Savannah's Julia Bragdon Dye, one of Juliette Low's first scouts

(Click here to read another article about Juliette Low.) Guest Columnist: Roberta Bragdon Banghart (Julia's daughter) My mother was born Julia Ophelia Bragdon, December 29, 1902 in Savannah, Georgia. She was the second daughter of Eleanor (Bewan) and Robert Bragdon (photo below). Her father was an architect in Savannah. He built a large hotel (DeSoto Hotel, below) and other major buildings in the area. Robert died when Mom was 11 years old.

Today Julie Dye, as she is now known, is in Tender-Care West Nursing Home in Lansing, Michigan. At almost 95 she is unable to remember much before she came to the nursing home, over four years ago. She is happy, mostly free of pain and loves to play bingo and win prizes for her great-grandchildren. (She never played bingo before being confined to the home and a wheelchair.) The one comment I hear about her from all who meet her today is that she is such a lovely southern lady, a difficult thing to be with all the physical indignities one must endure in a nursing home.

I have heard many stories about my mother's childhood in Savannah over the years, but thought I might be able to get her to talk about her favorite city just for the internet. She began by telling me that Bull Street was a very important street in Savannah, but never was able to add other ideas to that statement, so the story I will tell you is second-hand, told to me, her daughter, Roberta Bragdon Banghart, over the years.

Mother was in one of the earliest girl scout troops that met in the carriage house behind Juliette Low's home. She was a young teenager, and they spent many hours rolling bandages for the war effort during the early part of the first world war. She was given a special award for her work by General George Pershing when he visited Savannah. Mother often spoke of the trips she made with her family to Tybee Beach. I have seen pictures of Mom and her sister, Eleanor, (below) in their bathing dresses that were made from a dark knit wool material and covered them from knee to shoulders. They had very long hair that took a very long time to dry, so also wore bathing hats.

(c. 1916-7) Juliette Gordon Low (center) with one of her first troops. Julia Bragdon "is the person looking very serious just below the flag bearer on the lefthand side of the picture."

She never forgot her Southern roots and the wonderful seafood she ate in Savannah. A high school friend of Mom's, Kathleen Wheatley, once sent her a box of Bennie candy. She hadn't seen it since leaving Savannah and was very excited for us all to try it. She was always a wonderful cook, her specialties being "Southern" fried chicken, okra and tomatoes, corn sticks and peach pie. She adored watermelon, peaches and shrimp. Mother came to Michigan with her first husband. Her mother and sister soon followed. Mom divorced her first husband and worked in Detroit's General Motors building, leaving my brother, George, with the rest of her family here in Lansing during the week.

She met and married my father, John F. Dye, a chemical engineer from Indiana and the head of Lansing's new Water Conditioning Plant, in 1937. The water plant is now the John F. Dye Water Conditioning plant. She had a wonderful life with my father. Besides having me, her daughter, she also had two more sons. All of her children were graduated from college, and we remember having a wonderful childhood with our lovely Southern Mother. She never cut her long blond hair. It was below her waist and worn braided and in a bun until she went into the nursing home. She made a few trips back to Savannah; one when I was a young teenager. She loved showing us where her family lived, Tybee beach and Laurel Grove Cemetery, where her family is buried. I loved seeing Bonaventure Cemetery, which I thought was very spooky with all the hanging moss. The last trip she made to Savannah (photo at right) was when she was in her 80s, but only one of her friends from the past was still alive.

I have read her many excerpts from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, especially those that describe areas of the city that she may remember from her childhood. She was so excited to have a book written about "her" city. (Editor's note: Special thanks to Roberta Bragdon Banghart, seen at left with her mother, for generously sharing her stories of her mother with us as well as her wonderful photographs.)

Write to us with your family memories of Savannah so that we can consider posting them here.

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