The Belle of Camden County

Lilly Hastings is a happily married woman and a devoted mother to two young children. However, a fateful trip to St. Augustine, Florida to attend a cousin’s wedding in 1921 has set off a chain of events leading Lilly to discover that she was not born into the white upper class family who raised her and is instead the illegitimate daughter of the mixed race seamstress who was tailoring her cousin’s wedding dress. While being of a mixed race is fairly commonplace and accepted today, in upper class white society of the Old South in the1920s, it was cause for scandal, divorce and social ruin. This story follows Lilly as she tries to keep her newfound knowledge of her true ancestry a secret from her family while desperately wanting to find her birth mother. Meanwhile, Lilly’s husband Michael is dealing with his own issues. Not only is he bewildered by his wife’s unexplained temperamental behavior, but a visiting movie producer is interested in putting Michael’s prize stallion Bravo in his latest film which will require a cross country train trip to California. In the young, thriving movie capital of Hollywood, Michael gets a firsthand look at the film industry while encountering both hostility and temptation. The story has a happy ending - Lilly comes face to face with her birth mother, who for the second time in her life makes the ultimate sacrifice by letting her daughter go so that she can continue leading the life of a well-bred southern belle. Michael turns down a golden opportunity in motion pictures and returns home to his family.