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pointing out that it takes a lot of work to produce the 400 or so arrangements that are sold in the parish hall on tour day. Seeds are started in February and plants set out in May. Wild material — rabbit’s tobacco, old man’s love, dock, sumac and golden rod ~ is gathered from roadsides, woods and farm fields. Throughout the summer, blossoms are dried in hot Rappahannock attics. Then from Labor Day through the third week in October, 20 to 25 women gather at the parish hall to make the arrangements.
And that’s just the flower side. There’s another component: the handsome Rappahannock homes that are opened to the public for the weekend of the dried flower sale. “We try to get a small, a medium and a large house. Also a modem, a Victorian and an old variety,” Mrs. Davis noted. “We never had a failure but some tours have been smoother than others. One year, we had celebrity houses and we had so many people, we couldn’t handle them all. . . Jack and Marie (Kilpatrick) walked up and down the line of visitors waiting to get in, shaking hands with them all.”
Another year, a sleet storm hit Rappahannock on tour day. One of the houses on the tour was unheated. “We had fires in all the fireplaces and the owners served sherry. No one wanted to leave,” related Mrs. Davis, laughing.
But, despite an occasional snag, despite the pressure on the owners to turn living quarters into dust-free showplaces, those whose homes have been on the tour unanimously agree that it’s a delightful experience. “The people who come are not only interested but interesting,” testified one satisfied participant.
There are others who help besides the arrangers and the folks who open their homes to the streams of visitors. Hostesses, graduates of a short course in house history, are on duty in various rooms to direct visitors to points of interest. A publicity committee sends out hundreds of tour brochures that bring visitors from Richmond, Baltimore, the Valley and Washington, D. C. A cleanup committee trails the arrangers in the parish hall, sorting through and collecting the tender blossoms that have fallen on the floor. Volunteers
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