Dale County AlArchives Photo person.....Vivian B. Adams-A Southern Star Institution for 44 Years August 27 1997 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 June 2, 2004, 10:14 am Source: The Southern Star Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/dale/photos/gph430vivianba.jpg Image file size: 50.6 Kb The Southern Star, Special Commerative Section August 27, 1997 VIVIAN B. ADAMS A Southern Star Institution for 44 Years By Joseph H. Adams Not many people have worked side by side with their grandmother in a business. That was my experience for 12 years, 1957-1969, working with Grandma Adams, Vivian B. Adams. Living in the same house with Grandma Adams from the time of my birth until I went away to college in 1951, naturally she knew me quite well from baby and little boy years to the awkward early teens, and on into young manhood. So when I came back to assume the job of editor of The Southern Star in August 1957, I really don't know what she thought of me as a newspaper-man, or editor. She had come to work full time to assist her eldest son, Jesse B. Adams, in 1925 after her husband had died at the age of 47. This relationship continued as she assisted my father and me until just about three weeks before her death in June 1969. We had just gone to press when we got the word that she had died. She would never have done anything to disrupt what was going on in getting that week's publication ready to go to press. So she must have had some mixed feelings when I would do things differently than the pace she and Daddy had set for themselves as the only front office staff members when I increased their number to three. For about the first five weeks I was on the job, being just out of the Army, I guess I was giving Daddy a pretty good dose of being overbearing, saying "Do this, do that, have you done this, no we need to do it this way, etc." I was still full of Army style bossing people around. Listening and not saying anything for those first several weeks, one day Daddy had had enough. He slammed his fist down on the desk and said, "You're not in the damned Army anymore, you're working for me." I looked around and nobody was in the front office except Daddy and Grandma. And neither of them were the least bit impressed with former Lt. Adams. Grandma remembered me as the little 6-year-old who watched her wring the necks of chickens, killing them for the routine of dressing them for frying. Seeing the chicken flopping around, I thought I would try my hand, "let me do it," I asked. I slung the poor old fryer around and around but all I did was get him dizzy. Grandma put the killing lick on him and went about her familiar routine of getting ready for a big family dinner of fried chicken. At about age 6 and 7, her sister Myra Will Tye, my great aunt, lived with us; my parents, and the two of us, me and my brother Johnny, who was only 3 or 4 at the time. Around 1940, with World WarII raging with the Battle of Britain going on, the fall of France, it was a gloomy outlook. Grandma, and "Ill", as we called my great aunt, were tough women in a sense, the children of a father who had served in the Confederate Army, having lived through the Depression, and other hard times, having lost a husband, they knew about hard times. At the supper table, their remarks were often, "There's no hope, Hitler is just going to take us over." They were tough in a way, yet defeatist in other ways. Of course this is all hindsight. But I distinctly remember having nightmares about the goose-stepping Nazis coming right down Newton Street. The next morning I would ask Mama and Daddy, "Do you think Dothan and Montgomery will help us?" I thought it was us just Ozark against the world. So when I started saying you are doing this wrong, you need to do it this way, Grandma didn't ever say much, but you knew she was still seeing the little boy acting like he knew how to run a newspaper that she had been closely associated with for over 30 years. When Dot and I started putting in a system soon after we were married to notify subscribers that their subscription had expired, and sending out notices, that didn't set well with her or Daddy. But we did it, and even collected some back subscriptions up to 8 or 10 years in arrears. My folks were hard working, dedicated people, dedicated to putting out a newspaper that they thought served the best interests of Ozark and Dale County, but being hard nosed about business, or aggressive in trying to make a profit, that was not in their vocabulary. I never heard Grandma say, "I'm tired, isn't there a quicker, easier way to do this." She just pitched in and read proof, did collating on Job printing, counted words in legal advertising for billing, sent out bills, wrote personals, wrote short news items on information turned into her, hand addressed papers, rolled bundles of papers for mailing, and Just about any- thing else, including staying there all night the night the paper went to press, and remaining there most of the next day, having taken some short naps in the chair she used as her command post, a rather unique upholstered chair that was made by a German POw at Camp Rucker in World War II. She had a consistent way of doing things, and remembering that certain things happened at certain times. Jack Windham, a rural mail carrier, who carried the Skipperville, Clopton, Abbeville, and on into West Georgia route, left the Ozark Post Office around 7 a.m. But Grandma had it fixed in her mind that Jack Windham left at 6 a.m., not a minute before, or a minute after. Every week she would be furiously wrapping the out of town papers, putting the stack at one and of a sheet of brown craft pamper, and with a paint brush, spreading glue or paste at the other end, and scaling the wrapper around the bundle as it was rolled up. Every week it was a rituaL, about 10 minutes to six or maybe just five minutes before she knew Jack would be leaving she would finish the Skipperville bundle, and almost out of breath, say, "Joseph take these to Jack Windham," sometimes pitching it to me as I passed. When I would get back she would be sitting in her chair, drumming the arm with a tap, tap, tap with her fingers and would say, "Was Jack gone?" would say, "No Ma'am, made it again." And every week she just knew we were not going to make it to the Post Office in time to catch Jack Windham. And every week, we never missed him. In 1968, the issue we published the voters listing, it add about 12 pages to the paper. Handling a paper twice as big, and bulky as normal, rolling and wrapping was more tiring. And that morning at around 6 a.m. having been there all day, and all night with us, I took her to her home on Newton Street, and helped her out of the car, and into the house. She sighed and said, "I hope that's the last paper we have like that." She was 87 at the time, about a year later she died. It was the last paper like that for her. Vivian B. Adams had a spirit of perseverance, of being dedicated to her family, to the community, and most of all loyal to, The Southern Star. Her spirit of dedication and community service prompted a group to name a new school in Ozark in her memory and honors Vivian B. Adams School, opening just two years after her death. Additional Comments: Caption for Picture Vivian B. Adams was a fixture at The Southern Star for 44 years. Helping her two sons, Jesse B. Adams, John Q. Adams and working with two grandsons, Joseph H. Adams and Jesse D. Adams, she was often the first person to greet a customer or to lake a message over the phone. She worked unill four months before her 89th birthday. This picture was made in 1951. This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 8.1 Kb