128
part of a collection of Ripley
‘
s Believe It Or Not napkins that depicted oddities
from across the world.
Earlier history sleuthing by
Coast Chronicles
had failed to locate the tree or
uncover any tidbits about it. So readers were asked to help play detective.
―
I have seen the tree many a time,
‖
wrote Harry Bowman of Gulfport.
―
The tree
was located on the bank of Big Biloxi River about 2 miles of the Saucier-Lizana
Road.
―
It was about 40 feet tall. I can
‘
t remember what kind of a tree it was, but I do
know it was not a pine. I know it was standing in 1939, the year I enlisted in the
service. I believe a Mr. Borzik who lived near the tree sent a picture to Ripley
‘
s
Believe It Or Not some time before 1939.
‖
Bingo!
Then came the double bingo.
About the time Bowman was sitting down to write his letter, Miss Mary Borzik
called the newsroom. She said that her family once owned the land that nurtured
the tree.
―
When my brother John first found the tree, it was alive because there were
branches at the top of it with leaves,
‖
she said
―
It was a magnolia tree, though
you wouldn
‘
t have known it by the unusual trunk, which looked like someone
had carved it into a giant corkscrew.
‖
Today, Mary and 82-year-old John are spending their retirement years together
in a west Gulfport house. Another brother, Louis, lives nearby.
They had moved to Mississippi in 1922 as a family of seven. Her immigrant
parents, Mike and Mary Borzik from Czechoslovakia, had sold their Kansas
bakery and headed to the warmer climate and inexpensive farm land of South
Mississippi.
Originally they had planned to truck farm in Long Beach, but instead found 80
acres on Biloxi River, about two miles west of Old Highway 49. There, they
cleared 20 acres for farming and built a house. The five children of which Mary
was the youngest and the only girl, enjoyed romping in the woods, mastering the
river
‘
s swimming hole and stalking game.
On a hunting expedition in the mid to late-1930s John first noticed the unusual
tree about 100 yards from the river bank, nestled among a thick grove of trees