Photo Courtesy of the Vestavia Hills Historical Society.
Vestavia Hills Historical Society Sheila Bruce and board member George Smith stand with one of the statues from the George Ward estate, which gave Vestavia part of its name.
Decades after most of the George Ward estate was razed, one of seven statues that stood on the property from which Vestavia Hills draws its name has been recovered and sent to the Vestavia Hills Historical Society.
Growing up in Mountain Brook, brothers Mims and Erick Cooper remember playing with a statue that their mother, Grace, had bought in the early 1970s. The statue, one of seven of its kind, had been on the George Ward estate on Shades Crest Road. Ward, a former mayor of Birmingham, modeled his estate after the Temple of Vesta in Rome. Construction was finished in 1925.
As a city grew around the 20-acre estate, it took its name from the estate, adding the Latin word for roadway, “via,” to become Vestavia Hills.
The Coopers spent their childhood dressing up the approximately 5-foot-4-inch statue, decorating it for Halloween and scaring their friends, Mims Cooper said. Their mother, Grace Cooper, had intended to put the statue in the backyard, but when she realized it was made not of concrete, but of plaster of Paris, she knew that wasn’t going to be possible, as plaster of Paris would not last outside.
For the next 48 years, the statue sat in the Coopers’ basement. When their mother died in December 2018, the brothers started going through the home and rediscovered the statue, which Mims said is “really heavy.”
In July, knowing he had no place for it, Mims called Sheila Bruce, who leads the Vestavia Hills Historical Society, and mentioned the statues. Bruce told him no one knew what happened to them.
“I’ve got one in my basement,” Mims told her.
Six of the seven statues are lost to history. During the Wards’ estate sale, when the statues were being sold with a host of other items, someone came on the property and destroyed six of the statues and vandalized other items for some unknown reason, Bruce said.
For almost 50 years, people assumed the same thing had happened to the seventh statue, until Cooper called Bruce.
“We just can’t believe we’ve gotten it,” Bruce said.
Mims Cooper said he remembers going to pick up the statue from the estate. His mother, he said, was a West End native and huge history buff. As a child, she had spent time visiting the Ward estate, which was often the site of large garden parties before being bought by Charles Byrd, who developed subdivisions in the new city, in 1947. Byrd renovated the estate and added a restaurant before the property was eventually sold to Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, which turned the property into the new home for their church.
After Bruce told the Coopers the city would love to have the statue, the statue was delivered to the historical room at the Vestavia Hills Library in the Forest. Bruce said it had to be wrapped well and carried by four men in order to move it.
“There’s a few things wrong with her, but it’s fixable,” Bruce said.
While the statue escaped the fate of its six counterparts, Bruce said it is missing a nose, and was partially vandalized, though it won’t all be removed.
“We don’t want to completely cover the vandalism; that’s part of history,” Bruce said.
For now, the statue will stay at the library, with the site of its future, permanent home yet to be decided.
The city’s communications director, Cinnamon McCulley, said it was a shock to hear about the statue, as no one knew it even existed anymore. “It’s pretty nice to find a treasure like that,” she said.
