UPSON COUNTY, GA - HISTORY Memories of East Thomaston ***************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm *********************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: David Covington East Thomaston Memories When I started school, I went to the first second and third grade in mill houses converted into classrooms. After the war the Hightowers built the elementary school on Park Lane acrss from East Thomaston Baptist Church and I was able to attend fourth grade in the new building. We had this wonderful principal named Mary Mitchell who was a surpurb educator. I went there thru eighth grade and then to R E Lee for my high school years. Also after the war the streets were paved. Before they were nothing but red mud with ditches on each side. The cars were constantly being stuck in the ditches. We had fire places for heat and used coal which was sold to us by the mill. For cooking we had a wood stove and bought stove wood from Clyde Rogers who cut it up and sold it to us. Occassionally the stove pipe would come loose and fill the kitchen with soot. What a mess that was. There was a hugh building on Avenue H called the tablenacle which was also used by the E. Thomaston Methodist Church until the present church was built. It was also used for other things, such as I graduated from elementary school there. They also had a wonderful presentation of "The Messiah" with a combination of church choirs and was wonderful. They also had traveling gospel groups perform there and other types of entertainment. behind Avenue D there was huge pastureland which was used by the village people to keep their cows. the mill built cow stalls to be used for milking and housing the cows during severe weather. There was also an area with hog pens where hogs were reared. I remember us keeping hogs there and we always killed ours around Thanksgiving and it was a major undertaking. We had a huge iron washpot in our back yard which was used for boiling our clothings and also rendering the lard when we killed hogs. My grandmother made soap from meat scraps and Red Devil lye and this was used only for washing clothes. In winter, our clothes would freeze on the line. We had an ice box and there was a man with a horse and wagon who delivered ice. There was a card used to let him know how many pounds of ice you wanted and he brought it into the house and put it in the ice box. We used to jump up on the wagon and get the smalls pieces of ice that slivered off when he cut the blocks up. The front porch was the place to be in summer as there was no air condition and in the evening we sat out in the rockers and swings and neighbors would come over and I, as a small child loved nothing better than to listen to the talk among the old folks. What a learning experience. Rev. Herbert Morgan was one of the preachers at East Thomaston Baptist Church.. I also knew a lady named Grace Kennington who played the piano there at the time. She was a sister to Pauline Deloach who played piano at the Baptist Tabernacle. I was delivered into this world by an old doctor named Dr. McKenzie. He was well known around Thomaston and delivered lots of babies. At the time, we were all born at home. Thomaston had no hospital then. Later on our doctor was named Woodall. He and two of his brothers, James, Pruitt and he, Frank all praticed medicine there. I had a teacher named Cathleen Ferguson who taught me in third grade. She and two of her sisters all were teachers. I also had a teacher named Mrs Cason who taught me in 5th grade who was excellent. I remember when an area of Thomaston called Five Points existed. It is there no more, but at the time it contained a church, a fish market, Hellners Dept. Store and several other stores. Across from there was the Thomaston Baseball Stadium. They had a good baseball team and one of the good ones was Hugh Frank Radcliffe who later played, I think for the Philadelphia team. Another good player was named Pepper Martin, whose wife, Catherine went to our church for a while.