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Interviews by Amy Evans.
This project was produced in conjunction with the Smithsonian's
traveling exhibit "Key Ingredients"
and
is sponsored by the
Mississippi Humanities Council,
the
Yoknapatawpha Arts Council,
the Southern Foodways Alliance, and
the Lafayette County City of
Oxford Public Library
The
Mansion Restaurant
Oxford, MS :: 1942-1967
"I think [my father's restaurant] was a cornerstone in the community. And... there are letters and testimonies that we have to that. He just never met anybody that he didn't like and didn't befriend from the football players, to William Faulkner, to the governor. Just everyone and anyone. And he -- he loved the environment of The Mansion and -- and actually probably entertained those people there more than he did at home." -- Annette Seay Hines
For many years, Aubrey Seay managed the cafeteria at the University of Mississippi, establishing lifelong relationships with faculty and students alike. His love of the university and the surrounding town of Oxford, Mississippi, cemented his reputation before he evened open the doors on his famous restaurant, The Mansion. For twenty-five years, The Mansion was the place be. With his grand Marble Room, Mr. Seay could welcome civic clubs, school dances, and even the part of the press that was in town covering the 1962 integration of his dear Ole Miss. Mr. Seay passed and The Mansion burned in 1967, but the memories of the man and his restaurant remain.
What follows is a portion of the original interview that
has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form,
please click this
link. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)
THE
MANSION RESTAURANT
Subject: Annette Seay Hines, daughter of original owner
Date: July 22, 2004 @ 11:30am Location: July 22, 2004 @ 11:30am
Interviewer: Amy Evans
Amy Evans: This is Thursday, July twenty-second, and it's eleven thirty in the morning. And I'm at the home of Annette Seay Hines in Oxford, Mississippi... And, um, maybe start by naming your sister and your brother and your parents... and where everyone is born and raised.
Annette Seay Hines: My parents were, um, Aubrey and Martha Seay [pronounced Cee]. And my daddy was born in Tennessee and moved to Mississippi, um, as a young man. And my mother was born and raised in Durrant, Mississippi. And I have an older sister, Elizabeth, who was born in Oxford, and a twin sister, Maynette, who was born in Oxford, and a younger brother, Jim, who was born in Oxford.
All right. And you are the Seay family from The Mansion Restaurant.
Yes.
So, um, why don't you tell me a little bit about The Mansion.
Okay. My dad actually managed the cafeteria at Ole Miss for several years, and then opened his own restaurant in September of nineteen forty-two, and it was called The Mansion. It started out as a ten stool sandwich shop and drive-in, and my dad grew it into a large restaurant with a huge marble dining -- banquet room in the back that literally took up half a city block. And, um, the rest is history as they say. [Laughs]
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[W]hat made your father make the transition from being in the foodservice at the university to opening his own place?
I think it was just a life-long dream of his. When he was in Tennessee, he managed food services or Goldsmith's and Lowenstein's, and I think he just always wanted his own place. And the first opportunity he saw he took it. But he was just completely enamored and in love with Ole Miss. We -- we have football footage before the stadium -- the first stadium at Ole Miss was ever finished and completed. And, um, [he] catered enormously to the students. And, you know, of course, that carry-over from having managed the cafeteria, he had gotten to know many of them.
So was he interested primarily in -- in having a -- a place that could be a cornerstone in the community or was it food? Did he like to cook?
I think it was a cornerstone in the community. And -- and really over time -- I think there are letters and testimonies that we have to that. He just never met anybody that he didn't like and didn't befriend from the football players, to William Faulkner, to the governor. Just everyone and anyone. And he -- he loved the environment of The Mansion and -- and actually probably entertained those people there more than he did at home.
[W]hy did he call it The Mansion?
Now that I don't know.
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[S]o
how did you -- do you have any idea how your father developed the menu?
And where he got recipes from?
[W]ell, Dad was quite the baker and quite the cook, originally -- himself. And we have pictures of -- of several cakes that he, uh, designed. One is an open book that literally has r -- real writing and excerpts from a book in it. Uh, and was always experimenting. In fact, we have a wonderful seafood shrimp sauce that my dad invented -- made up himself and marketed for many years at the restaurant, and also Krogers carried it... [M]y sister and I would like to start marketing again. Um, I think uh, some of the recipes, uh, you know, he put together, and a lot of it was just good old Southern cooking. And over the years, we had quite a few wonderful Southern cooks. From peach cobbler to cornbread to fresh vegetables and -- we literally had something for everyone. Um, most of the standards were, uh, turkey and dressing and roast beef and chicken fried steak and fried chicken and -- and we even had calf's liver, which was... sort of considered a delicacy.
I saw that on one of the menus... fried liver.
[T]hey had a -- a -- a homemade spaghetti sauce and, you know, that was one of the standards. Most of these are standards on the menu. Of course, fresh vegetables that would, you know, change with the season. Uh, they made all their own rolls from scratch, all the cornbread from scratch, all the pies and pastries. Uh, we really didn't have a lot of cake. Mostly, uh, made fresh fruit pies and, uh, lemon meringue pie, especially. And then peach cobbler. Uh, we blew -- grew, uh, blackberries out on our property, where we lived, and we would have fresh blackberry cobbler and that sort of thing... Now the two main specialties were steaks, and Gulf shrimp from the Gulf Coast was just -- with our shrimp sauce. Uh, but we were the o -- only restaurant for miles and miles and miles that actually had a walk-in meat cooler and always had whole hindquarter of the whole cow, hanging in the meat cooler. All of the steaks were cut to order. These steaks were not just steaks lying out, they would go in the cooler and drag out off the hook the meat and put it on the big table saw and literally cut your steak and then cook it.
Did they get the -- the beef from someone local, who raised cattle -- beef cattle?
I'm not sure about that. I'd have to -- there is someone here I could probably ask that used to cook at The Mansion that's still alive.
Who is that?
Her name is Izetta Barringer.
How
long did she work at The Mansion?
Oh, she actually came to work for my mother when she was about sixteen or seventeen years old -- working at the house with -- with us when we were small. And then when we were old enough to drive and get about on our own, she went to The Mansion. And she cooked there until The Mansion burned. And then actually cooked out at The Mansion House when Mother moved it out to -- they put an addition on our home and served out of the home for many years also.
Yeah, I read a newspaper article about that that your sister sent, um, that said that like the next day after The Mansion burned, your mother was holding Rotary Club meetings in her home[.]
Um-hmm. We had a large home and we had a huge family room -- den -- double -- two huge double-rooms downstairs, and Mother had a large kitchen in the house that the home economics department from Ole Miss had come out and designed for her. And so it was really not that difficult for her to just pick up and serve... at the house.
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And do I understand your father passed before the restaurant burned?
Just weeks before the restaurant burned. Or maybe a month or two. Um, and my -- my sister has a wonderful letter that was written by Jack Cofield, who had a very nice photography studio in Oxford. And, um, it's really a wonderful letter about how it actually was befitting that, uh, Daddy should go before the restaurant. So, um, there were just a lot of special people that really had a special relationship with our parents.
Is that what you think -- is that what would explain your mother's carrying on, um, the tradition... in her home?
Oh, I think absolutely.
That responsibility to the customers?
Because we had catered to all of the civic clubs: the Rotary, the Lions, the Exchange Club, um, sorority and fraternity banquets and dances and um, even high school athletic dinners and banquets and dances were held in the marble room. We had a large, uh, that ball that goes around, and the light flashes on it and projects all of the colors off the wall. And we had a -- a stage and, in fact, the first black man to eat at The Mansion, performed at The Mansion, was Percy Sledge.
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[W]hen
they opened in [nineteen] forty-two, some of the menus from that year
-- or forty-three -- have a disclaimer about war rationing and some items
might no be available. Do you have some stories that they told you about
those times?
I don't remember anything that stands out, um, but I -- while we're speaking of disclaimers, I would like to say that there is a restaurant in Oxford currently, in this year two thousand and four, called The Mansion that has absolutely no affiliation to us, not had our permission to do so.
Good to have on the record. Um, well, did you grow up working in the restaurant also?
Well, I did. Um, from the ninth grade. You know, from teenage on all the way up through college, I did work in the restaurant, and my siblings did as well.
What kind of stories do you have from those days?
Well, I know one day, um, I -- William Faulkner and his wife Estelle used to eat in The Mansion regularly, and he didn't like the jukebox. We had a jukebox in there, um, because the students loved the music. And when Daddy would see Mr. Faulkner come in, he would unplug the jukebox and put an "Out of Order" sign on it. And, um, I remember waiting on Mr. Faulkner on night, and I forgot to go back and give him his check. And he was a very quiet, gracious man, and he just casually walked up -- got up out of his seat and walked up to the register where I was and asked for his ticket. And, of course, I was highly embarrassed, but he was very gracious about that. [Annette later mentioned that she also remembered William Faulkner's favorite meal at The Mansion was the barbecued chicken and peach cobbler, and sometimes he would order the cobbler before his meal. She also remembered that he used to sit in the third booth on the right side of the restaurant and faced the front.]... I know that my dad and William Faulkner were friends, and they used to fish together. Um, and when they tore down the post office here in Oxford, where William Faulkner worked, Daddy bought all the brick. And we had a large older home that my parents put additions on and renovated, and it was white frame, and Daddy bought the brick and bricked the entire house with this brick. And they had a brass plaque that -- by the door -- that stated that the brick had come from the post office where William Faulkner worked.
Is that still standing? The house?
No. Unfortunately, it's not.
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Can you describe what... the lobby looked like?
Well, uh, when you -- when you came up on the porch where the large white columns were, it was only like one step up and then a step into the door. There was a large foyer. Uh, with antique credenza -- buffet-type -- with, um, all these pictures of Faulkner on it and a lamp and, um, you know, it was just sort of a gracious entry. And then to the right was my dad's office, and then in that corner was a door that went into the kitchen. And to the left was the main dining room, which was quite large -- long. And then you went from there back into the large banquet-dining-dancing-ballroom, called the Marble Room. And the register was there to the left off of the foyer.
Was the Marble Room called the Marble Room because it had marble appointments?
It did have marble -- marble appointments. Uh, the -- the -- the two or three step-up stage, uh, where a lot of the bands set up to perform, uh, had a banister, and that was made out of marble.
[A]nd what were the hours. I know you served breakfast. Lunch and dinner?
Oh, they were open -- they were open for breakfast through dinner. I think initially probably six until ten or eleven. And then, of course, in the latter years I think they -- they closed earlier, but they were seven days a week. That never changed. And they always served breakfast lunch and dinner.
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And you told me over the phone about a Doctor Brown from the university. Could you retell that story?
Doctor Brown was an English professor -- and I do believe my sister has pictures of him -- um, that became a good friend of Dad's, and he was a regular in the restaurant. And when he would eat dinner -- he had a key. Daddy would just let him stay after they closed up. He would stay in there and drink coffee -- the big urns in the back in the kitchen that made several cups of coffee. Daddy would just -- just leave that urn on with the coffee, and Doctor Brown would stay in there and drink coffee and smoke and read and read until all hours of the night, and then he'd lock up and go home.
Is he somebody your father knew from his days at the university?
I think, possibly. That was probably where the relationship started. And there was a Doctor Silver also that was a professor of history. Doctor Savage. Uh, we really were -- were fortunate, um, to get to meet and know a lot of different people through the restaurant, The Mansion, and my father's relationship[s]. Um, in fact, there were occasions when Hughes Rudd and Dan Rather were in Oxford, either doing a documentary on Faulkner and Faulkner's death or, um, during the -- the -- the, um [short pause] --
Integration of Ole Miss?
Yes... Daddy let, um, Dan Rather use the Marble Room to set up. And all of his, um, news broadcasts were filmed from The Mansion. [Short pause] To the world. Um --
What else was going on during... that time?
[T]here was also, uh, people actually came from all over the world to Oxford, and they would come for various reasons. Either with an affiliation with the university or just to see Faulkner's town. Uh, there were two translators that my sister was telling me about -- my sister Maynette -- that she remembered. One was from Japan and one was from Sweden [Gunnar Barklund], who translated Faulkner's works into their languages. And the wife of the man from Japan actually lived with my mother at Seay's Mansion House after The Mansion burned, while she was in school at Ole Miss. Um [short pause] even though The Mansion and Daddy have been gone since nineteen sixty-seven, you can still see articles written about The Mansion and Daddy's relationship with Faulkner. There's an article, actually, that was written in nineteen ninety.
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What else was around The Mansion at the time? It was located now, I think, where Elizabeth Christopher Interiors is on South Lamar?
It was. And -- and just up the street on the same side of the street, uh, maybe two doors towards -- closer to the square -- there was a grocery called Tatum & Smith's And across the street, just north of The Mansion, there was another little grocery called Fudge's. I can remember -- Tatum & Smith's wasn't open as late as Fudge's, so I can remember running to Fudge's to get lettuce or tomato or something if we ran -- if we ran out of that. But, um, most of our, um, foodstuffs, like the shrimp and the seafood came from the Gulf. It was delivered in fresh daily. And the larger that produce that was purchased in bulk came from, uh, the local markets. Uh, and then my dad had a wonderful relationship with Krogers, and I think he, you know, bought a lot of things there. Um, but I can remember, the day my daddy died, I was -- came in from class at Ole Miss, and I was in a rush to get something to eat and get back to class, and Dad was sitting in his -- that first booth, that was his -- his spot, when he wasn't in the office or the kitchen. And, um, he said, "You've got to get -- oh, we have some wonderful fresh tomatoes and cantaloupe. You should make sure, you know, you get some." And so he -- he really loved to build a relationship with the people that -- everybody from the customers to -- to those that, uh, worked there and those that he purchased his foodstuffs from. So he was a real special man.
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And so the restaurant burned in [nineteen] sixty-seven.
Um-hmm. Yes.
[A]nd your father had recently passed. I wonder how the rest of your family felt after this -- kind of an end of an era of that part of your family and in Oxford[.]
Well, it was, you know, it's always sad to lose your dad, especially at such a young age. He was only sixty-four. Um, and certainly just one of complete horror and shock to see something that you've know, you know, as a small child, burn to the ground. Um, it's really quite devastating. I -- I don't know, uh, how to explain it. Um, and certainly even now, not even being able to ride by and -- and see it... You know, you just sort of always -- you think it'll always be there.
Was it ever discovered how it caught fire?
Not to my knowledge... I don't know if it was ever, uh, a -- you know, defined in a definite way, but I think there was speculation that it might have been an electrical [short pause] problem that started the fire or an electrical situation.
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Do you and your sister have a collection of other recipes from The Mansion?
We do. In fact we're -- we're going to put a cookbook together.
Wonderful.
We have a lot of -- we want to include a lot of the history and the pictures and -- and all and just make it more than just a cookbook.
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Well, it's quite a -- a history your family has in this little old town.
I'm just most grateful for your coming and, you know, having the opportunity to impart this information. And see, once again, if it weren't for the university, we might not have this opportunity to leave this legacy if we were in any other town, so I think this is just a wonderful idea.
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