(theme song) - [Walt] Coming up on Mississippi Roads, we watch a professional women's football game, visit a historical hotel, and an urban farm.

All that coming up now on Mississippi Roads.

♪ Down Mississippi Roads... ♪ Mississippi Roads.

♪ - Hi, welcome to Mississippi Roads, I'm Walt Grayson.

This week, we're at the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty in Jackson.

The house was built back in 1925, and Eudora was still a young lady when they moved in.

But you've got to remember this is the era that the traditional role of women was changing.

They'd just gotten to vote.

They were beginning to work outside the home.

And I bring that up because this entire episode is about women and their occupations, some of which may be considered nontraditional for women.... if you can still say that.

And if you can't, don't tell this first group of ladies because they're not only changing the game, they're playing it.

- [Announcer] Let's welcome the Mississippi Panthers!

(cheering and shouting) - We are here at Madison Ridgeland Academy.

We are in our third game.

We're playing Houston Heat and we're just basically right now, we're just practicing getting our warm ups done and everything before our game starts at 7:00.

My name is Lana Cistrunk and I'm a linebacker.

I heard about women’s football in 2017.

How it all started is that I really wanted to basically lose some weight.

I heard about these flag teams.

And so one time we had practiced flag practice and tackle practice together.

And so they had on pads, I didn’t, and I was tackling them.

And I was just like, “Oh, I like this!

This relieves stress!” And so ever since then, I've been playing.

(exciting music) - I'm Camry Veal, co-owner and general manager of the Mississippi Lady Panthers.

I was actually planning on doing a women's flag football game, a couple of players like LaShanda Griffin and Regina Alana asked to start a tackle team.

It's been around for way longer than people know.

Besides the, you know, the cliché Lingerie Football League, actual women's tackle football has been around for a while.

And here in Jackson, we just started it based on the fact we didn't have anything here.

We wanted something here.

We wanted to provide a better opportunity for some of the girls around Mississippi as a whole, not just Jackson.

So we started the team.

- I heard about it probably about four or five years ago.

Growing up, I always played football outside with the guys and I wanted to play when I was in middle school, but we had to have our parents’ permission back then.

My mom was like, “No, you're not going to play.” When it finally got brought to Mississippi, I was a little older, but it was an opportunity that I wanted to take advantage of.

(indistinct shouting) (whistle blowing) (cheering) (hard-driving music) - But this league, the WNFC, the Women's National Football Conference, is the Premiere Women's Football League, and they're really trending and really doing everything in the way that you would expect a professional organization to do.

It's really no difference from men's football.

The only difference, I guess, is the length of the schedule.

In women's football, we play six games in the WNFC.

- For us, we only play in the summertime.

It’s between April into June, and then we have our playoff season, which is in July.

So that's the timeframe that we play, and in the rest of the season, we’re getting ready for the next season.

- When you come to one of our games, you’re going to see the intensity that the players bring, the coaches, you’re gonna see some explosive plays.

(crowd cheering) - You know, we've got former top-level athletes on the team who, after college or something, they just couldn't make it to the next level, or was no next level.

There's no Major League Women's Baseball or Major League Women's Volleyball, so they just needed something.

- I actually played basketball for Belhaven University, and now I'm playing football.

On the football field, it's a lot more team-oriented than it was on the basketball court.

I just like actually being around other people and just kind of building bonds with different people.

- You've got all avenues of life on this team.

I can't be thankful enough for the things that they do, the things that they offer, the things that they sacrifice.

I never can say that enough how much I appreciate my team.

There's a lot of people who need things outside of their everyday, mundane life.

We don't know what they're going through personally.

I know a lot of our players, it helps them cope with stress, problems at home, and things like that.

So I like being an outlet and being something else that people can look forward to doing every week.

- I was in foster care.

I grew up in foster care, and then I was adopted.

In my life, I had to deal with a lot of abuse and neglect.

And so having that background, and that past, football really changed me to put my anger and put my emotions and everything that I have been through into playing football and doing it in a positive way.

So that’s one of the reasons why I love football.

Football has definitely changed my life.

- It's changed me a lot.

It actually has shown me that even at the age of 37, I can still compete.

And it brings females together.

It brings us closer and it's something that we can talk about, sit about, and bond about.

- I see them as superstars and rock stars, and I want them to get to that point to know and be sure and confident that you are professional women's athlete now.

We're providing this platform for you.

We’re providing this opportunity.

We’re asking them to take hold of it and run with it.

- Well if anybody is interested, I would say not let anybody deter you from the sport.

Don't let anybody tell you what you can't do because you can do it.

We're just as good as the guys.

We're athletic.

We're fast.

We bring the intensity.

So never let anybody discourage you.

Whatever you want to do, you can do.

(crowd cheering) - [Sports announcer] Touchdown Panthers!

- Back at the Eudora Welty House and Garden, Jessica Russell, who is Garden Project Specialist here, has been showing us around the Welty home and tells us some interesting things about Eudora and her family, like the influence Eudora's parents had on her life and career.

Did she know Faulkner?

Did she meet Faulkner?

- Yeah, she did.

They spent time together.

She even got to go on   (audio   fades   out) If Eudora was here, she would say, “Sit anywhere you like, just move the books.” So there's a lot of signs here that this is an author's home.

Eudora really credited her parents with giving her a life that nurtured her creativity and a home that encouraged curiosity and learning.

That really comes through when you visit this house.

You would expect to learn a lot about Eudora when you come here and you do, but you learn a lot about her parents too and the environment that they created.

The first room that you come to is the living room downstairs in the house, and it's filled not only with books, but also with artwork, and a lot of the paintings that you see are painted by people that Eudora was actually friends with and had personal relationships with.

One of the artists in particular that has done a lot of work in this home is her family friend, fellow Jacksonian, the painter Mildred Nungester Wolfe.

Mildred Wolfe painted portraits of Eudora Welty’s mother, Chestina, her father, Christian, and a portrait of the two together.

One thing to know about Eudora's family is that neither of her parents were from the Deep South, and they brought with them values and ideas that may have been just a little bit different from their neighbors.

They were considered pretty progressive.

They really valued education for their children, especially their daughter, Eudora.

Not everyone did.

Eudora got a college degree, and then they encouraged her to go on and get an advanced degree.

But her father, Christian, passed away suddenly six years after they built this home.

Eudora was 22.

She was living in New York at the time, studying at Columbia University, getting a business degree.

In her father's idea, in her father's mind, this business degree was something for her to fall back on.

When he fell ill, she came home.

She doesn't marry or have children.

She instead pursues this career as a writer, pursues photography.

So she's really doing different, independent things for herself, especially for her time.

At her own home, when she comes home, she's also living alongside her mother, who, especially after being widowed, really takes it upon herself to work in the garden and join garden clubs and really becomes a leader in her community from the door of garden clubs and the garden beautification.

But income was going to be a challenge.

This is The Depression.

There were not very many jobs for women before now and now the Welty women are thinking, “What are we going to do?

We've got to get some income.” And they got creative.

They took this room, Christian’s study.

They transformed this room into a bedroom.

And now that they had an extra bedroom, they could seek a boarder, a tenant, someone who would come and live with them in their home and pay them rent and help them get by.

Someone answered this call for them, and not just anyone.

The person who came to live with them, starting in 1931, was Fannye Cook.

Fannye Cook led a grassroots movement of natural conservation in Mississippi in the 1930s, and her efforts really led to what we now know as the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks.

And her legacy also led to the establishment of what we now know as the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.

And that is a great place to go to learn more about Fannye Cook and what she did for the state.

While she was living in the Welty home, she was accompanied by many, many, many natural creatures and specimens that she would bring into the home.

There were owls in the refrigerator.

There were hawks in the bathtub.

And Eudora tells a story one time of there even being a baby bat lost in the house and Eudora found the bat in the drapes.

Fannye ordered a little bit of warm milk and fed the baby bat with a dropper, and Eudora tells her friend in a letter after this that she then saw a baby bat belch.

So all this was going on in the Welty home for many years.

There was never a dull moment.

This is the home that Eudora’s parents designed.

She was 16 when she moved here and this home became her permanent residence for the next 76 years of her life until she passed away in 2001 at the age of 92.

- So can you imagine what that must have been like living in this house with those three unique women?

I mean, you had Eudora Welty, her mother, and Fannye Cook with all those specimens.

We might get an idea by visiting the Belmont Hotel up in Belmont, Mississippi.

It's a historic hotel run by three generations of women.

Let's check in.

(relaxing guitar music) - That railroad came through was built in 1908, and then they built the hotel in 1924.

And I always like to say it survived The Depression, World War II, and now us.

The Belmont Hotel is one of the oldest continuously-operating hotels in the state of Mississippi.

In 1924, there were eight businessmen in Belmont who decided Belmont needed a hotel.

With the hotel being built in 1924, The Depression was just around the corner, and I've heard stories of how excited they were to have the brand new hotel and The Depression hit, so it really hit hard.

But the hotel survived The Depression.

I've heard of stories where they sold some light fixtures to pay the taxes.

And there have been several owners over the years.

The Wright family had it many years, the Deatons had it for 20 years or so.

And now we have it.

We bought the hotel in 2017.

My husband and I are empty-nesters and we thought it would be a neat little project, or I did.

We had just gotten this hotel.

We had just signed the papers and it was in October.

My husband's a football coach, and so it was a tough time because of all the activity going on.

And here we had this new endeavor of the hotel.

I was overwhelmed and literally said a prayer one night with one word: Help.

And the very next day, a gentleman walked in and he said, “This is perfect.

This is exactly what I'm looking for.” And he was trying to find a place to film an untold story of World War II.

And they were amazed at how, “Oh my word.

It looks just like it did back then.” We have the original pine floors.

The ceiling is original.

I will say over the years, all of the owners have been very careful to try to keep it as original as possible.

Even the color scheme is the same as it was.

The colors were vibrant in those days.

Of course, there have been obvious renovations to add more bathrooms to the rooms, that sort of thing.

Many years ago, there are only two bathrooms upstairs, one at each end, and I will say when we first got this hotel, a lady said, “The only problem I have with that hotel is that everybody has to share a bathroom.” And I did not dare say this, but I wanted to say, “Well, what year are you speaking of?” We have had renovations since then.

All the rooms have bathrooms now.

We have wifi, we have cable.

Of course, I'm still working as a school counselor.

My mother, who is a retired teacher and my daughter, we kind of tag-team and run this hotel.

- So I just help with the marketing details of the hotel, coming events, taking calls, checking people in.

- Well, I'm retired so I'm available any time they need me.

And so I fill in whenever they're working.

Everything that has to be done, I can do it.

- Of course, being the youngest of three generations has its challenges.

It's always very interesting to have all the dynamics together.

I’ll choke you!

- And I'm gonna get Jenny Lynn!

- Because we're all very hard-headed and high-strung.

- It is rewarding to work with Jenny Lynn and Natalie.

I mean, it has served a great purpose for people.

Whenever they have weddings, they come from out of town and they need a place to stay, and funerals, those people, and so we just try to accommodate them whenever they come and realize their purpose for being here and we want make them happy.

We had a group of New Yorkers that were very interesting, very interesting.

They all had to have their shirts ironed, (laughing) and so we did it.

Whatever it takes, we do it.

- Mother usually sees them off, sees the guests off in the morning, and then it's time for the cleanup part.

After school, I get here, check in guests.

And then a lot of times my daughter might stay overnight.

And of course, if we have an event, then it's time to call everybody, get everybody here.

Many years ago, the phone booth, it is original to the hotel.

It was placed by the front door and this couple is getting married and the phone just keeps ringing in the middle of the ceremony and the preacher even stopped and said, “You know, you might want to get that.”   (laughing) They're a happily-married couple, and so they always enjoy telling that story.

The beginning in 1924, you can imagine the history and the people that have come through the hotel is phenomenal.

The stories that people will come by and tell us are just unbelievable.

When there were children running up and down the stairs, playing hide and go seek.

And that is one thing that people refer to this hotel when they walk in the door.

It does have a nostalgic appeal about it and they say, “I feel like I'm coming to grandma's house.

I feel like I'm coming home.” I do believe with my mother and my daughter and all joining forces make it a place where you see the young, middle-aged, and older coming together as one working together.

And I do believe for our generation, the younger folks need to see that.

We're celebrating life from one generation to the next.

And let's all do our part.

- Even though Eudora came back to Mississippi from New York for her father's death, initially, she eventually just moved back here and lived in this house for the rest of her life.

And to aid in their grieving process, her and her mother built and maintained this beautiful garden out back.

Now in our next story, we visit with another lady who came back home to Mississippi from New York and built a different kind of garden.

Let's talk to Dr. Cindy Ayers Elliott at Footprint Farms.

(upbeat music) - This is called dinosaur kale, and it's a dinosaur kale because of how it feels, the bumpiness, and the roughness of it.

People who have said, “I don't eat kale,” well, they've never had this type of kale before.

So now they're like...   (speech fades out) Well, the beautiful part about Footprint Farms is that we are farm fresh and city sweet.

People don't realize that we are an urban farm.

Even though we're 68 acres large in farming, we are considered an urban farm because we're inside the city.

So you don't have to be 100 or 1000-acre, even 68-acre to be a farmer or to be a healthy grower of food for your community and for yourself.

- The more we did it, the more the vision came, the more we could see, why not here?

You know, why not Jackson?

Everybody has seen a farm.

They've seen animals.

But you'd be surprised the amount of people in the city who's never seen a cow up close or a goat up close, or even know that something like this could exist in the city.

- Footprint Farms was established in 2010.

For me, it was my first adventure into agriculture.

Before that, I was an investment banker out of New York.

So becoming a farmer was not in my daily plans.

But right now, one of the best things I've ever done is to be able to work the land to take care of the soil and the earth.

You know, black farmers in America have lost so much land, and it was because of things that was put in place.

These are intentional ways of life that's not just in Mississippi that was done, but all over the country where a lot of black farmers lost their land.

And one of the things that we're looking to do is to help to change that plight by policies and implementation of fair policies.

But as a black farmer, as a woman, as a black woman in the state of Mississippi in an arena that's traditionally a white business is different for all of us.

But there are opportunities and there are a lot of great farmers out there that look like me.

Well, Footprint Farms is known for a couple of things, but one of the most important things we want people to know is that we do more than just plant seeds in the soil.

We also plant seeds in the mind to see what could happen.

What if you decide to become a farmer, to work the land and the activities you could do within your community?

- Well, I actually got my start here at the Farm back in 2016.

Footprint Farms is all about planting seeds in the mind, so I was one of the ones who the seed was planted in the mind at an early age when I was a student at Tougaloo College.

And so I believed in it coming back to the state.

I reached out to Dr. Ayres and I was granted the opportunity to come out and actually help and to give back to the community and stuff of that nature.

- We want everyone to understand the importance of eating healthy, to grow some of your own foods.

Take some of your flowerbeds, grow some greens, or to look at doing new way of growing water base for urban areas, especially.

So this is aeroponics.

This is water-based growing.

This is one of the ways that I'm trying to bring new agricultural technology and techniques to our city, and to our state.

We actually did a seed into this just like we would do in the soil.

But this is called rock wool, and all this lettuce will be grown in nothing but water in our towers.

So we seed this and grow it, and then we insert it into the water towers.

And during that time, it actually will grow faster than any soil-based that we have.

And you can grow year-round.

You can grow this in your house.

You don't have to have a backyard or front yard or stoop.

You can just put it in your kitchen and have fresh food.

- Well actually, right now I'm studying at Mississippi State.

I'm getting a Ph.

D. in Ag Science and Extensions.

And so my goal is to do something very similar to what Dr. Ayers is doing, but actually down in the Delta area, an area where food desert is like really big.

- Well, this is part of our CSA, our Community Supported Ag, and actually we're getting this ready for one of our churches.

Mount Helm Church for this week.

- I think Dr. Ayres probably knew me before I was born.

She's known our family for a very long time, and I reached out to her about two months ago when we decided to pay for this amount of food, and I wanted to support someone who I knew, someone who was local.

She's a black-owned farm person, so we're thankful and excited about the partnership and look forward to future opportunities.

- We actually will be distributing free to the community 300 boxes, and this will consist of local foods that we grow.

But also we bring in different foods for fruits and different types of food to be inside of our boxes.

Every Saturday in the month of May for this year, and hopefully next year, we'll be doing some of the same things or even next month with some of the other churches around the community.

This is another way that we can help provide the necessary and needed food to the community.

Well, we do different markets.

For instance, every Saturday, Footprint Farms is located downtown at the Mississippi Farmers Market.

We’re there every Saturday and have been for the last five years, even doing COVID to make sure we're showing up to give access to people who want to eat healthier and to be able to buy our products.

We also do this new market that we just started this year.

Here every third Saturday of the month, we do the Magnolia Sunset Market from 4:00 until 7:00.

We bring in different vendors, home-based vendors.

Lot of women that now have their own business.

And we create a place that they can actually market their goods and we invite people to come out.

We have restaurants.

We partner with the city, with Visit Jackson.

We invite families to come out.

We said bring the kids.

We have plenty of space for them to be able to play.

But to see nature and to see some of the things that we do here at Footprint Farms.

It's important for me to be from Mississippi.

I'm very proud of who I am, where I'm from, and what I will be.

And to let everyone know is that is not what they call you, but it's what you answer to.

And for me, I'm answering to farmer, Mississippian, and a very proud person with a great family and great roots right here in my city of Jackson and right here in my state of Mississippi.

- Well thank you, ladies, and thank you, Jessica, for the tour of the Eudora Welty House and Garden.

And if you'd like information about anything you've seen on the show, contact us at: And like our Mississippi Public Broadcasting Facebook page while you’re at it and check out our Mississippi Roads Facebook page.

Till next time, I'm Walt Grayson.

I'll be seeing you on Mississippi Roads.