Photos of Fairhope and Its People
The Fair Hope of Heaven/A Hundred Years After Utopia
The passengers on the cover of The Fair Hope of Heaven are aboard the Fairhope II, the second steamer by that name to ply the waters of Mobile Bay between the city of Mobile and the eastern shore. Everybody wanted to go to Fairhope for the summer in those days--from heat-weary Mobilians to a slew of visitors from the North who considered the enclave a perfect resort where they could share their ideas and dreams of a better world
Ernest B. Gaston
E.B. Gaston was a young journalist and reformer who detested the social conditions of his day. Gaston did more than complain. He set out to change the system by founding Fairhope as a utopian demonstration community.
Which Way to Heaven on Earth?
Many would say, "Find Fairhope, Alabama!"
A Utopia for Children
Marietta Johnson was known to describe her school as "a utopia for children." Here, kindergarteners in the 1990s carry forth the tradition of the school's Spring Festival.
Upton Sinclair and son David
Writer Upton Sinclair moved to Fairhope for a year in 1909. His son David, pictured here with him a few years earlier, was enrolled in Mrs. Johnson's famous school.
Clarence Darrow
Noted trial lawyer Clarence Darrow spent two months in Fairhope in 1927 and entertained the locals with speeches. Over the bay in Mobile, he was denounced from the pulpit of a large Baptist church.
The Best Book About Fairhope
Expanding on Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree, The Fair Hope of Heaven/A Hundred Years After Utopia is available at amazon.com and at Fairhope's Page&Palette Bookstore.
Marietta Johnson
Marietta Johnson (1864-1938) was a Minnesota schoolteacher with a dream of creating a school of her own to demonstrate her theory that children are born loving learning, and that schools should exist to teach them in ways that bring out their curiosity by following their nature and needs. In Fairhope she would establish her school, which was world famous in her lifetime.
The Bell Building
Built by the county as a public school building in 1904, it was presented to Marietta Johnson, along with ten acres of prime land, for her use in creating her School of Organic Education.
Sunset on Mobile Bay
Descriptions of the village that was Fairhope in the early 20th century fairly palpitate with a love of the place itself, its pines, its gullies and cliffs, and the bay lapping against the beach soothingly, granting assurance that life is good and peace is possible. From Meet Me at The Butterfly Tree.
A Nonchalant Nonconformist
More than once Winifred Duncan was picked up by the Fairhope police for canoeing in the bay in the middle of the night in the nude. She was nonchalant about it.
The Book
"Fairhope has always attracted a motley assortment of philosophers, artists and free thinkers. The great appeal of this book lies in its happy anecdotes and cameos." Franklin Daugherty, Mobile Press-Register
The Author and Her Hero
Mary Lois communes with the statues on the bluff in Fairhope depicting Marietta Johnson and her students in the early days of the 20th century. She wrote the wording for the plaque at the base of the sculpture.
Mary Lois Timbes--Author, actress, director, producer, blogger, cook, mother, grandmother, and observer of life.