Rubye Bender Hulak has written often of the Deep South and of her love for this city, the “Heart of the Black Belt.”

Many of her articles have been memories of parts of her life, some tear evoking, some humorous but all with nostalgia and poignancy that touches the heart of the reader. She wrote of the change of seasons, describing the beauty of each, and of the plants and shrubs native to this region,

and often, she includes the front porches so familiar and beloved to each true southerner.

These things “make my heart feel glad.”

Her last article was dated December 2003. It is a beautifully descriptive piece “On Going Home Again” in which she takes the reader with her on her “timeless journey into the past.”

She begins:

“And so I came home to changes, of course, and to timeless things….iced tea still served at the main meal, family and school reunions, homecomings, church revivals, children going barefoot most of the year round, homemade ice cream. Hanging baskets have been added to front porches which are still in style, crepe myrtle, azaleas, camellias, magnolias and goldenrod blooming abundantly in the fields and pastures as autumn comes.”

When she first moved to Selma in 1973 the Selma Mall had just opened and downtown stores slowly closed to move there. Leon’s and Kress were among the last to close, as she recalls, and adds, “I think Smart & Thrifty, where Dorothy and I put up our clothes to be married in, stayed downtown the longest.”

The drug stores, she writes, “stayed,” but no longer had soda fountains that served those delicious things that were never to be equaled.”

Her downtown memories include the Catholic Rectory, where she was married, and its second story balcony “where the priest gave us counseling on marriage.” (Evidently they listened – their marriage has lasted more than 50 years.)

Behind the Rectory, Hulak refers to “the quaint little church with its line of huge crepe myrtle trees” as one of her timeless memories.

Employed downtown for 10 years, she sees in her mind’s eye “the dress shops – Betty Gay and Mangel’s, Meyers Shoe, Kress and Woolworth. In those days men and women wore hats when they were real dressed up , and she remembers the store, probably Lilienthal’s, where her father always bought a straw hat for summer and a dress one for winter .

Her downtown memories included The Wilby Theatre, “where we saw all those good war movies and things like ‘National Velvet’ and ‘Gone With the Wind.’ The Wilby burned, taking with it Tim’s Caf where George and our bridal party had supper after our wedding.”

A great library user in the past as well as today, Hulak enjoys thinking of the librarian, “a tiny white haired lady saying ‘No, Ruby Clyde, you can’t check out ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Go get one from your age group.”

That, of course, was Miss Bettie Keith.

The new library is one of Hulak’s favorite places. In 2001 when it was put on the web site, she was photographed in a bed of roses in front of the building.

She considered it “an honor as my reading is timeless as long as my eyes permit.” Her love for reading, she says, was passed down from her mother, Mary Cassady Bender, and in turn she has passed the love of books to her oldest granddaughter.

Her memories include the Vaughan-Smitherman building, now a musem but then a hospital where she had her tonsils and appendix removed. And she is fond of relating the early history of the St. James Hotel, “when the steam boats came from up river, stopping to let off passengers, picking up farm produce, corn and cotton to take down to Mobile, our port city.” As a child, her Grandfather Bender told her tales of those days.

She recently stood in the courtyard of the St. James with her grandson, who is 14, and gave him a history lesson about the old bridge and the “new bridge,” the Edmund Pettus, which she first crossed in 1939.

Dallas County High School is also included in her memory book. Taking her granddaughter to check in late at school, she was reminded of the days so many years ago when she was a student, one of five generations of her family who went there.

The big white columns are still there but the huge mimosa trees are gone. The parking lot she found “completely changed. School buses used to be lined up there, but for the most part are now replaced by students cars and pick-up trucks.

Five generations of her family went to school there, so the memories linger still.

The writings of Rubye Bender Hulak will be cherished by those who enjoyed reading them, and at times, re-reading the way it was. And she is grateful “to the Lord for giving me the ability to recall all those memories.”