Diamonds, Discovery and Déjà vu

After a mid-morning flight from Kansas City to Dallas-Fort Worth

and a brief business interaction at a rental car kiosk, I was driving a rental car on Interstate 20. Soon, my stomach started rumbling, reminding me that breakfast had only been a bag of pretzels and a Coca-Cola. Five hours and 800 miles later it was time for a pit stop before traveling too far down the interstate. My arrival point for the evening, Alexandria, La., would have to be delayed while I filled up on roadside greasy spoon food and caffeine.

With my belly full and my car zipping along, it wasn’t long before signs advertising the businesses in Shreveport and Bossier City appeared and disappeared through the windshield of my rented Toyota Corolla.

Welcome to Louisiana the sign said as I passed the state’s welcome center and rest area. It’s funny how seeing the Welcome to Louisiana sign can evoke so many memories of my native state.

I recently read a book by Stephen Hilliard entitled, “Knoll” that shared colorful stories of the time when mafia boss, Carlos Marcello, and his gang owned the nightclub scene in Bossier City. I was tempted to take a detour through downtown Bossier to see what images and ideas the drive would create, but I knew I had a few more hours of driving so I pressed on. As darkness descended on Alexandria, I pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn, happy to be off the road.  

After checking into my downtown hotel, I asked the front desk clerk about nearby restaurants. He mentioned several places, all within a few blocks of the hotel. It was a beautiful night, neither hot nor cold and it was Friday. As I walked, I thought there would have been more people walking the same sidewalks, looking for a place to eat or drink. Maybe it was too early for the party crowd.

I wandered around, stopping briefly in front of a few restaurants, looking at menus, surveying the mood of the patrons while trying to decide where to eat. I looked inside The Diamond Grill, read the menu and thought this could be a good place, but I made the rounds of another block or two, just to make sure something else wasn’t more appealing. Nothing was, so I turned around and headed back to The Diamond Grill.

I opened the heavy door, walked through and once inside, was immediately transported back to another era, where elegance and craftmanship were more important than superficial, cliché furnishings, where the décor was meant to last, and transcend beyond the most recent trend or the latest ‘next best thing.’ I was mesmerized while standing just inside the front door, admiring the beauty and details of the building. I would learn later, the grandeur before me was the same elegance and charm as when the building was home to a jewelry store. The interior showcased a majestic 22-foot ceiling, original chandeliers, plaster walls with ornate, nostalgic features. Just as impressive was a beautiful and elegant staircase connecting the first floor to a Mezzanine bar and seating area.

 Glancing upstairs to the bar area, I saw a game playing on the bar television set so I headed in that direction. Eating alone is boring so I knew I could at least pass the time watching the game and admiring the inside of the restaurant. 

I ordered a glass of iced tea, a shrimp cocktail appetizer, then took my time deciding what I wanted for my main course. Everything I read sounded wonderful, with a variety of steak and fresh seafood options. Because I live in Kansas, when I return home to Louisiana, typically, seafood is my first choice. I chose the seafood pasta: shrimp, crawfish, crabmeat with parmesan cream sauce tossed with penne pasta. It was delicious. I had made the correct dinner choice for my Friday evening dining in Alexandria.

While eating and glancing at the game, I struck up a conversation with the bartender. It wasn’t busy yet so she had time to answer some of my questions about the restaurant and the history of the building. She explained that the Art Deco building was originally constructed in 1865 and was the first home to C.A. Schnack’s Jewelry Store, which operated in that location for 66 years. The interior of the restaurant was more than just an elegant space, but a place with historic charm and nostalgic features that had stood the test of time. The mezzanine where I sat having dinner, although currently a bar area, could have been offices or storage when the building housed Schnack’s Jewelry.

As the bartender described some of the unique features of the building, a vague recollection, or possibly some history from my past was trying to bubble up to the surface. For the time being though, I couldn’t pull the thought up. Something familiar about the building or the location or was it Schnack’s Jewelry that I was trying to remember?

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I was born on February 9, 1964, at Rapides General Hospital, a structure that still stands in downtown Alexandria within walking distance of The Diamond Grill. When I was born, my dad was the pastor of Walnut Grove Baptist Church, a church near the small town of Colfax, approximately 25 miles northwest of where I was having dinner. My Mom and Dad, along with my two older sisters, Sally and Sheila, lived in the parsonage of this rural, country church. This would be our home until November of the same year when my dad became the pastor of First Baptist Church in Patterson, La., a south Louisiana town in St. Mary Parish.

I was only a baby when my family moved to Patterson, so of course, all of the events from the time we lived in central Louisiana would have been told to me when I was older. I finished eating and since no one needed my seat, I stuck around watching the game and tried to figure out what was bothering me. I took out my phone and did a search for Schnack’s Jewelry, fascinated about this old building and its history. 

On the company’s website, I learned that in 1865, as the Civil War came to a close and the town of Alexandria began to rebuild, two optimistic Scotsmen named Ferguson and McKinney opened a jewelry store and watch repair business at the corner of Front and Murray streets. Alexandria did not have river levees at the time, and the store, perched right on the banks of the Red River in the heart of the downtown area, was well positioned to benefit from the very active river traffic in this important port city.

Five years later, Carl A. Schnack, left Hamburg, Germany and came to Alexandria to work as a watchmaker for merchants Ferguson and McKinney after working briefly in New York. Soon, C.A. Schnack purchased the interests of McKinney and then Ferguson, renaming the store C.A. Schnack Jewelry Company.

Due to its location in the center of the state and the growing river traffic, Alexandria prospered and so did Schnack’s. The store grew and changed hands within the family as the years went by and locations changed several times. 

The history of Alexandria and of Schnack’s is intertwined with another war, World War II. Several military camps sprang up in Central Louisiana to prepare the country for war. In 1940 Schnack’s doubled in size and added China, glassware, and gift departments, becoming one of the largest jewelry and gift stores in the South.

A branch opened in 1974 at the Centre on Jackson St., which became the main branch of the store when the downtown location closed in 1995. In 2005, Schnack’s moved again to its new larger home, under the clock tower on Dorchester. The name remains to this day, and C.A. Schnack’s direct descendants have owned the business throughout the years.

After learning Schnack’s history, I felt there was something about Schnack’s Jewelry that was part of my past, my family’s history. But that recollection remained mirky, unclear in my searching mind.

As a kid, I loved going on trips with my parents. Our travels had us crisscrossing the state as we visited friends and family. From time to time, I would ride with my dad when he had meetings at the Louisiana Baptist headquarters in Alexandria. On these trips I would learn about Colfax, Alexandria, Grant Parish, Rapides Parish, and what my family’s life was like before I came along. Back then, a pastor of a small Baptist church made a very modest salary so that meant my mom also had to work and my older sisters helped look after me between school and chores. 

Sitting there, reflecting on the region where I was born and lived for a brief time, I still had questions so I decided to call my sister, Sally, who lived in Baton Rouge. After a few minutes of catching up, I told her I had stopped for the night in Alexandria and asked if she had ever eaten at The Diamond Grill. She said she had. I told her I was really enjoying the food and atmosphere. 

“It’s pretty cool that this old building was once a jewelry store,” I said to my sister.

“Steve, I know. It’s where Momma worked when we lived in Colfax,” Sally said.

I was taken back because I wasn’t sure I heard my sister correctly. “In this building, when it was Schnack’s Jewelry, is where Momma worked?”

Sally replied, “Yes. That’s where Momma worked when she was pregnant with you.”

Surprised, but mostly, filled with nostalgia and memories of my mom, I became emotional, reflective. I walked to the edge of the Mezzanine and looked down on the main floor, imagining my mom walking on the same floors, staring at the same walls, entering the same doors that I came through earlier in the evening.

I pictured my mom, late 1963, pregnant with me, waiting on customers in the middle of the Christmas rush. There were days she would have been very tired, her feet hurting, her body totally worn out at the end of her shift. Then as the sun was disappearing into the western sky, she knew she still had a 30-minute ride on a dark two-lane road before she could get home to my dad and two sisters. She would cook dinner, go to bed, and do it again the next day.

To this day, I have no idea what pulled me into The Diamond Grill on that Friday evening, several Octobers ago. Whether by fate, coincidence, divine intervention or maybe something a bit more mystical, I’m just incredibly happy that I found my way there. 

I left the restaurant and casually walked back to the hotel. Feeling sentimental, but relaxed, reflective, and warm inside, I knew how blessed I was to have had such a wonderful, hard-working mom who made so many sacrifices for me, for her family. Thank you, Mom. I love you.