Zenobia's Gift

Zenobia Camp West, the most selfless woman I ever met, would have been 94 years old this year.  Zenobia West, the woman who gave Cultural Crossroads her family home, left a gift for children.

I met Zenobia when I was in my 30’s. We were at a community meeting together.  As I recall, they were asking people interested in cultural development to come to a meeting.  I don’t remember too many people showing up but she and I were there. That meeting started a lifetime friendship.  Zenobia would join me as one of the original founders of Cultural Crossroads. 

Zenobia was the most independent, most humble woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of calling my friend. We would joint venture on several things but it would be the four acre Farm on the corner of Talton Street and East Union that brought us closer.  We both loved the idea of it.  She had the dream and I had the desire. So, we were a good match.  She donated her family home and four acres to Cultural Crossroads  in 2000. It was an overgrown lot by this time and while she tried to maintain it, over the years, the underbrush, vines and briars took it over. You could barely see the little white house let alone the smaller wooden outhouses in the back.

The week we signed the papers, I drove to the property and parked my car on the side of the road and walked in the front gate and up to the front door. There was no front porch at the time.  I could not walk around the house for all the overgrown weeds and shrubs. But while I was there I remember looking at it all and wondering ‘how in the world are we going to make this happen for her?’  ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ and then I said a little prayer. “God, you’re gonna have to help us with this one.”

About that same time my husband, Rick, and I had become involved in a permanent agriculture study program at the Louisiana Shell Plant (Camp Minden).  And Rick had become acquaintanted with some ‘foreigners’ through the Sparta Aquifer meetings. Some were from Australia and Italy and then others were from northern states.  They were a really wonderful bunch of people whom we really 
enjoyed getting to know.   I shared Zenobia’s Dream with them.

9/11, 2001,  changed everything. The weeks that followed were frightful for everyone.  Everything changed.  Because of the attack, all the bases were closed to the public. Security was at its highest.  The guys who worked at the Shell Plant were anxious to get home themselves. Vic Guadagno headed the group. He was a young professional with a great sense of self and even a better sense of the world.  As an environmentalist and a big believer in sustainable agriculture, he led the group. 

One day Vic came to me and asked if they could meet with me.  As it turned out, the Army was shutting down the permanent agriculture study project at the Shell Plant.  That would mean that the guys would be leaving.  But what I didn’t know was that they had come up with the idea of presenting a proposal to the Army to redirect the remainder of the study money to Cultural Crossroads and our ‘Farm’ project. They flew me up to Rock Island and with a lot of their help; we pitched the Army the idea of placing those funds with the four acre project that was located in a disadvantaged neighborhood of Minden, Louisiana.  And they bought it!

This meant that Cultural Crossroads would receive $100,000 to aid in the development of a cultural arts project. This would include the clearing of the four acre homestead, identifying the existing food forest and laying the ground for a cultural arts center.  Halleluiah!!!! Five interns from the Shell Plant along with Vic, Paul and Andrew, the first phase of establishing the Moess Center for the Arts and City Farm began.

 Zenobia and I cried at the news.  She could not have been happier.  By this time in her life, she was suffering from some kind of muscular and spinal degeneration that took away her ability to walk without a cane and eventually she was confined to a wheelchair. I would make frequent visits to her house and let her know how we were progressing.  I photographed everything for her and chronicled our progress.

Zenobia West left a gift for the children of this area. Her dream to provide a safe haven for children to discover and explore the joys of creativity can be found at Moess Center for the Arts & City Farm. Now more than a decade in the making, the Farm added a one room studio this spring.  Thanks to a recent grant from the Beard Foundation of Shreveport and an anonymous donor, we added a new feature to the Farm.  This one room building will be appropriately called “Zenobia’s House.”  Zenobia would not have liked that. She didn’t want anything named after her.  She was just that selfless.  

While the thousands of children who come to the Farm each year may not know the woman who gave them this wonderful gift, they will remember the experience.  And isn’t that the real gift?

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To learn more about the Farm and Cultural Crossroads, log on to their website at: www.artsinminden.com