The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-01-31
MRS CLISBY ASSISTING IN COMPLETION OF STORY
The Author Is Passing the Winter ata the Irwin Homestead in Mobile Where the Story Draws
 Its Local Color. 7
BY ANNIE KENDRIck WALKER.

Like romance is the story that comes from Mobile of Alabama's famous author, T. c. DeLeon.
 MT. DeLeon, playwright historian, satirist, poet, of whom Chauldron wrote he had sounded literature from philosophy to buslesque, is now wholly blind. He is spending the winter at his old home and with the assistance of a friend Is com pleting his new romance, For God and St Louis; the Cradle of the Louisiana Purchase" He is at "Oakleigh," the homestead of the Irwins, and there with the aid of Mrs. Alfred Clisby of Birming- ham, who is spending the winter with her family, he is at work upon his story amid the very scenes from which it draws its local color.
 How difficult it will be to the readers of -Four Years in Rebel Capitals to recon cle the blindness of its author They have pictured him at work upon his Memoirs" The papers had it that he was writing mountain idyl with such university details that gave a new charm to Sewanee. where the author passed so much of his time.
 Some years ago MT DeLeon lost one of his eyes, but he has gone on writing, con- tinuing his lecture work, in fact kept so in touch with things literary that those who know him only through his works will be surprised to hear that he is quite blind. To his personal friends this, knowl- edge will cause inexpressible sorrow. a "Oakeigh." the old Irwin homestead, at Mobile, where Mrs. Clisby and Mir De- Al rt..s.. and completion of For God and St. Louis," is an ideal spot for just such work. It Is a typical old southern home, and full of pleasant memories of the good old days; a ten-acre demesne. heavily wooded with the grand old oaks that give its name, and other trees that almost shut in it's flower surrounded house. That is aaqlaint and picturesque erection of an- sother day, so essentially of the old sschool that its great parlors might well Stare in disdain at later introduced elec- itricity and modern innovation.
 Sixty years ago. MT. and Mrs. Alfred Irwin sat under those old oaks watching the play of their children. who are now Grandparents. These younger branches of the family tree have all played in child hood and met in maturity under the same oaks, and there is tradition that the same families of mocking birds have nestled year after year, and sung their same smatin songs to the sleepers under the broad caves.
 In the days of the first of the four gen erations "OalSleigh' was on the outskirts of Mobile Today the batteries that once drowned about 1t have been levelled; the great groves of pines behind it have fallen under the axe, and the wide moors. where even the present proprietor made full bags of game on frosty dawns, are full of handsome dwellings and gleam with patent sidewalks. But amid the spic-and- span newhess around it, the old home- stead looms up stately and dignfied, as lbefits representative of yesterday. % One thing about the old mansion has never known change; the ease with which its massive doors swung 10 hospitality. In its ample parlors. about it's ever ready board, and on its broad veranda, there have gathered always the choicest spirits of Mobile and the most notable of those who came to it from afar Men and wo- men famous for social worth. llttera teurs. artists, Journalists and musical and the atrical celebrities have there met appre- ciative Mobilians. And the frank, cordial hospitality was ever toned with a gentle courtliness that descended from father to son, and inheres in the present head of the house, Col T. Kilshaw Irwin His wife, as Miss Mary Ketchum, was a former belle of her home city and many another, and who is still beautiful wo- man; and her daughter, now Mrs. Alfred Clisby, have done the honors of the Oak leigh home. And here the latter is now doing her first serious literary work in acting as eyes and helper for the blind Alabama author, who himself has been for years a guest of Oakleigh, from time to time.
 ' It would be difficult to select section of