Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Wow! Who Do You Think I am? Part 30


Above - Leander Newton Trammell Famiy on the lawn of the Trammell House in Marietta, Georgia.


Marietta has a Christmas season tradition every year of Tour of Homes or Marietta Pilgrimage. We have been going for the past ten or so years and each house we found interesting and enjoyable. A few years ago the Trammell House on Trammell Street was one of the five or six houses to be toured.

I knew quite a bit about the home’s original owner Leander Newton Trammell and couldn’t wait to see inside. It was a fine old house in excellent shape. The docents in each room told us the owner was an architect and restored the house to how it was originally.



Above, Trammell House picture about three years ago.

I wanted to take pictures but one of the rules on the tour is no photography inside the houses. I noticed a nice looking young lady taking pictures. She had a big camera, like a Canon or a Nikon. I thought she was probably from the Marietta Daily Journal. I thought I might get away with taking the pictures if I stayed close to her, people might think we were together. I got beside her and starting clicking away down the wide hallway upstairs. She turned around to me and said, “You are not suppose to take pictures inside houses on this tour.”



I wanted to retort, "You are!" But I have better sense, most of the time, to be more tactul.

I told her it was OK, I was related to the owner (“of long ago” I added in a mumble). She quickly informed me that she was the owner and she might have added that we were not related.

I admitted to her that I didn’t mean the present owner, I meant the man who built the house, and I gave her a quick rundown of my relation with the Trammell family.

She introduced herself as Rachel Frey and I got to know her and her husband (the architect) and we keep either other informed with our email and occasionally run into each other over the years.

The husband Doug has recently written a book about the grand old houses of the elite of Marietta and the area’s architect of long ago. From what I heard I think it is a very good book.

Also, not long ago NPR TV did a Margaret Mitchell study and they used the inside Trammell house and the director decided he was going to cast Rachel as Margaret Mitchell because she was so charming and photogenic. In one scene, she is typing away on an old manual type writer and she has a few lines here and there.

It will be aired in June, as Rachel tells us below:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your history with Niles Trammell is so interesting. Rachael Frey is a charmer! And who would ever think the Prezzz of NBC was from Marietta. His involovement with the Amos & Andy show reminded me:

I "think" I told you this story way back. When I was around 10, my dad took me to the Brown Derby, a celeb restaurant on Hollywood & Vine. The waiter told us Amos and Andy were there and arranged for me to get autographs. Well, I could hardly wait. As we waited, I looked all over the restaurant, but didn't see them. When I finally met them, I was hugely disappointed to know they were not "black".