The history of
The Russ House
Jackson County, Florida
by
Merritt Dekle
July 2000
All rights reserved!

Russ Family History

My great grandfather,  Joseph Washington Russ Jr., built the Russ Home for his mother, Mary (Beman) Russ. His father, Joseph Washington Russ Sr., died in 1883. The Russ Family owned a large parcel of land on Lafayette Street, and the homes of several family members were built within this area, forming a compound of sorts.

Mary Beman Russ died in 1897, and in 1899,  Joseph Washington Russ, Jr. married Bettie Erwin Philips . Their only child, Frances Philips Russ, was born to them the following year.

	Joseph W Russ Jr Bettie Erwin Philips (before Marriage)

I grew up hearing the stories of the golden years at the Russ House, or, as we called it, "the Big House". As an only child, my grandmother, whom we called "Big Mama", had the childhood of a little princess. Marianna was a quiet, bucolic town at the turn of the century, and the people there were closeknit and caring; Everybody knew everybody, it seemed. The Big House, and the other old homes that lined Lafatette Street at the time, made wonderful playgrounds, and though Marianna was a sleepy town, there were plenty of things to do.

Frances Philips Russ 1904

When she was in her late teens, Big Mama had a beau named Mercer Treadwell, and when he asked for her hand in marriage, she was heartbroken when her parents withheld their permission, stating that he was not "good enough for their little princess". This event held an ironic twist some ten years later. A couple of years later, she married a young Texan named George Dickerson. Dickerson was a professional baseball player for a major league team, the Cleveland Americans, and a strikingly handsome man. His career as a ballplayer, however came to an end when he was drafted for service in WWl. Like many soldiers who served in that war, he was exposed to mustard gas, and the effects of that exposure plagued him throughout his life. They married upon his release from the service, and moved into the Big House with her parents. There were plans to build their own home on the land directly West of the Russ House, but these plans never came to fruition.

Frances Philips Russ	George Clark Dickerson Sr

The wedding of Frances Philips Russ and George Dickerson took place in St. Luke's Episcopal Church, as had most of the marriages in the family before and since. The wedding was held at ten o'clock on a warm July evening to escape the sweltering heat of summer, and the wedding reception was held afterwards on the grounds of the family home. I have heard memories of the reception recalled by the older members of Marianna ever since. The main vision that had lingered in their mind's eye for all of these years was that of the illuminated Japanese lanterns that were festooned from the branches of the oak trees, creating the illusion of an oriental garden.

	Joseph Washington Russ Jr. with his grandaughter, Bettie Russ Dickerson
Nan Bryant holding Bettie Russ Dickerson and her brother George Clark Dickerson, Jr. With the family pet, Hollywod Bus

In 1925, Bettie Russ was diagnosed with a malignancy and her husband took her to hospitals in New Orleans, Birmingham and Atlanta in a desperate attempt to save her life. These attempts were all in vain, however, and six months later the household faced the unspeakable grief of her death. Big Mama always said that her father never really recovered from the loss of his beloved wife, and his interest in his business and his properties waned in his bereavement; but in 1929, in an attempt to find some new hope in his darkness, he made a decision that would lead to a tragic sequence of events.

At this time, Big Mama's own grief turned to anger when her father decided to marry the sister of her old sweetheart, Mercer Treadwell. The Treadwell name that her father deemed unsuitable for her was apparently suitable enough for him, and so he married the widow, Wilma Treadwell, and brought her into the home. The domestic bliss that had existed throughout the years of Bettie Russ's life had faded since the time of her death, but now it deteriorated completely.

Miss Treadwell was considerably younger than Joseph Russ, and Big Mama was very leery of her motivation for marrying her father; she had a word for it, but I'll leave that to your imagination. We can only guess at what his reasons might have been, but the marriage was obviously not fulfilling enough to sustain him through the difficulties that befell him only three months after the wedding. At this time, the family fortune that had enabled the Russ family to build such an impressive home was lost during the financial aftermath of the Crash of 1929; he responded by putting a gun to his temple and firing. (Joseph Washington Russ Jr. obit)

It was my grandmother who found him. She heard the gunshot and ran upstairs to his room, so frightened that she failed to notice that both her children had followed her; they were 3 and 8 at the time. What they discovered implanted an image in their heads that I don't think any of them ever forgot. I found Joseph Russ's suicide note among my grandmother's belongings when I had to dismantle the Big House in 1995. It clearly stated that he had made very meticulous arrangements to ensure that his beloved daughter and grandchildren would be well taken care of, and even suggested that my grandmother give Miss Willie "some small funds". Unfortunately, things did not evolve in the manner that he had envisioned. Big Mama was well acquainted with the will her father alluded to in his final message, but it suspiciously disappeared; and so, under Florida State law the three month old bride received half of the estate. It was an ironic twist of fate that, by this point, she inherited more debt than wealth.

The impact of her father's suicide plagued her for the rest of her life. Such an act is never rational, but I cannot imagine that Joseph Russ could have ever forseen the impact his act of desperation would have on his cherished daughter. Big Mama and her step-mother were co-executresses of the estate, a volatile situation at best. With no liquid assets to pay off the accumulating debts and taxes, they were helpless to fend off the deluge of debtors with which they were faced.

During the late 1920s, property owners had been required to pay for the paving of the streets that bordered their properties. This expenditure had been daunting enough at the time, but under the current circumstances it was overwhelming. The City of Marianna placed a lien against the property for settlement of the paving costs and eventually foreclosed on the lien. The property, which originally extended from Russ Street to Daniels Street, all the way back to Kelson Street, was subdivided into separate parcels and sold at auction to satisfy the debt. Only the greatly diminished lot on which the Russ House stood was salvaged, as the once vast land holdings of the Russ Family were auctioned off piece by piece on the steps of the Courthouse over the next few years.

At the age of 30, my grandmother found herself an orphan, broke and saddled with the horrific debts from her father's estate; in addition, she now faced the possibility of being homeless as well. Fortunately, Miss Willie had no interest in the home and somehow Big Mama managed to take on yet another debt and get a mortgage to buy her half of the home from her; a mortgage she spent the next two decades paying off.

The years that followed were difficult ones; her already fragile marriage to Dickerson had unravelled completely in the last few years, and as she faced the dilemma of how to support her family, she came to count her marriage as yet another loss. His health had been unprediciable since his years in the service, and his experience as a ballplayer didn't exactly qualify him for many lines of work. She knew she could not depend on him for any support in the dilemma she faced, and so at this point they separated, and Dickerson returned to Texas. The divorce was not finalized until 1937, however, just three months before his death from tuberculosis as a result of his exposure to the toxic gas.

My grandmother had to find a way to support herself and her children, but she had never worked and in taking inventory of what she had to offer, she found only one thing: she still had a beautiful home and many beautiful things (or at least one-half of them). She decided she would act as a professional hostess of sorts, providing her home and serving ware for private and public occasions. Kind of like a catering service, I suppose. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that this would not supply the kind of money she needed to meet her needs,. In the early 1930's, a family friend helped her to secure a position with the Welfare Office, where she worked for the next 35 years.

Throughtout the years to come, my grandmother struggled to support her children alone. At this point Nan and Poll Bryant, her beloved nannies, had moved from their own home on the now much reduced estate and lived inside the household where they oversaw the care of the children while Big Mama was at work. Nan and Poll had come to work for the Russ family at the time of my grandmother's birth and remained with them until their deaths in the 1940s. .

The years of World War ll, a time of both hardship and vitality for all the country, seemed to be particularly vibrant in the memories of the family. My grandmother housed several officers from the local base in her home, and my mother was involved with the Officer's Club, where she sang with the band. The activity of these years subsided, however, when her children left home to attend college. Big Mama repeatedly mortgaged the home to finance this expense, but she was determined for her children not to struggle as she'd had to for these many years. Neither of her children returned to Marianna following college; the town just did not provide enough opportunity in those years after the war, so they sought their futures elsewhere.

Bettie Dickerson Dekle and her "group"...
	Clifton Merritt Dekle Sr.
The War Years...... Clockwise from upper left: Bettie Dickerson Frances Dickerson George Dickerson Jr. Lamaar Gammon
	Frances Russ Dickerson George Clark Dickerson, Jr. and Bettie Russ Dickerson
George Dickerson and Big Mama [Frances Russ Dickerson] ca. 1948

Bettie Dickerson Dekle Clifton Merritt Dekle Sr ca. 1937

My own experience of the Big House growing up was one of awe. By this time, it had become the faded beauty that it was for so long. The erosion of time had not lessened it's allure, however; it had, perhaps, enhanced it. When the DOT widened Highway 90 in the early 60's, and virtually destroyed the town, it set the future events in place that would be the undoing of Marianna's once famous beauty. Stripped of the magnificent canopy of oaks that previously lined it, and, in many cases, stripped of their front yards, the owners of Marianna's grand old homes found themselves in a real dilemma. I remember those years, though I was just a child, and I remember coming back to Marianna throughout the next few years to find these homes disappearing one by one.

Bettie Dickerson Dekle and children Merritt Dekle Maggie Dekle

The property that had originally made up the front yard of the estate had been sold off after my great grandfather's death, and a home was built there in the 1940s. When the highway was being widened, the new path came so close to that house that they had to take off it's porch in order to proceed. The area was rezoned commercial, and the property was sold to a gas company. And from that point on, the Big House would loom over a series of unsightly businesses.

Big Mama lived in the home until a fall in her mid eighties that made it necessary for her to move in with my Mother, who lived out near the junior college. She loved that house with such a passion that she once said "I would burn this house to the ground before I would ever let anyone else have it". Indeed she spent most of her life struggling to hold on to it, and though she could not afford to meet the vast financial demands of the house's upkeep to the extent she would have liked, she did keep it standing.

The fate of the Big House became a matter of concern in the ensuing years. It was at this point that I learned to appreciate my grandmother's struggle, because at this point, my mother, my sister and I became the caretakers of the home now that Big Mama could no longer fight the battle. I came to realize that owning such a home was both a blessing and a burden. Here was a house so synonymous with Marianna that if you mentioned Marianna, the response would often be "there is this great old house there....". Yet we found ourselves in the impossible situation of trying to find help, when there was no help available. The home was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, just months after aid to private owners for assistance in restoring such properties ended. Banks, though they proudly displayed the home's likeness in their lobbies, wouldn't touch it, nor would insurance agencies. It could not be sold as a residence, because the City of Marianna had rezoned the area commercial, and our "grandfather clause" to maintain it as a residence would end with our ownership. And business wasn't exactly booming in the town, so the possibility of developing it a commercial building wasn't feasible.

My mother, my sister Maggie, and I spent the next 15 years trying to keep the house on "life support" as we searched for some solution to ensure it's survival. Neither my sister or I lived in Florida at the time, so the role of overseer fell mostly upon my mother, who had returned to Marianna in 1974, shortly before my father's death. We did not want the home standing empty, so we kept the downstairs rented as consistently as possible; this, however, was a solution almost as burdensome as it was consoling. In additon to running her own home and taking care of Big Mama, Mother had to deal with the constant concern of the Big House; dealing with the trials of tenancy when it was occupied, or going down there every day to check on it when it was not. Usually she would take Big Mama with her, for there was no time her mother was happier than when she was sitting in one of her old rocking chairs on her front porch. So you see, my grandmother was not alone in her passion for this house; we all loved it with all of our hearts and were determined to keep it standing.

This reached a climax in 1990. My grandmother had died in 1989, and the burden of watching over the home was becoming too much for my mother. I had lived in New York City for the last 20 years, but I told Mother I would come home and live in the house until we resolved what to do with it......her time as the watchman had been served, now it was my turn. The shock of moving from NYC to Marianna was eye-opening to say the least, and I often thought "what the hell was I thinking". But now I wouldn't trade those years for anything in the world; at the time, I had no way of knowing they would be my mother's last years, and having spent them with her is now very precious to me. Of course during that time my love of the home even grew stronger, but I had to face the fact that I could never live in Marianna, and remain sane, so another solution had to be found.

Left to Right: Bettie Dickerson Dekle Merritt Dekle Maggie Dekle Lang ca.1988

It seemed to be kismet when I was approached by the current State Representative from Jackson County with the proposal of donating the house to a non-profit organization which would be eligible for a state grant for it's, then termed, "restoration." It seemed the perfect solution, but, of course it meant that we would have to face the unimaginable pain of giving it up. I thought of Big Mama's [Frances Russ Dickerson] words about burning it before she'd let anyone else have it, and, in retrospect, I wonder if she wasn't much wiser than I was.

While I lived in the house, I became even more aware of the love, and great curiosity, that the town had for that house; as well as the the countless spellbound tourists that knocked on my door everyday. I would be faced with the question "why don't you fix it up?" more times than I could count......"I'd be glad to if you'd like to give me a million dollars, cause I don't happen to have that kind of money!", would be my reply. We had several offers to buy it, once by a party whose intention was to move it out of Marianna. We could have made a very nice financial gain in such a case, but we felt the house belonged where it was, and so we agreed to the proposal. In 1995, exactly 100 years after our family built the home, the last of the five generations to live in the home said goodbye to it; it was one of the saddest days of our lives.

The thought of my mother being able to witness her lifelong dream of seeing the home restored to the glory of her childhood, even if it were no longer our's, dulled the pain of losing it. Unfortunately, that was not to be; one month after signing the contracts she was diagnosed with late-term cancer and in three months she was dead. But she died with the dream that her beloved home was safe now and would stand forever as a testament to her family. Her only brother [George Clark Dickerson, Jr.] died three years later in 1997; he, also, never got to see the home "restored".