mom at Tolstoy Park

Here's a picture I took of my mom at Tolstoy Park in Fairhope Alabama. This house was single handedly built by Henry Stuart around 1926. Henry had been diagnosed with consumption by his doctor up north. His doctor suggested living out his last days in a warmer climate. Henry Stuart had been told he'd probably die in a year. Fairhope Alabama was a newly established single-tax colony at the turn of the century. Henry moved from the north leaving his two sons and purchased some land about an hours walk from Fairhope proper. This guy was hard core! I could go on and on but you can learn all about him in a book called THE POET OF TOLSTOY PARK by Sonny Brewer. Now check this, Sonny Brewer wrote the book while living behind my grandparents house in a little converted apartment in Fairhope. Henry Stuart built a circular house after having a vision during a hurricane and remembering the words of Black Elk, a holy man of the Oglala Sioux, who said: "The sky is round and I have heard that the Earth is round like a ball. And so are al the stars. The wind in it's greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in a circle, for theirs is the same religion as ours... the life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves..."