All posts in November 2022

With Christmas weeks away, poinsettias are already beginning to show up in stores — but you may have also noticed that the name Poinsett is common in Greenville.  There’s the Poinsett hotel, bridge, highway, apartment complex, and the upcoming Christmas parade that bears the name. Since flower growing was a dominant part of Elizabeth Garraux’s…

When the Garrauxs built their farm on what is currently Garraux Street (that runs from North Main to Bennett), the dirt road that was Greenville’s Main Street ended at about Stone Avenue. Elizabeth and Frederick Garraux cut in their own dirt road to their home and farm in the 1800s. It is likely they planted…

The iconic Wyche Pavilion in downtown Greenville was built in the mid-1800s by a contemporary of the Garrauxs, the subjects of my book, “When He Was Gone.” The big, brick structure was built as a paint shop for the highly successful Gower, Cox and Markley Carriage Company (the wooden building in the foreground). The carriage…

Can you imagine leaving your home and only being able to take with you whatever fits in a large suitcase? What would you pack, knowing it would be all you could carry into your future life? Like all immigrants to America in the 1800s, the Garraux family of 10 left Switzerland with only what would…