Glen Cove House Concert Benefits North Carolina Museum

Gaitley and Jim Stevenson-Mathews hosted a fundraiser concert at their Glen Cove home featuring North Carolina native and Scottish folk singer Flora MacDonald Gammon.

Proceeds from the concert benefited the Red Springs Historical Museum based in Gaitley's hometown of Red Springs (NC) with the gift given in memory of museum founder and longtime friend Grace Britt.

"Grace was such an amazing force in Red Springs and truly an ambassador for the town. When we got news of her death we knew we wanted to try and do something in her memory in Glen Cove," said Gaitley.

Like Grace, Flora MacDonald Gammon has a great appreciation for history. In addition to her notoriety as a folk singer, she is often called on to lecture on the history of Scotland and how the Scots, especially those who settled in the Carolinas, influenced the culture of the Cape Fear region and beyond. She was recipient of the Flora MacDonald Award in 2006, received the "Exception Celtic Woman" award in 2008 (the first American Woman to receive the prestigious honor), and has been involved with the Grandfather Mountain Highland games since 1960.

Part of Gammon's program focused on the history of the famous Scottish heroine and Gammon's namesake, Flora MacDonald. The famous heroine and "preserver of Bonnie Prince Charlie" immigrated to the Cape Fear region of the Carolinas in 1774, traveled to New York in 1778 and later lived in Nova Scotia before returning with her husband to her home on the Isle of Skye.

While Flora MacDonald was only in Southeastern North Carolina for a short time, her legacy is still vibrant in the region, thanks to the stories told by the descendants of Scots who settled in the region, a college named in her honor, and other institutions that have been housed on the Flora Macdonald Campus.

The Flora McDonald  portrait, inspired by the original painting that hangs in the Scottish National Museum, was a gift to Gaitley by Dallas theatre patron Lillie Hinde when he moved from Dallas to New York.  

Guest performances were given by Jon Pickow, folk singer and son of folk legend Jean Ritchie; Gaitley Stevenson-Mathews, Red Springs NC native, now Glen Cove resident, singer/acting coach; and by Caroline Bennett, Celtic singer and Scottish country dancer.

In addition to the gift presented to the Red Springs Historical Museum in memory of Grace Britt, gifts were also made to the North Shore Historical Museum in Glen Cove.