elizabeth often described herself as sitting "on the old front porch with the four rocking chairs."  After reading this wonderful little book, I feel as though I have sat beside her; glass of sweet tea and fresh South Carolina peach in hand. 

While not currently available at local bookstores, you can find copies of the book at the Aiken Public Library.