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The Peach Blossom Festival
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MISS CHARLIE MATHEWS,
“The Peach” of the 1925 Pageant.
As an act of gratitude to a merciful
Father, whose hand stayed a fearful plague
that was sweeping their countryside, the
inhabitants of the little Bavarian city of
Oberammergau vowed in 1033 that every
ten years they would enact the “Christus
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have they fulfilled that vow
that the world inseparably
connects Oberammergau
with the ( ( Passion Play. j >
Many thousands of miles
from that Bavarian village
in the good year 1922, an¬
other people were inspired
to inaugurate another cele¬
bration—that of an Annual
Peach Blossom Festival,
and to-day though Fort Valley,
Georgia, her festi¬
val is only in the fourth
year of its establishment,
is becoming known to the
nation and to the world as
the “City of the Peach
Blossom Festival. } t
A keen appreciation of
the exquisite beauty of
their blossoming trees as
they lift up pink branches
to an azure sky was the
basic reason for inaugurat¬
ing the celebration. And,
indeed, it is a sight to thrill
the soul of the most callous
hearted.
A beholder, seeing these
vast orchards clad in a
sweet riot of pink beauty,
can not but feel a surge
of gratitude to Him, “Who
giveth rain and fruitful
seasons,” and a reverence
like unto that Moses felt
when a voice “Put
off thy •shoes from off thy
feet, for the place whereon thou standest
is holy ground. t )
Added to this appreciation for the beau¬
tiful and to the rejoicing that springs
eternal in every heart at the appearance
of these heavenly prophecies in pink, is
a just pride that their city is the hub
of the peach industry, for Fort Valley,
surrounded by orchards of sixteen million
peach trees, boasts the distinction of be¬
ing the largest peach market in the world.
These were the contributing factors that
led to the institution of what one At¬
lanta editor has termed “the most dis¬
tinctive, the most appealing, the most
poetic event in Georgia’s calendar,—Tho
Festival of the Peach. ) )
To Miss Etta Caritliers, now Mrs.
Lawrence Houston, goes the honor of be¬
ing the author of the festival idea, and
Fort Valleyans immediately pronounced
the happy suggestion a veritable inspira¬
tion.
The growth of the festival has been
astounding. Under the leadership of Miss
THE LEADER TRIBUNE
Pauline Oak, who has directed the pageants
each year, a Japanese masque, “The Sun
Goddess,” in which two hundred characters
participated, was given at the first Blos¬
som Festival.
The following year, plans were launched
on a much larger scale and twenty-four
thousand outsiders were the guests of
Fort Valley at an old-fashioned Southern
barbecue dinner, and later saw a pageant
cast of three hundred players present
“Georgia's Crowning Glory”—the peach
industry.
Gratified with the success that had
crowned the efforts of previous years,
the capital of Peachland then turned to
the task of preparing for the third of
her famous celebrations. So diligently
did she labor along all progressive lines
that visitors, returning after an absence
of a year, found difficulty in believing
it the same town.
The program arranged for the day was
elaborate and impressive, a lovely feature
being a mammoth parade of tloats repre¬
senting organizations from all sections of
Georgia. At noon a sumptuous repast
was served to Fort Valley’s visitors. But
the elimax of the day was the pageant,
( i r The Peach of the World,” which re¬
quired a cast of six hundred players and
which was a master production.
Long after the sun, which had all day
beamed his warm approval, had gone on
his journey to other lands, beholders lin¬
gered, standing agape for words cordial
enough to express their appreciation of
the “Third Annual Peach Blossom Festi¬
val.” Then, like Mark Twain on first
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ADORNED WITH RICHEST PINK TO AN AZURE SKY.
beholding the ocean, their terse comment
was: * i Boys, it’s a success! ”
Just why tho Peach Blossom Festival
has succeeded is perhaps well explained
in two fundamental principles laid down of
in an editorial in the January issue
‘ ‘ Psychology ’ ’ magazine. ‘ ‘ Discover some
human need, organize to supply that de¬
mand in an efficient manner and your
success basis is established. This is true
not only with the loftier and more ideal¬
istic phases of service but also in the
more material forms. J I
The Peach Blossom Festival meets a real
human need. All mankind loves a festival
season; to love its joyousness and its
exhilaration is innate in the hearts of
young and old. America, unlike the old
world, has been so busy making history
and accumulating the material things of
life, that she has failed to institute many
festival occasions.
Japan has capitalized this yearning for
a play time, this buoyance of spirit that
must find expression in some kind of re-
By
Lucy Hamilton Howard
joioing, this eager responso of house-bound
lives to the call of the open, in her Cherry
Blossom Festival; ami Fort Valley is meet¬
ing this longing of the heart, when the
eold bleak winter is past, by instituting
a rival attraction, which bids fair to bo
worldwide in its scope, the loveliest and
most sweetly alluring time of them all— 1
a festival to spring time and to peach
blossom time.
The second requisite for success, after
a human need is found, is to organize to
meet that need in an effective way. In
the annals of cities, great or small, there
is no more remarkable, no more thrilling,
ne more romantic story than that of Fort
Valley’s organization in order to stage
effectively the Blossom Festival, The
primal step in this organization is the
election, by popular vote, of a Chairman—
a general, if you please, to direct the vast
army of volunteers. A man possessing
the cardinal virtues of vision, and initia¬
tive combined with tact, perseverance and
executive ability, has each year been
chosen. To Colonel Leighton Shepard
goes the distinction of serving ns a Chair¬
man for two successive years, of directing
the career of the Festival for 1924 and
for 1925.
Of the directors of the Third Annual
Festival, the St. Louis Globe Democrat in
an editorial comment said: “The minds
that worked out the plans for the festival
and put it into execution have proven
that, in Fort Valley, real and unusual
genius exists.” Already Fort Valley is
receiving the homage which her genius
for organization deserves.
A few days lief ore the great event last
year a long distance call came from a
large Eastern city. “Tell me,” said tho
voice, t ( how a town of four thousand in
habitants can dare attempt to entertain
forty or fifty thousand visitors. We have
800.000 inhabitants and are soon to have
10.000 guests, and it seems that we arc
not going to put it across. ) ) < ( Gome and
see, ■ ’ was the answer. 1 1 It takes some
old-fashioned Southern hospitality plus one
hundred per cent, co-operation. i >
The people of Fort Valley are as ardently
in love with the festival idea as ever
Romeo was witli a fair Juliet, and every
organization and every man, woman and
child are unanimous in their co-operation.
For six weeks, the little peach city re¬
sponds as one man to every festival call;
for six weeks she lives and breathes and
has her being for the festival. So faith¬
fully has she labored, putting her mind and
heart behind her purpose, that she has
1 1 caught the eye of the world and lias
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MRS. ETTA CARITHERS HOUSTON,
Author of the Peach Blossom Festival Idea,
begun to fulfill in a gratifying way hqr
lofty aspirations. J >
< i Success, f ) an ancient writer has said,
11 only furnishes the means for additional
success. j i The reward of it is not ex
emption from labor; it is a call to a greater
and more ardent endeavor. So, Fort Val¬
ley, Peach County, Georgia, is literally
girding herself for a larger
task. Lured on by the re¬
sponsive chord which her
poetic celebration has
sounded in the heart of
mankind, she is following
the gleam that leads, for
1925, to the most ambitious,
the most artistic, and the
most distinctive festival of
them all. To the end that
no devotee who would wor¬
ship at thi“ shrine of spring¬
time and blossom time be
turned away, she is “en¬
larging her habitation” by
the simple expedient of de¬
claring two days, March the
19th and March the 20th,
festival days.
The crowning of the king
and queen will tie events of
the morning. Miss Ruth
Evans, eldest daughter of
Mr. A. J. Evans, ‘ ‘ Peach
King of the World,” has
been chosen queen by popu¬
lar vote, and Mr. Samuel
Mathews, Mathews, son of Judge H.
A. has been
elected king. Another en¬
chanting feature of the
morning hours will be a
parade of floats in which
cities, clubs and individual
corporations will compete
for awards. As in the past,
however, the pageant will
be the cynosure of all
eyes.
On the northern outskirts of Fort Valley,
the pageant association has purchased
forty acres of land which will be a
permanent site for the Pencil Blossom
Festival. It is there, in a natural bowl
formed by the great Creator’s own kind
hand—how lovingly lie must have smiled
as provided, He shaped it—that 14,000 seats will
be and there, when the program
of the morning is over, the crowd will
wend its way to see unfolded before their
eyes in colorfulness and magnificence and
harmony, the story of the peach. One
thousand characters will lie required to
e long, sweet story and they will
be arrayed in garments well worth a king’s
ransom.
Back in the dim days of mythology on
Olympus, a mountain in Thessaly, the
fanciful romance will have its beginning.
Pomona, Goddess of Fruit, will summon
to appear before her, the fruits of the
earth and they will come clad in character¬
istic and colorful attire. From them all,
(Continued on page 25)