Muscogee County Georgia Anniversary Killingswroth File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Kathy (Givens) Crump Table of Contents page: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee.htm Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm From "The Sunday Ledger-Enquire" January 22, 1984, Page E-1 & E-2. By Clair Brannen Life Times Assistant Editor After 50 years of marriage Clayton and Carlton Killingsworth and their wives have at long last had the joint ceremony and honeymoon they missed years ago. There was no such thing as a honeymoon back then, not in the early 1930's in rural Alabama. Those were Great Depression years, when the hard-working farm folks of Geneva County had neither leisure nor money for such as extravagance. A quick visit to the local preacher was all it took to get hitched, that and maybe a noisy serenade round the house by neighbors ringing cowbells and firing guns. That's about all the wedding the two young couples expected. Carlton Killingworth and his younger brother, Clayton, had lost their hearts to a couple of local girls, and both couples planned to walk to church one Sunday to be web in a double ceremony. They hadn't planned to tell their parents, who might have objected, until afterwards. But when the appointed day arrived, Carlton's sweetheart couldn't slip away from her folks. Only Clayton and Ideal Caraway made it to the alter Dec. 24, 1933. Carlton and Annie Lee Givens said "I do" two weeks later, Jan. 7, 1934, at the home of a willing justice of the peace in Geneva, Al. Carlton Killingsworth was then just 23; his new bride 15. Brother Clayton was 19 and Ideal was 20. The former brother moved in with his folks, the latter brother moved in with the bride's mother, and the farm work resumed. That was 50 years ago. And the two Killingsworth couples have at long last had the joint ceremony and honeymoon they missed years ago. The couples renewed their vows New Year's Eve at White Rock Free Will Baptist Church in a simple ceremony attended by friends and family. A reception at the church followed and then a week's vacation at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista. And the couples rode south in style in a van rented by the Carlton Killingsworths' son and daughter-in-law, Gene and Marian Killingsworth of Columbus, Ohio. "We rode about everything down there," says older brother Carlton, who but for his gray hair doesn't look his 74 years. He and wife Annie Lee, 65, live just outside Crawford, Al. Their home is not far from where Clayton, 69, and Ideal, 70, live on Old Auburn Road in Phenix City. Between then the couples can count six children, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. The shared wedding anniversary is not the only coincidence in the Killingsworth family. Just a generation earlier three Killingsworth boys had married sisters by the name of Leddon. One of those couples, the late Lucious and Durlie Killingsworth, are the parents of Clayton, Carlton and their nine brothers and sisters. Loucious Killingsworth ran a jewelry store in Slocomb, Ala., just about a mile from the family farm. His sons grew up farming and might have remained farmers had not Carlton moved to Columbus in 1939 and gone to work at a local mill, the Bibb Co. "They started me off at 25 cents and hour and raised it to 32 1/2 cents," he says. "A little later Clayton and his wife, seeing I was up her and making that kind of money, came up....Pretty near all of out brothers and sisters came to Columbus." The wives went to work as well, working split shifts with their husbands so someone would be home with the children. "You just had to set your mind on working and making a living," says Carlton, who retired from West Point Pepperell as a loom fixer after working for the company 32 years. His wife is also retied for West Point Pepperell, where she had worked in the spinning department off and on since 1939. Clayton was a machinist when he retired after 34 years with the Eagle and Phenix Mill (purchased by Fieldcrest Mills in 1978). Only Ideal, a saleswoman for 26 years when she retired for her job at Fred and Jean's Department Store, did not work for local mills. Hard work was nothing new to any of the four because all had grown up on farms. Clayton remembers rising at 4 in the morning to feed the mule that worked the cane mill his folks owned. Ideal remembers trading eggs for material to make her dress. "Back then we raised everything we ate," says Carlton, whose mother cooked three meals a day for her family of 13, including big pots of collards and stovefuls of biscuits. Things have changed in 50 years. The Killingsworths still work hard, maintain gardens and raising chickens and, in Carlton's case, raising hogs, too. The husbands and wives say they see more of each other now that they're retired, and the two couples get together often to fish, a favorite pastime. They say their 50 years of marriage have been filled with good times and bad. They've had cross words, too, they say. But the way to keep a marriage going, the four agree, is by treating your spouse right, spending time at home and regularly attending church. That done, the couples can look back on their lives together as time well spent. Says Annie Lee, "Well, there a lot of ups and downs, but I don't regret marring, not a day of it." [Transcribed by Kathy (Givens) Crump ] ======================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation. 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