William Weeks Hall: The Fourth Generation
"I have never considered myself anything but a trustee of something
fine which chance has put in my hands to preserve. Fine things are without
value, in that they belong only to those rare people who appreciate them
beyond any price. It is to those people that I should like to entrust
the place." -Weeks Hall Notebook, ca. 1940
Born
on Halloween Night of 1894, William Weeks Hall, great-grandson of David
and Mary Weeks for whom the Shadows was built, would be the last of the
Weeks Family to live in the old homestead. He was born with that "lusty
yell" to a mother, Lily Weeks, in her mid 40s and a father, Gilbert
Lewis Hall, in his early 60s.
From the time he reached maturity to his last days, Weeks Hall was acutely
aware of and responsive to his obligations to the past and to the future
for both the memory of his family and the preservation of his family home.
Indeed, that "delightful airy house" newly completed and commanding
some 158 acres in 1834 was , in 1894, the year of Weeks' birth, a somewhat
unfashionable sixty year-old house on a rapidly shrinking landscape being
surrounded by a growing town. During Weeks Hall's occupancy, the place
would be fronted by gasoline stations, a post office, fruit stands, and
an automobile repair garage on the west side, with a transcontinental
highway just outside the front gates. When Weeks Hall purchased his aunt's
half ownership of the homestead in 1919 for $7,500, he became its sole
owner at the age of 25.
After
his father's death, Weeks Hall lived what he called "an adult childhood."
He lived with his mother and Misses Florence and Emma Zacharie in New
Orleans, where he attended high school, but "was never able to graduate"
(according to his own words). The directness, dry wit, self-deprecating
humor, and biting sarcasm was a well-established part of his character
by 1919 and would later be enjoyed by his friends and acquaintances. Regarding
some financial misunderstanding with Miss Emma Zacharie, Weeks asked her
to" ..allow me to say that should you be curious as to my moral or
mental responsibility, I should be very glad to allow you to assure yourself
of my incapacities by personal examination at any time you may desire."
Despite not graduating from high school, an early interest in and talent
for art won him several scholarships to study at the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, which he attended from 1913 to 1918.
There he won additional scholarships to study in Europe, which he deferred
owing to World War I, until 1920 to 1922, when he studied in Paris and
London.
Upon completion of such studies, Weeks returned to New Iberia to his family
home, by now called The Shadows-on-the-Teche, after the Bayou Teche which
borders the rear of the property. With only few short interruptions, Weeks
Hall literally remained at the Shadows until his death in 1958.
Soon
after his return, Weeks restored his home and created the magnificent
gardens surrounding the property...a landscape canvas in which he lived.
Weeks tried to allay the growing progress surrounding his home by incorporating
into the gardens a bamboo hedge around the skirt of the property. He also
attempted to prevent the "Path of Progress" by finding a suitable
national agency to which he could bequeath the house, certain that it
would be preserved for future generations. He contacted various organizations,
including the National Park Service, to no avail. Finally he sought out
the company of the wealthy and famous of his day and invited them to visit
his home. Many came. Among them, artists, writers, and Filmmakers. Henry
Miller, Lyle Saxon, Cecil B. DeMille, Emily Post, D.W. Griffith and Walt
Disney were all impressed with what he had done to preserve the house,
enthralled with the setting he created, and charmed by his captivating
personality. Finally, in 1958 shortly before Hall's death, the National
Trust for Historic Preservation accepted the home and property he bequeathed
them for preservation and public museumship.
Next Section: The Other Occupants / More than Movable Property: Slaves at the Shadows
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