UPSON COUNTY, GA - HISTORY  Memories  David Covington

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David Covington's East Thomaston Memories


My grandfather moved to Thomaston in 1924 with his wife and five daughters, my mother being one of them. My mother went to work in the "Old Mill" at age 14 and worked there over 50 years. they began attending the East Thomaston Baptist Church as they lived on Avenue E which is the next street over from Avenue F where the church was located. At the time, I think, according to what my mother told me, the preacher was Preacher English. in 1939 Hobart Linkous came there from Chattanooga, Tn as pastor. He brought with him Professor Wade Conn, who was a musician and piano teacher, and Roy Lucas who was also a musician. They worked previously for the Stamps Baxter Music Company which was located in Chattanooge and Dallas, Texas. They sold song books which contained gospel songs then known as Convention Songs. East Thomaston had a fabulous choir then and some years after their move to the new church on Park Lane, which was built by the Hightower family, along with a Methodist Church which faced each other. The Singing Schools were given in churches and the teachers came from the Music Company, usually, and taught people in the churches Shaped note singing, how to read the notes which was a pretty simple thing.
The churches would have revivals which usually featured a guest preacher, usually from out of town, and usually lasted from one to two weeks, every night.
Mr Conn taught piano to Harold Morgan and Pauline McSwain Deloach who were both pianist for East Thomaston Baptist and The Baptist Tabernacle.
My family, along with other families, for some reason pulled out of the East Thomaston Church and started a church in a store front building on Barnesville Street called the Baptist Tabernacle. I have never known why they pulled away, but that is where I went during my youth. I would occassionally go back to East Thomaston Church as I loved their music.
There was also the Upson County Singing Convention, which met, usually in the summer, at different churches and sang all day long, wich a break for lunch. The new Stamps Baxter Song books came out about twice a year, so they had to learn all of the new songs. Occassionally they would meet at the Thomaston Court House and I attended many of these programs.
Lots of wandering, I know, but just a few of the things I remember as a child.

On teachers:  I cannot ever give enough credit for the wonderful teachers during my life as a student.  In grade school there was Mrs. Cason whose brother in law, I think, owned O. W. Jones Hardware Store which was a major merchant in the town, selling not only, hardware, but toys, dishes, pots and pans and lots of other needs. In seventh grade there was Mrs. Oxner who was wonderfu, but her husband in my freshman year in high school terrified me, as he taught math and that was not one of my better subjects. He was very intimidating and had no sympathy for anyone who could not grasp his teaching techniques.  I think I hated him.


In high school, there wa Mrs. Blanche Shehee, history, Mrs. Little John in English, which I excelled in. The best one was Ms. Lee Holder, who made me love poetry and literature.  She had a passion for it and is responsible for my love of reading to this day.  Also there was Mrs. Lydia Kate Greene.  She had a wonderful sense of humor and if you nodded off at your desk, she would pound on your desk with a ruler and exclaim:  "Wake Up, The British are Coming" 


My grandfather, who died in 1939, was the gate watchman at the old mill.  His name was David Monroe Darsey and his brother, James Oscar Darsey was the watchman at the Bleachery Division of Thomaston Mills. when he died, he left behind 5 daughters and a widow. My father left my mother when I was about 4 years old, my mothers youngest sisters husband left her also, so there we were, two daughters with 5 children total, one old maid aunt, and no men to look up to. We made it, but were rather poor.


I remember that we had a peacan tree in the back yard and at Christmastime had to shell peacans for the Christmas cakes.  We never got much at Christmas, but did get skates a couple of years.  A steep hill at the end of Avenue F called Wombles Hill was used to skate down and get lots of skinned knees.  We also used this hill to ride down on our home made wagons.


My mother said during the depression that the mill owners would put bushels baskets of cabbages at the front gate for the employers to keep them from starving.  She said they sometimes got one day of work a week and were paid 50 cents for the day and were glad to get it. We had a garden in our back yard and my grandmother grew lots of vegetables to can and eat.We also raised some chickens for eggs and to eat, so really didn't know that we were poor.


I remember lots of the stores on the Courthouse square, one in particular, Moores Dime Store.  It was like heaven for a child as the first thing you saw upon entering the store was this glass candy counter with lots of penny candy.  There were also lots of toys. it was the first place in Thomaston to have air condition, and back then there was a strange odor to it, but the first time I walked into that store out of the very hot summer heat and felt it, I knew that heaven had arrived.

I certainly remember the cafes, one was called the Silver Moon Cafe, and Ms Gaddy also made wonderful chili.
Mr. Walt Kersey had, who originally had a store on Ave. F and later moved to Barnesville St. was a wonderful person.  He was so good to the poor and kept charge accounts for us.  He also came by every Sunday morning and collected us for Sunday School at the Baptist Tabernacle on Hightower St.


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 the preacher at East Thomaston
Baptist.  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.

I remember when we first got a radio station in Thomaston
and what a joy to be able to listen to the afternoon soap
opera type programs such as The B Bar B Ranch and Beulah
at night.  Also remember Jeff Davis and Bill Huguhley who
were announcers and disc jockeys.  They played the
wonderful big band music and I loved it.  they had a
program at noon called "Town Topics" which was a program
about the news going on in the community.


Also, as I was so interested in music, I studied piano
with Alice Page, pianist for the Thomaston Church of God,
and also for a while with Harold Morgan, who played off
and on at East Thomaston Baptist Church.  But the most
memorable person who influenced my music was my teach,
Mr. Suggs.  He was a member of the Suggs Chevrolet dealer
family and apparently well off.  When I studied music
with him, he was rather old, but absolutely elegant as
anyone could be. He had gone to studied music at the
Chicago Conservatory of Music and was a teacher of
classical music.  He was strict, but good.   

The name of the dime store was Ellis Dime store.  My
sister worked there after school and on Saturday. The
Hotel across from the old mill shut down for a while and
my aunt, Jewell Campbell and her husband lived there in
ordr for them to keep the insurance up.  What a beautiful
building.  they have town down too many such as that.

I remember my first grade teach, Ms. Miriam Smith.  She
was a sister to Mrs. Minor who was burned to death in the
Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta which killed over a
hundred people.  Mrs. Smith was a very good teacher.


Also remember when we got our first telephone in the
40's. Ruby Duke, a friend of our family was an operator
and when you picked up the phone she would ask you for
the number. We always said, Ruby get us Aunt so and so or
whoever you were calling and she always knew who we
meant.


I remember the drug stores on the Thomaston Square. They
all had soda fountains with sandwiches, milk shakes etc
They were City Drugs, Reeves Pharmacy and my favorite,
McClellans Drug Store. Kelly Lindsey was the soda jerk
there and he made the best Chicken salad and pimento
cheese sandwiches you ever ate. ,