The Delta in the Rearview Mirror

The Life and Death of Mississippi's First Winery

De: Di Rushing

Narrado por: Elisabeth Ashby

In 1976, Di Rushing and her husband, Sam decided to open the first winery in Mississippi. Their business was thriving by 1990, with eight national award-winning wines, a beautiful vineyard, and a successful restaurant.

But in March of 1990, a series of unforeseen events rocked the operation. After the Rushings discovered one of the tour guides, Ray Russell, selling drugs in the winery parking lot, they fired him. He responded with a terrorizing vengeance that persisted over the next nine months. In the early morning hours, the former guide broke into the winery and released the entire inventory-nearly a quarter of a million dollars' worth—down the drain. Fortunately, his incompetence thwarted his most destructive intention to blow up the restaurant. In his rampage, he broke all the windows, which allowed the gas from the kitchen oven to escape, sparing the premises. Though the Rushings rebuilt with the help of their community, Russell continued to stalk and threaten the young family. As his menacing behavior continued to escalate, the Rushings closed their business of fourteen years and moved to Ouray, Colorado, where they began rebuilding their lives. Culminating in the sudden, violent murders of Russell, his wife, and his father twenty-five years later, this book tells a story of both shock and resilience, charting Mississippi history in the process.

©2024 Di Rushing (P)2024 Tantor

Great family memoir of overcoming disaster

The Rushing family has an amazing and uplifting story of dreams, betrayal, destruction and, ultimately, transplanting themselves into new dreams in a new loving community. You will want to shake their hands & hug all of them! Di writes well. I only wish she had narrated the book herself. Well worth your time!

Loved the Rushings

I remember spending my birthday at the winery. A very dear person would pick me up and take me to lunch for our birthdays. We were born many years apart but very close to Christmas. She understood how birthdays got over looked at that time of year and wanted me to understand how important they were. She gave me a gold pin with pearls that year. So the tea room held a dear place in my heart. I also remember when the river ran red. My mother was taught the Rushing children in school. We had to make a trip to drop of information for the kids one day and then weeks later it happened. My heart broke!!!

Revenge is not sweet

The Rushings story is so very sad and one of resilience. Heartbreaking that they had to pick up and leave their Mississippi home and start over in Colorado by a big ugly bully.

Sabotaged in the land of the Blues

Having been a Mississippian my whole life, this story really resonated. It was a Delta story I had never heard, but I knew all the areas it was written about and own a couple of pieces of McCarty pottery myself. Even if you aren’t a Mississippian, I think you will enjoy learning a little more about this area, its people, and the story that unfolds— one that you cannot make up and comes full circle in the end. And it has me longing to visit the Top of the Cellar Tea Room and taste that home cooked cobbler! I guess I will have to settle for a copy of the cookbook to make my own.

longer than it should be

listening by audible. a completely southern story. how does a southern mispronunciation happen? in this reading, boll weevil was pronounced BALL weevil! yazoo river was pronounced yaaaaa-zoo river. to a southerner, that was like fingernails on a chalkboard.

the story is an upsetting one, with no justice. very disturbing.