Photos from the the 2025 Talladega Pilgrimage Tour of Homes
Photos and Video by A.J. Johnson
On April 11-12, 2025 the Abernethy-Shaw House was the 6th stop on the Annual Pilgrimage Tour of Homes. The owners of the house assembled a small cast to present the house as it might have looked it they had lived there in 1919. The theme of the tour was the approval of Women's Suffrage, and the National Women's Party Suffrage Flag was displayed on the front porch. The flag had a star added for each state that ratified the 19th Amendment with Tennessee becoming the state that put the amendment over the top and subject to certification. Replica buttons for women's suffrage were handed out at the beginning of the tour and many of the tour guest chose to wear their buttons to show their support of Votes for Women..
The house was decked in bunting and displayed the Nineteenth Amendment Flag.
The owners of the home, Dr. David Steiling and Sarah Warren, Esq., (The Professor and Lawyer Warren) waited on the front porch for the first visitors to arrive. They and their house guests had adopted characters for the tour based on what they might have been if the were attending a house party in 1919.
On the front porch Julie Watson who served as the liasson to the house from the Pilgrimage Committee, greeted guests as they arrived. Julie organized the four shifts of community volunteers who served as hostesses for the event. The hostesses wore Votes for Women sashes in remembrance of the women who participated in the long struggle for women to acquire the vote.
Tour guests were introduced to the theme of the tour by The Professor who described to them the significance of the Nineteenth Amendment flag. The Professor invited the guests to join in the celebration of The Nineteenth Amendment by taking a replica badge that promoted Votes for Women. The badges were available in three authentic designs.
Guests were also presented with a picture postcard of the House. On the back of the postcard was the URL and Q-code that visitors could take that link them to this site and a complete virtual tour guide to the Abernethy-Shaw House.
After the Greeting and Introduction of the Theme of the Tour, guests pass through the door into the Front Hall
The guests are invited to start their tour in the Parlor which has been styled as it might have been in 1919. The tour will take the guests through the classic progression of the Victorian home from the most public spaces to the most private. The public spaces unfolded from the Parlor, through the Music Room, into the Dining Room and then back through the Front Hall to ascend the stairs to the private rooms upstairs.
The Parlor is the room most imagineered to reflect the world of 1919. The room is styled in original or replica decor appropriate to middle class homes of the period.
Sarah Warren discusses one of her favorite paintings with a tour guest.
The paintings is by a follower of John of Ipswich and mostly likely dates from sometime in the 1870s..
After the parlor, the guests were invited into the music room which was a showcase for guest performer Rodger French, musician, New Vaudeville orchestra leader and Vaudeville Historian. Rodger performed repertory from the late Edwardian period during both days of the tour.
The Music room currently displays a collection of paintings that embody the change from tradition to modernity in painting. The collection contains examples from early German Expressionism through late and post-cubism. Several books about artists in the collection are stacked on the coffee table.
Many of the tour guests paused to talk with Rodger about the songs he played as well as their own memories and sentimental connection with the accordion.
The Music Room contains a number of elements related to its purpose including a small collection of sheet music, a mounted page from a hand copied manuscript for the mass, a mounted section of a nineteenth century stage painting, and a small collection of vintage banjos and tenor guitars from the 1920s and 1930s.
After the Music Room the guests were invited to cross the hall, which used to lead onto the back porch of the house as it was in 1919, into the dining room.
Displayed in the dining room are paintings from the first generation of abstract expressionism. The juxtaposition of these paintings with the more traditional Edwardian decor help emphasize the rapid cultural shift that occurred during the first 50 years of the 20th century.
As the tour leaves the Dining Room guests will encounter a period curio cabinet with an assemblage of Lawyer Warren's curios. This particular cabinet is an English or American display cabinet from approximately 1900-1920, exhibiting characteristics of both late Victorian and Edwardian furniture design. The cabinet demonstrates the transition period between these eras through several distinctive features.
The cabinet's form follows the "china cabinet" or "curio cabinet" type that became popular in middle-class homes during the late Victorian period. Its architectural structure, with geometric fretwork in the glass doors and a carved frieze band below the top surface, reflects the lingering influence of the Aesthetic Movement's interpretation of Anglo-Japanese design elements.
The Tour Leaves the Public Rooms and Moves to the Private Domain of the Family and up the front stairs.
The Upstairs Bedrooms
Ascending the stairs from the Front Hall to the second story, the tour guests arrive first at the Professor's Studio and Bedroom.
Attached to the Bedroom/Studio is an en suite bathroom with an original mosaic floor.
The room displays paintings from the late 20th and early 21st centuries along with a collection of electronic instruments and vintage acoustic instruments to support the Professor's advocational interest in composing and playing music. Guests of the tour were particularly interested in the Turkish Lamp with its stained glass gloves still manufactured in the same style as the ancient oil lamps on which it is based.
The room is dominated by a large, 3 panel painting by the Corsican painter, Pierre Grazziani. To the right as you enter the studio is a late self-portrait by the poet and painter E.E. Cummings. A seated nude by the Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant hangs opposite the large abstract landscape by the Nashville painter and teacher, Anton Weiss. Weiss was another artist who was part of the second generation of abstract expressionist who gathered in New York in the 1950s and early 1960s.
A variety of objects collected by The Professor populate the flat surfaces of the rooms furniture.
Cast members Sarah, Anne and Joan gather in the Professor's Bedroom to start the upstairs portion of the tour.
Authentic Hula in the Wicker Bedroom
House guest and cast member Joan Staveley introduced tour guests to some of the history of the authentic Hula. In 1919 the hula had been revived in the Islands of Hawaii and was not yet the hula of the tourist boats from the mainland.
Many guests were fascinated with the performance and stayed to talk with Joan about the cultural and spiritual background of the dance.
The Wicker Bedroom displays a number of paintings from the 19th and early 20th Century. They include a large canvas called "The Grape Seller" by the anglo-irish artist William Perry painted around 1860. Another canvas by Perry is hung across the room entitled "The Studious Goatherd"
The furnishings in the room include a majestic Eastlake mirrored dresser and a selection of vintage and antique wicker.
The Hotel Room
The final stop in the upstairs tour was the Hotel Room, a guest room outfitted in mid-century Bohemian style. Adjoining the bedroom were two ancillary rooms that delighted many visitors, the marble spa bathroom created by the last owners and the Vintage Costume Closet which houses a number of the show business memorabilia and costumes of the current owners. This addition to the upstairs was added by the Dr. Shaw a former head of the Talladega School of the Deaf
and her husband earlier in this century. Because it is a recent addition it has been styled in a different historic decade than the original parts of the house.
The End of the Tour
After visiting the Hotel Room the tour descends into the large family room and open plan kitchen that take up the bottom story of the Shaw addition.
The volunteer hostesses made sure the tour guests descended in safety. We want to express our thanks to Judy Gaither, Julie Raines, Cecilia Johnson, Betsy Curlee, Robin Robbs, Kim Cobb, Jeanie Cole , Hilda Fannin, Rosemary Robinson, and Cara Camp for helping out and dressing the part.
We would also like to thank the Peters family, the previous owners of the Abernethy-Shaw House for leaving us with so much to work with in establishing our vision of the historic home.
The final stop on the tour of the house was the back porch. There they were greeted by the comfortable presence of David Hunt, embodying the 1919 character of a lawyer lobbying the Southern owners at different levels of professional baseball to band together and reform the game. David offered anyone who would have liked it some of the owners' favorite beverage, Kumquat Tea.
The entire cast of collaborators joined together for a photo on the start of the second day: Anne is taking the picture.
We deeply appreciate the Invitation from the Talladega Pilgrimage Committee to join this year's April in Talladega Tour of Homes. Our thanks to Cindy Pennington for helping us to prepare to be good tour hosts and for supporting our ideas for theming the experience of the Abernethy-Shaw House. That support including help fund the appearance of our Guest Artist Rodger French at Friday's Wine and Cheese Party.
And our most thanks to the volunteer hostesses, four shifts over two days, who insured the friendliness and safety of the experience for everyone.
The Abernethy-Shaw House Project received support from the April in Talladega Pilgrimage Committee and the Program in Liberal Arts of the Ringling College of Art and Design. This support added substantially to what we were able to present.
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