I am Virginia McDuffie Hybart Taylor, and I want to welcome you to my former home, Hybart House. My four children and I gave the home to the Monroe County Heritage Museums in memory of my parents, Virginia Marion McDuffie Hybart and Charles Louis Hybart, who built the house, lived in it and loved it.

My father, Charlie Hybart, was born in Monroeville, grew up in north Monroe County, attended Marion Institute and the University of Alabama. He graduated from Alabama Law School in 1897. He practiced law throughout south Alabama. He had offices in Monroeville and Bay Minette. In 1924, he bought this property for his finance, Marion McDuffie, 20 years his junior. Mother was born at McDuffie Place at River Ridge near Franklin, Alabama. She was taught first at home, then at Miss Nannie Baker's school in Mobile, graduating there. She attended Randolph Macon Women's College in Lynchburgh, Virginia, where she pledged Kappa Delta Sorority. She transferred as a junior to the University of Alabama. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was the first president of the Women's Student Government Association. In her 60s she attended Columbia University's Graduate School in New York City. During the engagement of my parents, they hired George Willis, a renowned Pensacola, Florida, architect to draw their house plans. The house, know for its Mediterranean Spanish architecture with red tile roof, plaster walls and many porches, was under way when they were married in 1925 and Mother moved to Monroeville. The rocks for the foundation and columns has been hauled by wagon from Limestone Creek.

They living room, with hand-hewn beams from Monroe County walnuts, and the dining room were always in the center with the kitchen and guest quarters at the north end and the family living area at the south end.