Eudora Welty House & Garden

The Eudora Welty House & Garden (EWHG) will host its annual Storytime on the Side Porch each Thursday in June beginning June 4.

This summer’s theme is “Small Wonders, Big World.” Families will gather for picture book readings, hands-on activities, crafts and special guests.

The tradition of gathering on the side porch to share stories began with Eudora Welty herself. For years, EWHG has honored this tradition by using the space to foster community. 

Storytime on the Side Porch is a time-trusted program that brings fun and learning together in the heart of the Belhaven neighborhood.

EWHG education specialist Shalynn Turner leads this program.

“This summer, our Storytime series is all about celebrating the small wonders we can find all around us! Children and their caregivers can come out to the Welty side porch, and through reading, play, and arts and crafts, learn to find inspiration in the ordinary and get creative, just as Welty did,” Turner said. 

“This is a fun and engaging program for kids to enjoy during summer break!”

Each week will cover a new “small wonder”:

• June 4: Katie Tupy, Education Coordinator at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, will bring a few critters and discuss “Backyard Treasures.” 
• June 11: Local artist Christi Doucet will lead a hands-on paper bird craft and foster creativity with the topic, “Art All Around Us.” 
• June 18: Brian Lamb of Bubba’s Bees will share his knowledge of “Nature’s Tiny Helpers” by bringing an observation beehive, beekeeping gear and honey sticks. 
• June 25: Museum educator from the Two Mississippi Museums, Emma Ellard, will bring puppets and discuss how stories bring people together with “Stories We Share.” 

No registration is required for these free events. To find a full schedule for this summer’s Storytime on the Side Porch, visit EWHG’s website.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) is pleased to announce the opening of the Eudora Welty House & Garden (EWHG) Potting Shed. The Garden Club of Jackson awarded a grant to the Eudora Welty Foundation to renovate the interior of the Welty family garage, which was originally built along with the family home in 1925 and has been converted into a much-needed potting shed and workshop.

“For the first time, this potting shed allows our garden volunteers, Cereus Weeders, a proper, dedicated space with the right equipment they need to do the weekly, hands-on work of preserving the Welty garden,” said Jessica Russell, EWHG director. “It also provides the EWHG a special opportunity to serve our local community.

Both Eudora Welty’s prose and personal correspondence are rich with imagery from the natural world. Eudora Welty once said, “I wish I had a sign to tell me what I had better do that day, write or work in the garden.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author mentioned in her published works more than 150 types of plants and flowers, many of which grow around her home to this day.

For Eudora Welty, gardening was not a distraction from her writing; it was an inspiration for it. Her biographer, Dr. Suzanne Marrs, observed that for Welty, “the garden and writing were linked at some profound level.”

The design team, Arkansas-based company Natural State Design, LLC (NSD), hand-selected aged materials, board by board, to blend with the building’s historic period. NSD worked closely with Welty staff and retired garden consultant Susan Haltom to meet a wide variety of needs and purposes.

Today, the Welty garden is largely maintained by the dedicated “Cereus Weeders,” a volunteer organization named after Eudora Welty’s Night-Blooming Cereus Club, a group of friends who frequently entertained themselves by attending Night-Blooming Cereus flower-watching parties in Jackson in the 1930s.

For more information call 601-576-6934 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.

Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) is pleased to announce that The Eudora Welty Digital Archives is now available to the public on the MDAH website. This digitization project was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities with a matching contribution from the Eudora Welty Foundation. 

The Eudora Welty Digital Archives represents only a sample of Welty-related material housed at MDAH and features selections of correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and other media related to Eudora Welty (1909-2001), master of the short story and one of America's greatest authors. 

"MDAH is grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for their generous grant which allowed for the construction of the world's most extensive digital archive of Eudora Welty materials," said Katie Blount, director of MDAH. "We are excited to share this incredible resource with researchers and fans of Eudora Welty."

Eudora Welty had a long relationship with the MDAH, making her first donation of manuscripts, papers, and photographs in 1957, and continuing to donate throughout her life. In addition to documents, the collection includes the house where Welty lived most of her life and wrote her greatest works, her furniture, art, and books, and the garden in which she worked alongside her mother. The complete collection is accessible at the MDAH.

Eudora Welty was born on April 13, 1909, the daughter of Christian Webb Welty and Chestina Andrews Welty. In 1925 the family moved to 1119 Pinehurst Street in Jackson, where Welty would reside until her death. Welty graduated from Jackson's Central High School in 1925, attended Mississippi State College for Women, University of Wisconsin, and Columbia University in New York City.

She received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for her book, The Optimist's Daughter—originally published in The New Yorker in 1969. Welty was also an accomplished photographer.

From 1955 to 1970, Eudora Welty published two short stories dealing with the Civil Rights Movement, "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" and "The Demonstrators," and worked on scenes for a novel while caring for her family.  

Eudora Welty died in Jackson on July 23, 2001. 

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this database do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.                              

For more information call 601-576-6850, or email info@mdah.ms.gov.   

MDAH offices and archives library will be closed Friday, December 23 to Monday, December 26. All museum sites will close at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 24, and reopen on Tuesday, December 27.

The archives library will be closed on Saturday, December 31, and all museums will close at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 31, and reopen on Tuesday, January 3. MDAH offices will also be closed on Monday, January 2.

Visit www.mdah.ms.gov/explore-mississippi for more information about our one-of-a-kind museums, historical sites and cultural attractions throughout the state. Explore our wide ranging Digital Archives herehttps://da.mdah.ms.gov/.