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Posted by Faye Bell on August 21, 2007 at 21:57:37:
I MEANT TO MAKE A POSTING OF THIS WHEN I FIRST LEARNED ABOUT IT, BUT IT SLIPPED BY ME. HOWEVER, IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY READ THE ARTICLE, PLEASE DO.
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FARMINGTON HILLS, MICH.
EUGENE MITCHELL, 76, NEWPHEW OF GONE WITH THE WIND AUTHOR
By BY JILL VEJNOSKA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/10/07
A crucial link to Atlanta's past is slipping away and coming home at the same time.
Eugene Muse Mitchell, the 76-year-old nephew of "Gone With the Wind" author Margaret Mitchell, died late Wednesday of multiple illnesses in Farmington Hills, Mich., where he'd lived. The retired government economist will be buried here in historic Oakland Cemetery, near the grave of the relative whose celebrity far exceeded his, yet whose penchant for quiet philanthropy in Atlanta he shared.
Eugene Mitchell, nephew of Margaret Mitchell, poses with a copy of his aunt's book at his home in Farmington Hills, Mich., in 2001.
"Eugene Mitchell was not only a 'Gone With the Wind' heir," said Ira Joe Johnson, an Atlanta author who wrote a book about Margaret Mitchell's secret fund in the 1940s to send Morehouse College students to medical school. "He also inherited his famous aunt's compassion for helping blacks and the poor with a quiet grace and dignity."
Mitchell is survived by his wife, Virginia, and his brother, Joseph. The two men were the only children of Margaret Mitchell's older brother, Stephens Mitchell, who managed the rights to his late sister's masterpiece up until his own death in 1983.
"He was her closest blood kin," Stephens Mitchells' former law partner, Paul Anderson Sr., said Friday about Eugene. "It is almost the end of an era."
Almost. For while the number of people directly tied to Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler's creator continues to dwindle, a legacy of giving she inspired endured. Tara never existed, but several living, breathing institutions in the real Atlanta have been touched by Eugene Mitchell's largesse in ways that will should benefit them for years to come.
Gave to Morehouse, Oakland Cemetery
In 2002, Mitchell presented Morehouse College with a $1.5 million gift to endow the Margaret Mitchell Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Three years later, he returned to Atlanta to donate another $1.5 million, this time to the Morehouse School of Medicine. Just as his aunt had secretly collaborated with Morehouse president Dr. Benjamin E. Mays to pay tuition for dozens of students, Eugene Mitchell's 2005 gift was earmarked for scholarships at the predominantly black medical school.
"From quietly giving support to black students to an endowed scholarship that bears his aunt's name, Eugene Mitchell made it possible for Margaret Mitchell's legacy to continue to help train minority physicians, leaving an impact on the Morehouse School of Medicine that will endure," said Dr. John E. Maupin Jr., president of Morehouse School of Medicine. The school will send a delegation to Mitchell's funeral at the Cathedral of Christ the King on Peachtree Road on Aug. 18. Details of the service were still uncertain.
A quiet, almost shy man by most accounts, Mitchell also made a gift that spoke volumes to Oakland Cemetery in 2004.
"He didn't really say, 'I want this to be anonymous,' he just said, 'Please don't make a big deal out of this,' " Beaumont Allen, chairman of the board of advisers of the Historic Oakland Foundation, said of Mitchell's $667,000 donation. About Mitchell's wish to be buried at Oakland, Allen said, "I do think he's coming home to be with the rest of the Mitchell family."
The bulk of the the money went toward Oakland's endowment, which sent a message nearly as important as the actual dollar amount, said the foundation's executive director.
"[It] is so significant to the present and future of Oakland," said David Moore, executive director of the Historic Oakland Foundation. "Giving directly to restoration efforts and operations is wonderful, but an endowment endures."
After Margaret Mitchell's death
When Margaret Mitchell died on Aug. 16, 1949, five days after being struck by a taxi on Peachtree Street, she left the rights and copyright to "Gone With the Wind" to her husband, John Marsh. Three years later, Marsh died, and the rights went to Stephens Mitchell.
In the mid-1970s, Stephens Mitchell created two trusts to benefit his sons, into which all profits from "Wind" royalties were to be placed. He established a three-man committee — including lawyer Anderson — which directs the trust and is charged with protecting and "exercising" the copyright (a second authorized "Wind" sequel, "Rhett Butler's People" will be published in November).
Anderson said Eugene Mitchell wasn't directly involved in the committee's decision-making although "we would talk often and I would keep him up to date on the progression of things." Speaking from his Hilton Head vacation home, Anderson chuckled slightly as he recalled their "unusual relationship."
The two men shared a taste in music - specifically, Wagnerian opera.
"We went to New York and heard the Wagner "Ring Cycle" — the whole thing," Anderson recalled of a weeklong trip about a decade ago. Another time, the two men went to Seattle for a performance of "Tristan and Isolde."
Johnson's introduction to Mitchell came around 1994, when he began work on the book "Benjamin E. Mays and Margaret Mitchell: A Unique Legacy in Medicine," co-authored with William G. Pickens. The Mitchell Trusts Committee had given him permission to publish Mitchell and Mays' correspondence, but also told him to talk to Eugene Mitchell "on behalf of the family," Johnson recalled.
"I called him up and he didn't have any problem with it and he didn't want any fee," said Johnson, who told Mitchell he himself had family in Detroit. "He said, 'I'd like to talk to you the next time you come up here.' We started a friendship from there."
They ate at Steak & Ale whenever he went back to Michigan, Johnson said. Sometimes when Mitchell was in Atlanta, they "closed down" Pano's & Paul's, eating lobster bisque and talking so long, the conversations continued long into the night out in the parking lot.
On Friday, Johnson was mourning Mitchell's loss, but focusing on the legacy he'd left behind.
"Everybody in Mr. Mitchell's family was lawyers, except for him and his brother, going back five generations," Johnson said. "Six generations back, there was a minister. And to me, what Eugene Mitchell did was ministering to the people of Atlanta."