History
Easter guest returns to Hobcaw for first time since 1944
When Easter arrived at Hobcaw Barony in April 1944 so did President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Naturally, the Easter Bunny was waiting.
“Somebody from Hobcaw came by the Blossom Shop, and this was in the window,” said Bob McConnell, holding a box containing a 3-foot-tall bunny. “And they said, ‘can we borrow it and take it and put it on the president’s bed while he is at Hobcaw?’”
That was the story he and his wife Sylvia heard from the store’s original owners after they bought the business in 1984. “We didn’t know if the thing was so or not,” Bob said.
But it was confirmed by the 2006 biography of Belle Baruch by Mary E. Miller. Citing Bernard Baruch’s autobiography, she wrote that “Roosevelt chuckled over the three-foot-tall Easter Bunny waiting to greet him.”
The bunny returned to Hobcaw, Bernard Baruch’s winter home, in February when the McConnells gave it to the Baruch Foundation. As Easter approaches, it sits by the window in a guest bedroom.
“We thought they might like to have it, as opposed to being in our attic,” Sylvia said.
That’s where the bunny, which the McConnells called Magnolia, has lived since 2005, after the couple sold the shop and moved to the Athens, Ga., area. It might not have made it that far if the couple hadn’t been a little curious.
“After we had been there a while we started doing some cleaning up,” Bob recalled.
The bunny was in a cardboard box in the back of the shop on Front Street. They thought the former owners, Tom and Mabel Seal, who started the business in 1942, might have bought it for their children.
That’s when the McConnells called and learned its back story.
“It had no protection. No air conditioning. No heat,” Sylvia said.
Even after they improved her surroundings, Magnolia wasn’t out of harm’s way. Hurricane Hugo in 1989 flooded the shop with 4 feet of water. The bunny rode out the storm in a cooler, Bob said.
One of the employees bought the bunny a new dress and she – “I’m assuming because she had bows on her that she’s a girl,” Sylvia said – continued to make an appearance in the shop during Easter.
Magnolia’s hat and shoes are original. Her fur is light brown, but the McConnells assume that it was once pure white.
“She’s 80 years old,” Sylvia said. “Instead of graying over the years, she’s got, well … .”
Richard Camlin, Hobcaw’s education director, was there to greet the bunny on its return. He had heard the stories. The bunny spent a month at Hobcaw in 1944, just like Roosevelt. It returned to the Blossom Shop smelling like cigarettes.
“Oh, she’s much bigger than I was expecting,” Camlin said as he accepted the gift.
Some impromptu research identified Magnolia as a product of the Rushton Toy Co. which has a following among collectors. But Magnolia has something a mere antique can never have. “They’ve not slept with a president,” Sylvia said.
