Green Leaves

Green Leaves is also a house with strong family connections. It has been the home to members of the Belthoover family for six generations.
One of the current generation of Belthoover descendants, Ruthie Coy, was waiting just inside the front door of Green Leaves for her guests, lending family lore and history to the items within.
Green Leaves is an interesting place. Everywhere one looks, there are interesting things to see.
Virtually every cabinet and shelf is occupied by historical family memorabilia.
"We have become known as the family that never throws anything away," she told us.
 We spied Ruthie's own wedding invitation in one cabinet.
She showed us a number of family wedding portraits,  one showed Ruthie herself as a curly haired toddler.
One particularly interesting family heirloom involves family weddings.
According to family lore, a sword was picked up after the battle of Waterloo in 1815  by a French soldier whose grandson joined the Confederate army and was in Colonel Daniel Beltzhoover’s unit — Watson’s Louisiana Artillery. It was in Vicksburg where the grandson was mortally wounded, and as he lay dying gave it to “Colonel Dan.”
Later, when Colonel Dan’s horse was shot out from under him, the bullet struck the scabbard of the sword and cracked the sword, itself.  The sword, still in the possession of the Belthoover family, is now used to cut wedding cakes at when family members marry. But only, Ruthie Coy told us, if the wedding is held at Green leaves.
The family portraits in the hall were also identified for us by this keeper of family tradition and information. As she pointed out a portrait of her grandmother, she advised that we could see her cousin Joie  in the game room of the house a few rooms away wearing the same brooch.
Other guides took us through the dining room and rooms on either side of it.
One of them, a teenaged girl, introduced herself to us as "one of Miss Joie's art students."
  Joie shared favorite items of her own including a portrait of grandfather as a boy in four views of his profile.

The bedroom nearest the gameroom is covered in an orginal wall covering so stunning that it is now duplicated for a historical collection.
Altogether, some twelve cousins live at or are involved in the preservation of Green Leaves.  A particularly tough winter has done damage to the widow's walk, Joie told us. The keepers of Green Leaves must soon meet to decide the best course of action toward it's repair.
"That's gotta be tough for you all," I said to her. "There are only three of us and sometimes we have a hard time agreeing where to eat dinner!"