High Tea Time Finally Came

Finally the day for the "High Tea with the three wives of Henry Flagler" has happened!  Hurricane Ian threatened to keep this from happening, but thankfully the wonderful ladies of the Historical Society persevered and kept moving forward with their plans as promised.  It was a sold out event...And what a lovely event it was!  I believe all of the ladies were ready for something lovely and fun after a week of anxiety and storm preparation and endurance and clean up from the storm. Our little community was spared any major damages, and we are very thankful.

As you know, if you've been following me for the past few weeks, I was very excited to sign up to go to this event and to prepare my special outfit for the day.  Here is what I finally created:

It was such fun to see how others also got into the spirit of the day...oh...here are some special friends:

above: my friend Linda, (on the left) who grew up in my home town and attended the same school as I...and now lives in a little town not far from here wanted to come. She almost didn't make it as they had been away on vacation when Ian came calling, and they weren't sure if they could drive back into the state in time for this event today. But they persevered and made it home just in time for her to attend! In the middle is one of my special church friends, Vivian A., who wasn't sure if she would be able to attend and then decided to come at the last minute and made her reservation just in the nick of time before they declared it "sold out"!  And then on the right is my friend Betty, who I've mentioned to you before. She loves to read our blogs and sometimes comments, but doesn't have her own blog so you may not know her. But Betty and her husband just recently moved into a little town not far from here and she has been down to see me at Dixie Cottage a couple of times and we forgot to take pictures, so I told her today we would be sure to get our pictures taken together (which you will see later).

And I was also surprised to discover that these three of my dear friends from church also decided to come today and were fortunate to get their reservations in just under the wire as well!  L to R: Brenda, who is our church office administrator, Dottie who is our official church hugger...you can't get through church without a hug from sweet Dottie, and our lovely pastor's wife and worship/choir leader Carol.  Three very special ladies!

In this picture I think my hat was too heavy for my head. LOL.

Now, for the majority of the rest of these photos, these are just some of the lovely ladies who attended the tea. I do not know these ladies but they are from our town and some are a part of the Historical Society who sponsored the event.  This will just give you an idea of how much fun we were having:

This dear lady was actually one of our servers as well as one of the organizers of the event:

Another happy lady:

Each table was set with such lovely dishes and the food was wonderful.

It was so lovely to see this young mother with her two daughters enjoying the tea party.

Our guest speaker had arrived and I took her picture before I realized who she was!

This is the teapot used to serve our tea. Isn't it gorgeous?

Here is the "first Mrs. Henry Flagler", Mary Harkness Flagler.  She ended up dying of consumption.

The second Mrs. Flagler had actually been the first Mrs. Flagler's nurse and a nanny for the children. After Mary Harkness Flagler died, Henry married Ida Audrey. She later was committed to a sanitorium for the mentally ill.  He later divorced her and married the next Mrs. Flagler, below:

Mary Lily Kenan Flagler:   Her story ended very sadly as after Henry Flagler died she remarried and it appears that her new husband was giving her drugs which led to her untimely death.  It was never proven as such, but it appears he was after her large fortune...

You can read more about this story here: https://flaglermuseum.us/history/flagler-biography

After this amazing portrayal we were invited to come up on stage and have our pictures taken with "Mrs. Flagler"

It was so much fun.

And once more, here I am with my dear church friends...

And also with the rest of my friends. We had such a lovely time. I wish more could have attended.

So now I put the hat back on the shelf and hung up the fancy outfit and put away the gloves and old jewelry and come back to the present.

After hearing the sad stories of Henry Flagler's wives, who were, by the way, the richest women in the world at that time...my thought was that they each needed to know Jesus and perhaps their lives would have been happier.   Money does not buy happiness or good health...There is only One that I know who gives our hearts everlasting peace...Jesus Christ, the Son of God:

Psalm 73:25-26

"Whom have I in heaven but You?

And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.

26 My flesh and my heart fail;

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

And with that I will bid you good night!