UPSON COUNTY, GA - I Remember by Hartford Pryor 2003 ***************** 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: Jan 2003 I REMEMBER by Hartford Pryor I remember, in the 1960's, when I worked in the cloth room as head inspector at the Thomaston Mills Division from 8 till 4 (8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.). After I finished my shift, 1 would often go to other departments and work. One day I was working in the #2 weave room and I noticed a pretty little teenaged girl who was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans with a red white and blue patch on her hip. The patch had some writing on it. Curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to know what it said. Her back was to me and I worked my way toward her so that I could see whai was on the patch. I did. It said, "If you can read this you are too __ close (the word was spelled out on the patch) After I read it, it did not take me too long to move on. I remember in the 1930's and 1940's when the B. F. Goodrich Company owned all of the houses in Silvertown Plant Manager Albert Matthews gave his brother Milwood the job of personnel manager and yard man for the Silvertowr Village. Mr. Milwood was a strict mar and wanted the village kept clean anc beautiful. He would hold contests for thi most beautiful yard. Winners got a $5.00 prize and their picture in the Silvertowr Cord. (The Cord was a paper put out by the mill and edited by Joe Medcalf.) Mr. Milwood was so interested in keeping everything pretty that when winter approached he would send a truck around the village to collect the large flower pots for storage in the basement of the school on Deluxe Circle. When spring came the flower pots were delivered back to the correct owners. I remember in my young days, thought I had to work 60 hours a week In old age, those days are gone. February 2003 I REMEMBER Hartford Pryor One day I was at the Upson County Senior Citizen Club and as one of the men came in, I asked how he was feeling He said, "I'm eating Moon Pie, drinking RC Cola and singing Maple on the Hill. He laughed and asked me if I knew what he was talking about. I said, "Yes," but has been a long time since I heard that statement. There is a story behind each phrase. I will try to explain. In the 1930's times were hard. Since 1917 the Chattanooga Bakery had been making Moon Pies. They were made two large round gram crackers with marshmallow filling and coated with chocolate. Costing just 5 cents trey really caught on during the Depression. Next, think about R. C. Cola. At time you could buy a 6 ounce Coca Cola for 5 cents and everyone wanted one go with their Moon Pie. Then in 1934 company m Columbus, the Nehi Bottle Company, came out with a 12ounce drink called Royal Crown Cola. People went wild over it because of it's size called it a "belly washer."' Now for the Maple on the Hill. the 1930's there was a program on the radio from Nashville, Tennessee, called "The Grand Ole Oprey." It originated 1925. The program came on every Saturday night. In those days people looked forward to the county singing Everyone would sit on their front porch to listen to it. You could walk the streets of East Thomaston and never miss a word. A country singer named Bill Monroe came out with a song, Maple on the Hill. People liked it and he sang every Saturday night. Someone then coined the phrase, "Eating Moon Pies, drinking R. C. Cola and singing Maple on the Hill and it meant, "I'm feeling fine.". March 2003 I REMEMBER by Hartford Pryor I remember how during the last months of World War II, I was stationed at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and was granted a fifteenday furlough. While at home (303 South Main Street on the Peerless Mill Village), I developed a case of influenza. This was when doctors made house calls. Mother called Dr. T. A. Sappington whose office was located at 301 South Green Street, then known as the Dr. R. L. Carter and Dr. B. C. Adams Clinic. (It is now owned by the First Baptisl. Church.) When Dr. Sappington came to prescribe medicine for me, I asked him if he had something for the backache. He asked me what had happened to me. I told him that I was in a training company for new recruits teaching them how to pick up a wounded man on the battlefield. While the sergeant explained the process, I had to actually pick up a man and put him on my shoulder. We did this everyday and that is how I hurt my back. He asked me if I had reported the injury. I told him, "No, I'm afraid it would hold me up from getting my discharge. When I said that, he jumped on me with both feet and said, "Oh ___, when you get back to the camp you report it right away. You do not know what will happen when you get into old age." How right he was! The older I get, the worse my backache gets. Thanks to Dr. Sappington, I am now reaping all of the benefits of a veteran. I can also remember when there was nothing but wild plum trees where the East Thomaston Baptist and Hightower Methodist Churches now stand. One day a man by name of Torbert (father of the late Billy Torbert) came through the orchard and was attacked by some boys. This did not stop Mr. Torbert. In a few April 2003 I REMEMBER by Hartford Pryor I REMEMBER, on one occasion during high school, Coach Jackson whipped three boys with a large paddle You could hear the licks all the way down the hall. He made them lean over a table and gave them three licks each. They weren't easy lick either. You might ask me how I know. I wasn't one of the three, but I was a witness. Don't think I didn't get my share whippings at home. I remember the 1ast one I received from my mother. At this particular time, there were no lawns the Peerless Mill Village. People would keep the yards swept clean with a brush broom. Men from the country would come to town selling the brooms. They were made from branches taken from Dogwood trees. One day my mother had me sweeping yards. My playmates came by and asked me to come play with the I hurried up my chore and did a poor job My mother made me get her a switch from a hedge in the alley behind the house. When she saw it, she said wasn't brg enough and made me go get another one. The whipping wasn't that bad, it was the embarrassment of my friends watching that was awful Thank God for a mother and daddy who cared enough to discipline. We need more parents like that today. I remember when Thrush was disease often seen in children. It was a caused by a fungus and characterized by the formation of milky white lesions on the mouth, lips, and throat. Someone taught my Daddy how to get rid of it. Mothers would bring their small children to him, but he would not let anyone what he did. He would take the child into another room and close the door. Their thrush was healed , but no ever one found out how it was done. May 2003 I REMEMBER by Hartford Pryor Sometimes we wonder where certain roads and streets get their name. Here is the story behind Double Bridges Road. About 10 miles west of town on the Flint River there is an island. Upson County built a bridge over to the island on our side and Talbot County built a bridge to the island on their side. This happened in 1860 or earlier. The two bridges remained there until 1865 when, during the Civil War, Wilson's raiders of the Union Army came through while going from Columbus to Macon. These Yankee troops destroyed the bridges, but the name of the roads that led to them stuck. (The name of the island is Owens Island and it is about one mile down the river from Spewrell Bluff.) I remember when, in the vicinity of the present Department of Family and Children's Services, there was a large clothing store owned by Mrs. Lucy Hellner (a relative of the late Gussie Kass). Everyone loved Mrs. Hellner. She had a thriving business. One day, to everyone's surprise she had a "going out of business sale;" but the store did not close. A few months would pass and she would have another such sale. Finally, everyone learned that it was a sales gimmick. During one of her sales she was returning from Macon with a load of stock and had a serious wreck. Then one day she did go out of business, but it was not because she wanted to close those doors. Her store caught fire and burned down. I remember when Brother Herbert Morgan, was preaching at the East Thomaston Baptist Church and a drunk man came in and walked up the aisle saying, "I want to talk to preacher Morgan." I took him to another room. After the service, Brother Morgan came and prayed with him. Missing Issues: June, July, August, Sept 03 October 2003 I REMEMBER By Hartford Pryor I remember a man who could not remember. I will simply call him James. My first recollection of him was when he worked in the spinning room at Thomaston Mills. His job was to supply the proper yarn for all the women to make the filling for the cloth. The yarn was marked with colored chalk to say what ply it was. The women would tell him to bring the brown mark and he would bring the blue. One day one of the ladies told him to bring a certain color and he came back with an empty box. After several months on this job, he was transferred to the cloth room where I worked. After working with us several months, he quit and did not do anything for a while. Then when he did decide to come back to work, Thomaston Mills hired him again. This time they gave him a job as a mail clerk. He would go to the post office, pick up the mail, take it to the Town Office on East Main Street and separate it. Some of the mail he left at the Town Office, the rest he would deliver to the Peerless Mill, the Bleachery, or the Thomaston Division. One day as he came to bring the mail to the Old Mill he came inside to chat with us in the cloth room since he had not seen us in a long time. When his visit was over, rather than going to his truck he walked out the back gate onto Mill Avenue and then down Barnesville Street to East Main St right back to the mailroom at the Town Office before he realized that he had forgotten his truck. He had to get someone to bring him back to the Old Mill to pick up his truck, a distance of about a mile and a half. This is a prize story about forgetfulness. Who has got a better one? Send it to me if you do. November 2003 I REMEMBER By Hartford Pryor I remember Otis Jones. In the late 1940's, everyone was familiar with the "blind man's store" at the comer of Holstun Drive and Triune Mill Road. Many have wanted to know about him. Here is his story. Otis was bom in 1897 in Cairo, Georgia. At the age of 2, he fell off the porch and injured his optic nerve and became blind. Otis was also scared up very badly when he crawled into an open fireplace. Otis went to grammar school at the Academy for the Blind in Macon, Georgia. Mr. Claude Jones, Otis's brother, lived in Cairo too; but in March 1933 he and his family moved to Thomaston. After the family had settled on Walker Street, Claude went to work and sent for his mother and his blind brother. Otis, who was then 36, lived with Claude and his family. Otis set up his first stand to sell goodies at the Charles Williams Trucking Co. on East Walker and Hightower Street, then known as Railroad Street. Otis had very sensitive hands. He could even make change with paper money. He walked from his house on Walker Street with his cane every day. Next, Claude had a small store built for him at Triune Mill and Holstun Drive. All of the kids loved to go to the blind man's store. Elizabeth Garrett, who was a friend of Otis' and lived on Avenue F, would walk and carry him his dinner quite often. After several years, Otis eventually moved back to Cairo to live with a sister. Later he returned to Thomaston and lived at a boarding house on West Main Street with a family named Yarbrough and had a stand there. He was active until he died of a heart attack on August 10,1958. December 2003 1 REMEMBER By Hartford Pryor I remember how years ago an unusual set of steps appeared behind the "Old Mill" At the back gate of the Thomaston Division there was a railroad that had a deep embankment. In the late 1930's or early 1940's Thomaston Mills had a set of steps made to go down the embankment and one to go up on the other side. Each flight had about 30 steps. As a boy I often wondered why these steps were there in such an unusual place. Later 1 found out . On Park Lane, across from the back gate, there were several houses. Mr. Robert Adams, Plant Manager, lived in one of them, but it has been torn down. Mr. W. R., Bames, Spinning Room Manager, and Mr. Raymond Black, Card Room Manager, lived in two others. If they walked to and from the mill, they had to come down Park Lane to the intersection of Mill Avenue and then walk to the back gate to get into the mill. They steps were built just for them. All of this was done before very many people were able to own a car. After the people living in the Bleachery Village and on Cedar Row learned of this, they started using the steps to go to Barnesville Street for their groceries at Mr. Walter Kersery's ' or Mr. M. E. Day's grocery stores. The men on the railroad would also use them to contact the gate watchmen to open the gate so that they could come inside the mill yard, as Thomaston Mills did a lot of shipping by train. When I came home from the Army the steps were still there. They remained in place until some time in the 1950's when they were removed. I never learned why they were taken down. Most likely, they were removed for safety reasons.