A Tribute: BSL native writes first book, ‘Growing up Downtown Bay St. Louis’

Bay St. Louis native Pat Murphy recently put the finishing touches on his first book “Growing Up Downtown Bay St. Louis: A Memoir of Small Town Mississippi Life 1950 - 1970.”

“The book has been something that has been developing for a number of years,” Murphy said.

Murphy said it actually started long before 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

“It started as, more or less, a tribute to my grandfather, George Stevenson, and he was a businessman in downtown Bay St. Louis from 1933,” he said.

However, Murphy said, his book “developed into a lot more.”

“As the years went by, more and more people were moving into this area who didn’t have a clue of what the area formally was or the charm of what it was.”

The book includes a chapter on his grandfather’s store, but Murphy also discusses all the other downtown businesses.

“He was friends with all the proprietors of all those businesses,” he said. “There’s a lot of funny stories and experiences that I had as a kid growing up.”

Murphy said his grandfather was in the electrical business, Stevenson Electric. He was a Frigidaire appliance dealer as well as an electrical contractor.

Murphy said his grandfather also had a “big” toy business.

“Around Halloween, he would change the whole front showroom into a toy display,” Murphy said.

Murphy, who attended St. Stanislaus, said that after school, he would walk to his grandfather’s shop, which was located in the first block of Main Street.

“My father worked for him so I would ride home when my dad came home,” he added.

Murphy said he would also spend his Saturdays downtown.

“The book is about the way Bay St. Louis was when I was growing up and I cover the time period from the 1940s through the 1970s and then I say ‘and beyond,’ because I do get into experiences with the hurricanes and I talk about Katrina and my experience with that,” Murphy said.

Murphy said, for him, the purpose of his book is to give the present generation an idea of what Bay St. Louis used to be like.

“It was self-contained, all the businesses were right down there in Bay St. Louis,” he said. “You had restaurants, movie theaters, drugstores, just whatever you might need, appliance stores, clothing stores, and all of that stuff. So, you didn’t have to go anywhere else. There was that and there was just a small town atmosphere. When I was growing up, everybody knew everybody else. And if they didn’t know you as a kid, they knew of your family. On the other side of the coin, if you did something you weren’t supposed to be doing, chances are your parents would already know about it by the time you got home, which was a good thing. Parents didn’t have to worry about their kids, because everybody watched out for everybody else.”

Murphy said he also doesn’t consider his book to just be for “locals.”

“Particularly, back in this time period I’m talking about, you had thousands and thousands of people that would flock here during the summertime,” he said. “But you had people who would come over here from Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Houma, Thibodeaux, Covington, New Orleans. So they all have these really fond memories of the Bay St. Louis area. That is another big target of mine.”

The book is now available for pre-sale and Murphy said he is hoping to have books on hand by mid-August.

He said he also plans to have copies of his book for sale in local stores as well as future book signing events.

You can pre-order your copy of “Growing Up Downtown Bay St. Louis” at https://igg.me/at/growingupdowntownbsl.