Greenfield Farm Gift Celebrates a Family Legacy of Readers

This is a reader's gift, honoring a family legacy of readers through three generations of women. It honors Overstreet's mother, the late Helen Rebecca Phillips Graeber, known to her friends as "Becky," and her daughter, Helen Rebecca Cornelius, an Oxford interior designer.

It also fulfills a bit of wisdom that John T. Edge, developer of the UM project, got while visiting MacDowell, an artist residency program in New Hampshire.

"Readers will be your donors, they told me, people who've enjoyed success and have depended on books and authors to introduce them to new ideas, new perspectives, new worlds," Edge said.

Graeber was a lifelong lover of books, art, entertaining and cooking. In the last years of her life before she died in 2022, she lived in a vibrant assisted living community, where one of her closest friends was Edge's father, John Thomas Edge.

"John T.'s father and my mother shared a love of reading and would often talk about books together; they became very close," Overstreet said. "She was an avid reader her entire life.

"My mom, more than any other teacher in my life, instilled in me how important reading is. So, in a way, this gift to Greenfield Farm is how I honor her."

And it was Cornelius, an artist and graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, who introduced her mother to Greenfield Farm in 2024 during its Plein Air Invitational. The day did not go as intended.

"I was in the middle of fighting breast cancer and, on this particular day, I felt so sick," Overstreet said. "The idea was that we would walk around Greenfield Farm because we love the outdoors, Faulkner, books and art, and this was something to share together.

"But I couldn't even get out of the car, and I just cried. My daughter and I had a moment together as I laid in the back seat of the car, where we talked about what this place would be and how we would both enjoy it together one day soon."

Greenfield Farm Writer's Residency will be built on a 20.4-acre site between Oxford and New Albany once owned by acclaimed author William Faulkner.

The campus will be designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects, of Fayetteville, Arkansas. It includes four studios and a gathering pavilion that includes the Julia Evans Reed Kitchen. It will also feature a restored farm shed and the late writer Rev. Will D. Campbell's relocated cabin.

Cornelius, who is interested in architectural history, restoration and design, is excited for the future of Greenfield Farm.

"I can't wait to explore the property as the cabins and studios are built and people start working there," she said. "It's the kind of place my grandmother would've loved to experience."

Greenfield Farm is projected to cultivate 50-60 writers who work in Mississippi or are inspired by the state each year. Writers will stay an average of two to three weeks for free, receiving stipends of $1,000 per week while using the overnight studios.

Walking trails and communal spaces will connect writers to the natural world. Exhibits will tell the story of this land and the people who worked it, beginning with the Chickasaws, including the McJunkins family and concluding with Faulkner.

Overstreet and Cornelius are certain that Graeber would have loved Greenfield Farm because of the time she spent at a mineral springs retreat called Allison's Wells in Canton in the 1940s and '50s. Allison's Wells guests formed the Mississippi Art Colony in 1948.

"My mom went to artists and writers retreats there," Overstreet said. "It was this beautiful, old fashioned, rambling resort where she could write, read, paint, garden, cook and just explore all her wonderful interests.

"She met my dad there. It was the happiest time of her life."

Private donors and the state of Mississippi have raised more than $5 million to bring Greenfield Farm to life. Many of those donors, like Overstreet, have been lovers of literature.

This gift to Greenfield Farm is the latest of many Overstreet investments in the university's future. Together with her late husband, Mike Overstreet, the family has given nearly $2 million to support the Department of Music and Pride of the South marching band scholarships, the Patterson School of Accountancy, University Museum, the UM Library, various scholarships and many other campus needs.

"Helen Overstreet is a visionary entrepreneur," Edge said. "She's also an avid reader. Those qualities, plus her belief in Mississippi, make her an ideal collaborator on our Greenfield Farm Writers Residency."

For more information about supporting the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency, contact John T. Edge, developer and director, at johnt@olemiss.edu or 662-715-9046.

To support the Greenfield Farm Writers Residency, send a check with the fund's name written in the memo line, to the UM Foundation, 406 University Ave., Oxford, MS 38655, or give online.

Top: Helen Graeber Overstreet (right) and her daughter, Helen Rebecca Cornelius, hold a photo of Overstreet's late mother, Helen Rebecca 'Becky' Phillips Graeber, who was a lifelong lover of books, art, entertaining and cooking. Overstreet is honoring her mother and daughter through a $100,000 gift to Greenfield Farm Writer's Residency, which the university is developing on a farm formerly owned by author William Faulkner. Greenfield Farm will provide a haven for writers to work and live for two to three weeks at a time. Photo by Bill Dabney/UM Foundation