Author Archives: Dorian Steele

Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room (Gwen Steele)

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My stepfather, like any responsible and hungover adult, was a firm believer in the panacea of greasy food. It may not remedy poor decisions made the night before, but it sure can fix a headache.

Between the hundreds of restaurants in Savannah Georgia, only one let my stepdad slip in through the kitchen and sneak a seat at its family-style tables. Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room is as infamous within my family as it is around Savannah. The owners, Ronnie and Marsha, are long time family friends; just as the restaurant’s recipes have been passed down for decades, so has this friendship. My stepdad was always welcome at their door, even the back one. Entering through the back meant my stepdad got to beat the hours of waiting anyone else would endure. It also meant he didn’t notice the closed three blocks surrounding Mrs. Wilkes.

Blissfully unaware and head pounding, my stepdad threw Ronnie and the cooks a wave before deftly maneuvering from the kitchen to the dining room. The white table clothes had yet to be topped with dishes, but the antique chairs were filled with people. My stepdad squeezed in among a few strangers as three secret service agents entered the restaurant. Between these agents was none other than President Barack Obama, who took a seat across from my stepdad.

When the food was placed in front of them, my stepdad politely asked the president to pass the chicken. Talk about politics at the dinner table.

President or not, Mrs. Wilkes serves every customer with an equal amount of care. It’s a demonstration of how southern cuisine serves as communion, comfort, and tradition by conjoining strangers at the same table with the same meal. Family and food are closely intertwined at Mrs. Wilkes through the recipes made even before the restaurant’s opening. These values are served to their customers from the macaroni to the blueberry cobbler. Shared dishes become shared conversations that become new understandings, if only for the hour. Talking to Barak Obama about homeland security over green beans is an extreme example, but the rest aren’t any less significant.

Raw Footage: President Obama's Surprise Lunch Stop | The White House

Professor Julia Eichelberger (English)

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Dr. Julia Eichelberger has taught at the College of Charleston since 1992 and became the director of the college’s Southern Studies program in 2017. She is currently Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature. She attended Davidson College for her bachelor of arts in the english language and literature/letters. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is where she earned her PdD in the same subject. Born in South Carolina, she moved around the Low Country throughout her life. Even growing up, Dr. Eichelberger was aware of America’s views of the South. Media and literature throughout the country make it clear their condescending viewpoints. Thus, it’s no surprise she grew up with an internalized want to be normal or “Northern”. True, the South has many issues to be addressed: poverty as a class system, the upkeep of white supremacy, but she believes the South is largely misunderstood. Eichelberger grew up in a household surrounded by social justice which illuminated these issues to her since childhood. Such influences later led Eichelberger to become interested in studying literature; examining characters in a world like our own who adapt with rules and assumptions made by some ulterior power. 

 

This study of literature brought Eichelberger to her focus upon Eudora Welty. She has published two works upon Welty: Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty: Twenty-First Century Approaches, and Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949. Welty has influenced Eichelberger’s teachings through her narrative writings of the South. Her ability to capture the Southern voice, humanizing the region by its citizens rather than characterizing it, gives a new perspective. Thus, Eichelberger values the telling of Southern history through stories and narratives as opposed to the easily villainized South in other forms of media. She claims it creates a connection to history and literature as the reader can see themselves within the narrative’s cast. History becomes reality, making present issues within the South, such as racism, easier to understand. Eichelberger believes literature creates a clear understanding of how conditions came to be and how we can continue writing in order to improve our own society.

 

This idea is crucial in Eichelberger’s course. She aims to help students improve and celebrate Southern culture. She brings to light the realization that racism not only happens in the South. Just as activism is not exclusive to the North. She asks students to be proud and enjoy all kinds of Southern culture. There are traditions to embrace and help us understand who we are. Eichelberger has allowed the Southern Studies department to show how lucky we are to be a part of something much bigger than our education.