Pillars & Porches: The Southwood Collection, #3

By D. Dean Benton

Southwood is a fictional antebellum collection of buildings that houses conferences, seminars, bed & breakfast, a clinic where broken families work toward wholeness and a church that meets in a railroad depot.
The staff includes a former New Orleans stripper, a cop/pastor, a family from Sudan, business people, a television evangelist, visionaries and a touring singing group. This eclectic gathering specializes in mending the depressed, divorced, drugged, abused, abandoned and many whose dreams are paused.
Pillars & Porches is the prequel to eight ebooks and journey-shifting experiences. This is the story of how the Southwood Mansion was built and how the vision of community survived natural disasters and disappointments. How Southwood became The Community You've Always Wanted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Dean Benton
• Release date: Sep 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370479092

D. Dean Benton

A native Iowan, husband of one, father of two and grandfather of three. A pastor, seminar leader, author of 27 print books and 15 ebooks, singer, songwriter. After 14 years in the pastorate, Dean and his wife Carole, with family, worked in concerts, seminars and conferences for three decades before returning to the pastorate. The Bentons worked in forty states in about 3000 venues.

Book preview

Introduction

The first time I climbed the steps into the widow’s watch I thought I would have to call 911 for oxygen. Thirty-two steps on a circular staircase. There is one chair up here and window seats. It has plenty of windows—360⁰ and all of them can be opened. The breeze comes in and flows down the staircase.

You are standing in the Gold House on the Southwood Plantation. Herman Goldstein was a Minneapolis-based jeweler with stores throughout the country. He was an expert jeweler, a wise money investor and a fine carpenter. He loved this land 1000 miles from his Minneapolis home and office. At first it was just an investment. Then it became a dream. His dream was clear and passionate. He would retire here with his wife Mildred. Until that happened, he would bring Mildred and their children here for a yearly vacation. Anyway, that was his plan. It was a dream he clung to and invested in. Alone. Mildred wouldn’t even visit this place and his children didn’t like it here. They liked the city and just were never comfortable here. Some claim the only time the family was here together the children refused to stay overnight and insisted they be taken to the airport. That version says it was the last time Mildred visited.

Mr. Goldstein would not surrender his love for Southwood. He traveled the 1000 miles from Minneapolis several times a year for two-week stays to renovate, remodel and rebuild until it was time to go back to his day job. He told Miss Sally that he assumed his children and wife would change their minds about making this their vacation home. That is why he never rebuilt the original structure after the fire, but constructed this house just big enough for family and guests.

This place has been called The Mansion and the Southwood Mansion. A few years ago it became The Goldstein Mansion, but that seemed cumbersome. When being formal, the staff and guests call it the Gold House.

By the way, my name is Chad Wilson. I came to Southwood Conference Center a couple of years ago looking for a place to rest, refocus and find guidance where I was to invest the remainder of my life. I didn’t know if I would stay for a few days or all my days. All of my adult life, to that point, I worked with an international organization resourcing non-profits. When the board got tired of my face, they reorganized and escorted me to the curb. This has been an adventure.

Like all of the staff, with the exception of office manager Adrienne, I do everything on this campus. Sweep floors, unplug toilets, chase kids, drive nails and occasionally help Buddy wash the tour bus. I hadn’t been here very long when Director of Operations, Brent Barrows, decided he didn’t want to waste my expertise and appointed me Director of Communications. That job began with me sitting in the back booth of the campus coffee shop, taking notes on the people and their stories. I wrote newsletters and articles and blogs. Since I have experience as a research journalist, Brent asked me to research the history of our campus back to the time it was a plantation. That assignment sent me to libraries and the Internet to get clues and stories stretching over the 150 years this plantation-ranch-farm has had boundary markers.

There is debate if this is an antebellum house—did it predate the Civil war? Given the discussion—probably yes. Probably no. Consensus is that the original house was burned by rogue soldiers after emptying it of valuables. Unfortunately, the deeds and documents of that time were lost in another fire. The original house was replaced with the original design and plans with twenty bedrooms. My educated guess is the origin of this specific house dates to the late 1850s. Some of my sources say 1866, others say the turn of the century.

When he purchased the property and then incorporated, the title search updated the records. We discovered gaps and erasure marks. We have a pretty good idea about most things and left many things marked as unknown mysteries.

I was telling you about Herman Goldstein. The word is that he never got over his family’s rejection and nasty dislike for the land. He put it into a trust. He had to have a name to write on the papers and chose Southwood. It was south of Minneapolis and he liked to ride his horse in the woods east of the creek. Southwood was as good as any so he wrote it onto the document. He had enough wealth to spread around to his children. They had no interest and wanted no part in Southwood. As I listened to the story, I concluded that his family assumed Mr. Goldstein lost his mind and just let him escape to this retreat and did not interfere. Their coolness ultimately benefitted the property and the work that grew out of the jeweler’s vision.

The trust and corporation papers were drawn up by Larry Meade. Until Brent Barrows came on the scene, Mr. Meade managed the property interests. His legal firm still handles the details, but now it is operated locally by a corporate board, including Meade and his wife Belle and almost everyone you see on campus. Mr. Brent is pretty much our go-to guy.

I have three primary living resources for this history. Sally, Charles Putnam and Mrs. Harris. Sally and Charlie will tell their own stories and what they saw and experienced. Mrs. Harris can tell us the stories that her family elders remember being told by those who worked on the plantation and in the big house. She has her own resources and has researched her family’s experiences. When she says that her great grandmother or grandmother had a bruise, our Mrs. Harris can tell you how large it was and she can feel the pain. Without her memories and study, we would be deprived of important links in this history.

Sally came to this country as a foreign exchange student from Sudan sponsored by the Goldstein family. She was a teenager living with the family when political unrest and then war made it impossible for her to return. She became a sister from another mother. She couldn’t return to Sudan and the family insisted she stay as a member of their family. She had won their hearts, which comes as no surprise. Her attention to Mildred forged a place in the family and then solidified that position as she became Mrs. Goldstein’s social secretary and traveling companion. It wasn’t that Herman’s wife was disconnected from her husband. She had her own career and life. Sally did not accompany her adopted mother just to carry the overnight case, but to help her benefactors sort out questions. Both Mildred and Herman found the young Sally could spot a crooked deal and see clearly through a discussion that would lead to a better option.

Mr. Herman paid her way to the university and then helped her get grants for business school. He saw in her someone who could manage his financial and real estate holdings. During university days, she became Herman’s executive assistant. Mildred felt she should have sued her husband for stealing one of her most treasured assets. By that time, however, one of the Goldstein children had become Mildred’s assistant. The Goldstein daughter said her training with Sally prepared her for the international business she now directs.

Sally’s three brothers work here at Southwood in the communications tech department. They were found in a refugee camp of nearly half-a-million. Sally and Goldstein brought them to the United States and then the family moved here. Not to Southwood—in town. Sally found a small acreage with a house large enough for herself and her three brothers. They have room to garden and live an organic life. Sally could work full time at any law firm in town or here—which would be advantageous for us. Perhaps, one day. With her MBA momentarily quietly shelved, she is currently a UPS driver. She knows everyone in the state, but is reveling in her distance from closed office doors and desk work.

Whenever Herman Goldstein came to town, Sally was his companion at in-town meetings and dinner engagements. She told me that many evenings after work she would sit on the floor as he worked on the mansion and told her stories of