July 2025
How did a lowly little girl from West End, Atlanta, become known as a bohemian Southern belle? As a little girl I always had fanciful ideas of becoming someone glamorous. An interior designer? An actress? A singer? A beauty queen? When I would express any of those desires to my mama of what I wanted to be when I grew up, she set me straight.
“People like us don’t get to be any of those. Maybe you can be a teacher or a nurse.”
At the time, that statement puzzled me. I didn’t know who ‘people like us’ were or what it meant. I didn’t fully understand until I was grown, but that’s another story. It’s the story I plan to tell in my memoir.
There were a few times I came close to living out those dreams. Around the age of five, I got to be a Rainbow Girls page and wore a long blue dress and a corsage. If I’d had my choice, everything in my closet would have had sparkles, ruffles, satin, and lace. When I was eight I got to wear a gorgeous yellow satin and chiffon dress as a junior bridesmaid in my sister’s wedding.
Then when I was about twelve I wore a long white gown as a GA Queen. Girls’ Auxiliary (GA’s) was a mission education program in Southern Baptist Churches in those days. Girls went through a series of steps from maiden to lady-in-waiting to princess to queen. I’m sure I wasn’t the only girl who stuck it out all those years and did all that work just so I could be a queen and wear a long white dress, even if the crown was only cardboard.
High school prom was the next time, although we never called it a prom in those days. It was the “Jr – Sr,” an abbreviation for the Junior-Senior formal dance. I do not have fond memories of that (I only went to one, my junior year), another long story. But I did have a mint green long dress that I loved.
As for the bohemian part, there were hints of that all along. I always wanted to flaunt tradition. Too young to be a real hippie in my teen years I was a wannabe. I have no doubt that if I had been older I would have been into that scene. I was ready to go to San Francisco and wear flowers in my hair.
The summer of sixty-eight, yes, sixty-eight NOT sixty-nine, I had a boyfriend who came close to fulfilling that dream. Not THE boyfriend, mind you, just a temporary while THE real one and I were on the outs. He was a wannabe hippie too, and I was very infatuated. Too young to have a driver’s license, he would sneak out his parents’ car about two o’clock in the morning and drive over to my house where I would sneak out too. We would meet up on my granny’s brick wall next door.
We watched the moon trace across the sky, sang Sargent Pepper songs, and talk about becoming real hippies. That summer was magical, just a few innocent kisses that never went any further. Eventually, once school started back, I realized I wasn’t “over” the previous boyfriend and that was that. it was more than twenty years ago but enjoy Sargent Pepper anyway.
While engaged, my soon to be husband had two motorcycles. A big Triumph street bike that I never learned to manage, and a small Suzuki 90 trail bike I became adept at zooming over the powerline trails. That was pretty bohemian at the time – the early 1970s.
Soon would be my fairytale come true, and the ultimate fancy dress. I first saw my gown on the cover of Bride magazine. It was satin, simply adorned with pearls and a Juliet cap veil. I adored that gown.
If you were to look in my closet now you would see, lace, ruffles, beaded embellishments, and gauzy romantic hippie type clothes. I also have hats-wide-brimmed ones with flowers, fascinators, cowboy hats, cloches, and fedoras. It took a lifetime of having to be somewhat traditional – working in a doctor’s office, a church, and teaching public school, but now I can be my true self.
There is someone who often tells me I am too old to dress a certain way, have long wear, and wear hats. Honestly, I really don’t care. The older I get, the less I care what others think.
One of my idols is Iris Apfel, the iconic designer and fashionista who dared to wow the world with her flamboyant style right up until her death at age 102. She and these other ladies are amazingly beautiful women.
When I began writing books I was told I needed a persona. I loved the idea of the romantic hoop-skirted belles but not necessarily what they stood for socially and economically. That is when I determined to invent the Bohemian Southern Belle. There is a separate page here on my website describing Bohemian Southern Belles.
Can one be bohemian and a southern belle at the same time? Yes! She is a woman who maintains positive qualities of southern belle-dom such as manners, hospitality, grace, charm, and kindness. Yet she also portrays unconventional traits for a southern belle. She is bold but minds her manners. She is outspoken where justice is at stake, but remains kind.
She is charming, but not insipidly stupid. She is intelligent, but not just in book learning. She is wise in ways that cannot be learned from books. She has emotional and relational skills that could parry with the highest diplomat. She does not connive to belittle other women or reign over them. She does defend, encourage, and come to their aid if needed.
The bohemian southern belle can be devastatingly lethal if the situation calls for it. Just try harming someone she loves and you will find out just how quickly you can be put in your place. She will not be the one blessing your heart to your face then gossiping about you behind your back. She will be the one telling you straight up where you went wrong. She will teach you a lesson you will never, ever, forget, and she will do so publicly and in no uncertain terms.
And she will be applauded for doing so, because others respect her conviction and passion for honesty and doing the right thing. That trait has influenced my life many times as you will read about in the forthcoming memoir. It is not always easy to align your convictions within traditional organizations that expect you to bend to their own persuasions.
Thus was born the Bohemian Southern Belle. Let us be the best of all that is southern, while removing from our lives hateful stereotypes of simpering, racist, vindictive bitches. Let us be strong, wise, and kind.
Do you know a bohemian southern belle?
Maybe you are one?
Tell us about it in a comment below.