Best actress nominee Viola Davis has roots in St. Matthews

ST. MATTHEWS — The domestic role that has made Viola Davis the darling of the Hollywood awards season is rooted in this two-stoplight town in Calhoun County.

Davis, who starred as Aibileen Clark in “The Help,” a film about black maids working in white households in Jackson, Miss., in the 1960s, was born here at the former Singleton Plantation in St. Matthews. She was delivered by her grandmother, Mozzle Howard Logan, in her house. Logan worked just about a mile up the road, in the home of the Wienges family, the owners of the former cotton plantation.

Davis, a front-runner in the Oscars’ leading actress category, has shared her story in recent weeks on TV, radio and in print, mentioning her South Carolina origins. Her parents moved to Central Falls, R.I., a few months after she was born in August 1965. Davis has not spoken fondly about the place where she was born in recent interviews. She has said, more than once, that she was told by her mother, Mary Alice Davis, that Logan was treated unkindly by her employers.

But Annette Logan Riley, Logan’s daughter and Davis’ aunt, doesn’t share Davis’ sentiment about the farm’s owners.

“Mr. Othniel and Miss Callie are good,” Riley said recently, while sitting on a brick wall, clutching a broom handle after sweeping a carport. “This is the same house my momma worked at, too.”

After Logan died, Riley, took over in the Wienges house, a quaint ranch-style home that is far less elaborate than the French colonial mansions frequently associated with plantations. The former main house where Othniel Wienges, a former state legislator and USC trustee, grew up fits that description. But it hides behind trees in the front corner of the 1,000-acre property.

Riley, who is wearing a blue fishing hat over a bandana that wraps her grayish-white hair, says she starts work at 8 or 9 a.m. She makes beds, does laundry, vacuums and cooks – anything that needs to be done, she says. She likes talking to the birds as she fills the feeder in the morning.

As she sits on the edge of the carport, she swats at gnats with strong, rugged hands that feel satiny to the touch. Stubby, a hound dog mixed breed, lies by the stairs leading into the house. He can’t make it up the steps anymore, and Riley takes care of him. It’s nearing 4 p.m.

“Almost time for me to go home,” says Riley, one of 13 children raised here.

She has a copy of “The Help,” but she hasn’t seen it. Some of her relatives, who still live in the county, have.

The film stars Davis as a heedful and observant maid who is willing to talk about the injustices she has suffered.

“Everybody that’s seen it tells me about it,” Riley says. “They say it’s good. I be looking at some of (Davis’) movies.”

The Wienges (pronounced Win-jiss) family’s ownership of Singleton Plantation dates to Othniel’s grandfather. Othniel’s father farmed the land. After attending USC and meeting his wife, Callie, Othniel moved back to the plantation. Othniel, an 88-year-old former cotton farmer and championship thoroughbred breeder, now leases out much of the land.

There are a few horses grazing in a pasture. Barns and seed houses and other buildings are remnants of a bustling business. A large, century-old red brick barn built by Othniel’s grandfather was used in the 1991 Depression-era film “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.” The houses that Riley, her family and others who have worked there lived in have long since “sunk into the earth,” Riley says.

Looking back

The former plantation where Riley works differs from the one Davis has portrayed in interviews leading up to tonight’s Academy Awards. On the NPR program “Fresh Air,” she talked about her grandmother’s life to host Terry Gross.

“My grandmom, she worked as a maid for most of her life, and she worked in the tobacco and the cotton fields at the same time, anything – any work she could get,” Davis said. “And she would make $25 a week, and my mom would always say that she had employers who treated her very bad, just made her work from sunup to sundown, taking care of their children, as well as cleaning their homes.”

Davis did not mention the Wienges family by name.

“But one thing my mom did say was that the one highlight for my grandmother was the kids, that those kids remembered my grandmother throughout their entire lives,” Davis told “Fresh Air.” “... Despite the cruelty of the employers, she always loved the kids.”

Davis could not be reached for further comment.

“That would shock people around here to read that,” Callie says of Davis’ comments. “All the people that worked on the farm were close-knit. We looked forward to gathering time. Everyone was happy when we made a good crop.”

The Wienges family praises Davis’ success – and her family members who have worked on their farm.

“The whole family is smart,” Othniel says. “Mozzle (Logan) was a good worker. Smart, and always wanted to do her share.”

“A lot of the families lived out on the farm, and they helped gather the crops,” says his wife, Callie.

On Sunday evenings, a bell would ring for church. The Wienges family still has the bell.

“All the families out here were real close,” Callie says. “And they were all kin, just about.”

John O. Wienges, Othniel and Callie’s son who has a house on the land, refers to Mozelle Logan – Davis’ grandmother – who died more than a decade ago, as family.

“She was just neat,” said John Wienges, who has been the reading clerk at the S.C. General Assembly since 1994. “She was part of my childhood. Those were my friends, the people who lived on the farm like that.”

“Mozzle helped me raise my children,” Callie says of John and his sister, Carol Laffitte. “We did everything together. After Mozzle died, Annette (Riley) started helping me.”

Davis’ father, Dan, didn’t grow up on the plantation like his wife, Mary Alice. The couple and their family moved up North, to Central Falls, settling in the smallest city in the smallest state. Dan Davis was a horse trainer and Mary Alice, Viola Davis has said in interviews, worked as a maid.

On the TV program “CBS This Morning,” Viola Davis said her mother hasn’t seen “The Help,” which also earned a best picture nomination.

“I think it’s just because – I think it’s painful,” Davis said. “You have a whole generation of women who don’t want to be reminded of the past.”

Back at the old former Singleton Plantation, a car with a sputtering exhaust drives up to the carport. Riley grabs two plastic grocery bags from the top of a carport cabinet before grabbing something out of the refrigerator. She throws a fleece sweater over her shoulder.

“It’s 4 p.m.,” she says. “I got to go home.”