““During the war, young Sillers Sr. and his mother hid in an abandoned plantation on the outskirts of town and foraged the woods for food. When the Federals took Vicksburg, Walter Sr.’s father was taken prisoner, executed, and buried in an unmarked grave. After the war, Walter’s brother tried to recover their father’s body but returned to Rosedale with nothing. These stories Walter shared with his son, who strove to honor his father’s memory. For Walter Sillers Jr., the town of Rosedale, and by extension the entire South, was as much a philosophy as it was a place. His contract with Jeu Gong was conditional, that the Lum family uphold the values of the Southern way of life.””
