Tribute To Charles Columbus Shaw

Little known facts about Charles Shaw in reply to a letter from one of his children.

In thinking back, Charles had a lot of leadership skills early on. When he was inducted into military service at Ft Mac, they gave him the choice of what branch of service he wanted to serve in. He chose the Marines. He was put "in charge" of a group that were traveling together to the Marine base in San Diego, California for his basic training. His later service was in the South Pacific until the end of the war in 1945.

Charles Shaw served two years in the Marine Corps from 1943-1945. I think his leadership qualities must have been recognized because he only had a High School education at the time.

Charles, like most Marines, as the Marine hymn states, was “proud to be member of the United States Marines.” He served in the Marine Corps, Semper fidelis in World War II in the South Pacific.


“Always faithful“ was more than a motto to Charles and to his buddies and also to the wives and widows of these men, who do not question that they (not we) were indeed the “greatest generation.” In other words, we respected each other.

When he was a teenager, Charles wrote the "love letters" for many of his buddies. I can testify...he was good at it! Before we were married , he wrote to me every week. When he was away in the Marine Corps, he wrote several letters each week. I am sorry we did not keep the letters.
Another thing your daddy did as a teen ager which shows his uniqueness was "adopt" a child at the Methodist Children's Home. There had been something presented in church about the need. So Charles asked to "adopt a child" and spent some of his "hard earned money" on toys and clothes for the child they assigned him. I suspect many if not most of those who chose to participate in the "adopt a child" project of the church were people older and with more money.

He, as you know, was a wonderfully tender hearted man. And a worker!He delivered newspapers as a young boy. Later he had a Dry Cleaning route where he went around from house to house and collected clothes his customers wanted cleaned, took them to a Dry Cleane Service in Conyers. Later in the week he went back to Conyers to get the cleaned clothes and delivered and collected the payments. He made only a pittance but every little bit helped.

As soon as he was old enough, he went to work for Calloway Mills. He made the amazing salary of 25 cents an hour. As was common in those depression years, he gave all his paychecks to his Dad and Mother to help with household expenses. He did this right up to the week we were married.

Your questions have started me thinking about WHY we did not keep his Marine stuff together. It was not a time when one thought about family history as much as they do now. Mainly we did not think of family history because there was not leisure time then as now.

We lead such a busy life with him taking advantage of the Veterans Bill of Right to go back to school and finish college and then going for 3 years more of Seminary and such busy pastorates which he continued with love and committment after two heart attacks and bi-pass surgery and until death.

Happy Birthday Lyn.

Happy Birthday to Lyn! My first grandchild, Lyn - is married to her high school sweetheart, is now the mother of two daughters and a son and is a dedicated school teacher . She and her husband and chidren have recently moved to our town . So it is good to get to be with her and her husband and their beautiful children more often

I wrote the post below a couple of years ago about a book she gave me and post it again on her birthday. She is outstanding, not just to her grandmother but to all who know her.

THE RELATIVES CAME:
Our large extended family (numbering more than 50 now) has celebrated Christmas together on December 26 for over 20 years. This allows for individual family or “other family” gatherings on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

My precious granddaughter Lyn is a thoughtful gift buyer. Among other gifts, she gave me a book entitled The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. I have read and looked at the pictures…twice! It is a book she reads to her students every year, she tells me. The book reminds her (and me) of all the “hugging, eating and breathing” of our “big, loving, supportive and fun-loving” family.

It may have been a book I needed to read. I was tired and considering whether or not the party was worth all the cooking, cleaning and emotion involved in such a large family celebration.

Was it worth it to my children and grandchildren who drove across the state and some across several states to get here?

Clearly, it is a great ocassion for all the young children (age 6 to 13) who take turns being Santa Claus and handing out gifts. It seem to be "worth any trouble" to the little children who love to play together with siblings and cousins on the lawn or in the "children's bed room" in the house here.

Charles Columbus Shaw- May 21, 1919- Dec 3, 1986

IN LOVING MEMORY Charles Columbus Shaw- (May 21, 1919- Dec 3, 1986,) The photo to the right ( below )shows Charles as a four year old standing in front of his Dad, Grady Columbus Shaw His 15 months younger brother James Edward is standing in front of their mother Lillian Wilkerson Shaw.

The photo on the left is Charles at 18, just a year before he and I were married on August 5, 1938. I was three and a half years younger than he.

I thought it might be a good way to honor Charles today by following the lead of my daughter Joan in her Daddy's Roses Blog a few years ago. Joan helped me set up the Ruthlace Blog moniker back in 2005 and is a computer whiz as well as the the family expert in all thing English and Spanish.

Several years ago on Daddys' Roses, Joan wrote a great post , citing 13 differences in her and her DH. (Darling Husband). In honor of my Husband;s birthday, here is aare mine again:

1…. Movies. Charles loved movies, especially the old cowboy movies. I am not much of a movie fan. I have seen probably less than a half a dozen in a theater in the last 20 years and not many more on Television.

2.... Seafood. Charles and I both liked sea food. We both grew up eating fish caught fresh from the Yellow River.

3.... Sunday School. Like many pastors, he was not a regular in one Sunday School Class. I enjoyed very much being a part of a Sunday School Class from childhood on and have taught classes in all the churches where DH was pastor.

4.... Pets. Neither of us had much time for pets. We did have Hercules, a chihuahua when the children were small and later a German Shepherd who "followed David home" from school. David named the big dog "Rex" (the name of his Dad's childhood dog) as soon as they arrived home. Rex loved to swim in the large lake in the neighborhood in East Point.

5.... Vacation Spots. We both enjoyed camping and family gatherings. Charles also loved fishing and hunting and once caught an 18 inch Brown Trout in an Ellijay mountain stream much to the delight of our children and some of the neighbor children who were splashing in the water. He had the fish mounted by Rev. Bob Cagle, who had answered the call to preach and as a student and member of our UMC in Ellijay.

6.... Temperature. I am the cold-natured one who now wears long sleeves even in the Summer. This may be an old age thing.

7.... Time of Day. He was a night owl; I am an early bird. When he was in Seminary at Candler, he would stay up all night writing papers or studying for an exam. On the other hand, I went to Seminary after his death and would go to bed early and get up at 4 to write any paper that required creativity.

8.... Food. We both throughly enjoyed a dinner of fresh turnip greens and cornbread with a glass of buttermilk as a complete meal after all our children were out of the nest. A meal with dried beans cooked from scratch as the main course was also a welcomed meal to both of us. We failed in passing along the love of fresh greens and those wonderful dried beans protein source to our children?

9.... Family of Origin. I am the youngest of nine and the only one still living. Charles was the oldest of five boys. The last of his four brothers died in Janurary of this year at age 85. My father died when I was 9 but Charles and I both had strong family ties with parents and siblings.

10.... TV Shows. He enjoyed the old cowboy and war movies or shows like Gunsmoke and M.A.S.H. I prefer a situation comedy like Designing Women or Mattlock. . In recent years, I have lost interst in most of the TV offerings.

11.... Health. He had serious hearing and ear problem from World War II experiences. His first heart attack and by -pass surgery was at age 59 and his final one at age 67. Most of my health issues, except for painful TriGeminal neuralgia episodes from 1990 on have been after age 82.

12.... Religion. Both of us very serious, some might say "overly serious" Christians.

13.... Blog. I enjoy all forms of writing and still write as I live! I doubt that he would have gotten into blogging as he left much of the family writing (Christmas letters etc.) up to me. He was an outgoing and charismatic extrovert. I am more introverted. He would sometimes have me edit pastoral reports and letters while he made sick calls. However he read widely books of Theology and the Bible , was good in New Testament Greek , was gifted in Biblical preaching.

The Giles's Girls and Quilt Making.

When I think of quilts, I always think of the Giles sisters.

My mother had cousins she and her siblings called the "Giles girls." Three of the girls never married. One of their specialties was quilt making. In one of the bedrooms in their country home (near Fayetteville) there was a stack of beautiful quilts that reached all the way to the ceiling. Not just an eight foot ceiling, but a country ceiling! And the platform that held the quilts was just a few inches off the floor.

When I went with my family to visit as a child, we were always awestruck to see such a mountainous stack of quilts. And they were folded only once, and the corners matched perfectly
Whenever anyone mentioned the Giles sister, someone would say, "I wonder whatever happened to all those quilts." I do not know. With no children nor grandchildren to wear the quilts out sleeping on the floor, they may be heirlooms in some home.
Hopefully some of the neices or nephews have them.

Mama loved and respected her Giles cousins and had played with them as a child so we visited as often as possible even though we lived some distance apart.
I remember them in our home a few times. The family lore is full of stories of the perculiarity of the "Giles girls." On one of their visits to our house, we were all sitting around at bedtime in the "sitting room - bedroom."

The slop jar had already been brought in. I do not remember all the circumstances but my four year old nephew was asleep on one of the beds. Lula said to Mama, in her slow speech typical of the Hollywood stereotype of the Southern drawl, "Eula do you think it would be alright for me to use the slop jar with that little boy in the room."

But life goes on. God bless the memory of these quaint Giles sisters who so facinated us in my childhood.

The Giles sisters were perfect housekeepers. Their country house was said to be so so clean one could "eat off the floor." I am sure no one ever did!

Annie (1885-1975) and Lula (1882-1956)were in charge of the cooking and Pearl (1888-1978)did much of the work in the large garden. They raised their own vegetables for year round use. They canned vegetables and dried fruits for winter use. I remember sitting at their table one time as a child with bowls of vegetables and a huge platter of fresh sliced country tomotoes. I do not remember much about the rest of the menu, but no doubt they also had fried chicken and perhaps another meat dish as a typical "company" dinner in the rural South.

Their mother, Aunt Elmira (Elmira Mask Giles 1854_1940)) was a sister
to Mama's mother, Elizabeth Mask Dick. Elmira and Elizabeth were the daughters of the properous (for the times) farmer and Methodist preacher Bogan Mask. They could (and did ) trace their (our) family history back to the Revolution. Family history was important as "Class" was valued in the South with so many other things "gone with the wind" after the Civil War. It is strange and of little importance to me now but my mother told us on more than one ocassion we "came from good stock."

One of the Giles daughters, Odell, had married, and their only brother had married; but Annie, Pearl, and Lula never married. When Mama and her sisters, Aunt Molly, Aunt Cora and Aunt Fannie visited together, they sometimes remarked about how "pitiful" it was that the Giles girls had never married. Marriage for women was considered of utmost inportance then. So it follows that many of the Women's liberation generation rebelled in the oposite direction.

Aunt Cora pointed out that the reason the Giles girls did not marry was because their papa, Uncle William Giles )1859-1826) was so "peculiar." They said Uncle Bill Giles was "curious".

This did not mean the dictionary reference for the word as eager to learn or inquisitive.
Uncle Bill, they reported was " flat out cure-rus" which meant strange.. He would never let his daughters date. It was said that he "ran off" every man who showed an interest in courting one of his daughters.

It seems that the youngest daughter, Odell had "run off and got married."

Profiling

The column in the Rome New-Tribune by Cheryl Huffman on January 7 should be read nationwide.

Coming home with her husband from a honeymoon in France, a tiny jar of peach perserves was confiscated and Huffman was delayed endlessly. It illustrates the lengths we have taken since 9/11 to avoid anything that could be labeled “profiling.”

Certainly, the next terrorist who tries to board one of our planes will have learned something from the failed attempt of Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The next "would be " bomber will not likely buy a one way ticket and may even bleach his hair to avoid any of the glaring red flags of the Christmas day terrorist. But he almost certainly cannot disguise as an Anglo-Saxon/Celtic/Slavic women.

It is true that all Muslins are not terrorists. This seems to be the major concern of many of the Muslin leaders who get on television. This was a concern of President Bush who went too far to avoid anything that could be labeled “profiling.” No intelligent person believes all Muslins are terrorists.

We are also aware, as is often pointed out, of men like Timothy McVey, the atheist Caucasian young man who was tried, convicted and put to death in the 1990's.

But we have to know also, that all of the terrorists since 9/11 have been Muslin Males between the ages of 14 and 50? All! Surely innocent Muslin American men know this and can understand why they should be questioned more often and more seriously (even if it is labeled “profiling”) than a Caucasian women returning home from France with a tiny jar of French preserves?

Happy Mother's Day 2010

I never knew Mama (Ieula Ann Dick Baird: March 6, 1885-December 7,1973.) as the young women in the picture to the left. She was 37 when I was born as the youngest of 11, nine of who grew to adulthood.

Mama told me stories about her life as a lttle girl as we slept in the same bed in our smaller home after my fathers death when i was nine.

My mother had also been raised by a widowed mother. Her young father had died when she was only 18 months old and while her mother was pregnant with her youngest brother. There were four older sisters and an older brother. She was reared in a small house on her maternal grandfather's large farm. Mama once told how, as a little girl, she would sometimes rub her mother's cold feet to warm them on freezing winter nights. She adored her hard working mother. With tears in her eyes, Mama also told me of the last time she saw her mother. She had watched her mother's horse and buggy out of sight down the long dusty road in front of their modest country home. When she got word her mother was dying, (around 1917) Mama took a train from their home in Oak Hill (near Conyers) but her mother had already died when she arrived in Griffin.

I started the first "Mothers Day post" on Ruthlace in 2005 by reminding all of us that to become a mother is not to become a saint. We all would agree there are saintly mothers and there are self centered, even criminal mothers. Most of us as mothers find our place somewhere in between.

Yet, in spite of the seemingly endless nausea and misery of pregnancy and tramatic pain of childbirth, the incredible love we have for that helpless and amazingly beautiful baby when it is finally born is awesome. There is something about motherhood that tends to bring out the best in most of us. Most of use can identify with Erma Bombeck who said; "...the easiest part of being a mother is giving birth. The hardest part is showing up on the job each day."

As adults, most of us also have an emotional attachment and love for our mother and come to Mother's Day thinking about our own mother and not about some honor due us if we also happen to be a mother. In cases where the mother has such personal problems as to neglect, abuse or abandon the child there is always unbelievable sorrow. Just the thought of "mother" brings about great emotion in many of us.

I remember one Saturday before Mothers Day when I was sitting in the sanctuary with our church music director. We were discussing the music for the next day and got into conversation about some of the old Mother's Day hymns. She mentioned two old gospel songs; "That Silver Haired Mother of Mine" and "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again." We both choked up.

Charles Swindoll's book, entitled Living Beyond The Daily Grind, has a chapter, "The Grind of Motherhood." Is there any one of us who will not agree that in addition to the many joys of motherhood and the endless rewards, motherhood is a four letter word called "Work." Swindoll puts it this way; "The daily mounds of laundry, ironing, folding, cleaning , cooking, car pooling, being a referee, a coach, and encourager, a counselor, a cop, staying pretty, remaining tactful, loveable, compassionate, cheerful, responsible, balanced and sane..."

My daughter, Deborah Lewis, wrote a book in 1990, later put out in paperback which I think is one of the best on the subject of Motherhood Stress. If you have not read it, I recommend it. On the cover is a woman stretched out across two mountain peaks, with children walking across her, and the sub title is "Finding Encouragement in the Ultimate Helping Profession." Motherhood is the ultimate helping profession and parents are encouraged to realize the importance of the job.

I was in my early fifties when my mother died. Even though I had a husband and seven children, I will never forget the sense of lone-liness and loss I felt to realize my mother was no longer in my world.

The above photo is of my mother with her youngest grandchildren and some of her great grandchildren made at her home in March of 1960 or 1961 at our annual homecoming which we celebrated every year near her March 6 birth date. Until the last few days of her life, she lived in her own home and took care of herself. I am old enough now to realize it was not an easy thing to do. (The three youngest Shaw children are seen in the photo above. The two girls standing behind the sofa are Deborah Ruth Shaw Lewis and Jane Ann Baird Lathem. Four of the children in the part of the photo seen are great gandchildren. Far right (the his arms crossed) is David Baird Shaw. Next is Charles "Chuck" Jerry Baird , son of Jerry and Pat Baird and grandson of Ruth and Charlie Baird. Don't write it in stone but I think next little boy is Danny Loyd, the son of Benny and Evelyn Loyd (the grandson of Pelham and Vera Loyd. Sharlyn Beth Shaw Roszel is sitting next to her grandmother and the little girl next to her is Diane Loyd Gage, daughter of Benny and Evelyn Loyd.)

My mother had a philosophy of life as a Christian, not to worry about things that “could not be helped” and to take each day as a new beginning. In her honor, I want to again include the ballad I wrote in 1883 to honor my mother.

A BALLAD FOR MY MOTHER
1. My mother grew old. . . had lines etched in her face,
Worked hard all her life. . . with uncommon grace
She lived by the Bible. . . Each day and each mile.
She taught me her secret. . . of life with a smile.

Refrain:
Today is the first day. . . Of the rest of your life.
Don't borrow trouble. . . With yesterday’s strife.
Take time, smell the flowers. . .
It makes life worth while .
Pick up each new day. . . With love and a smile!

2. Widowed while young. . . Mama worked in a mill.
Washed on a scrub-board. . . Brought wood up a hill.
She sang as she labored. . . to stay out of debt.
She taught me a lesson. . . I'll never forget.
Refrain:

3. One day I said, "Mama,. . . Your life has been hard.
You've buried two babies. . . Out in the church yard.
You've known all the heartache. . . of struggling for bread."
She smiled through her tears and these words she sai

4. Her old fashioned teacakes? We ate the last crumb!
Her old fashioned flowers? She had a green thumb!
She lived by the Bible. . . Each day and each mile.
She taught me her secret. . . of life with a smile.

Refrain:
Today is the first day. . . Of the rest of your life.
Don't borrow trouble. . . With yesterday’s strife.
Take time. . . smell the flowers.
It makes life worth while.
Pick up each new day with joy and a smile.

Ruth Baird Shaw<><

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mother’s Day! We are all either the son or the daughter of a mother. So in that capacity all of us fit into a Mother’s Day Celebration.

As a Mother myself, I have had a difficult time with some of the sermons I have heard on Mother's Day, They make us all …all mothers "angels." One would get the idea that to become a mother is to become a saint.

Erma Bombeck said, "The easiest part of being a mother is giving birth. The hardest part is showing up on the job every day." And I might add it is showing up 24/7.

We all know there are loving, hard working, good mothers and there are also selfish and neglectful and not so good mothers. Most of us as mothers find our place somewhere in between.

At the same time, there is something about motherhood that tends to bring out the best in us. The seemingly endless nausea, misery and pain of pregnancy and childbirth mixed with that incredible love that we have for that helpless and amazingly beautiful baby when it is finally born is awesome.

It is awesome to be a mother. No wonder so many of us feel so inadequate we fall on our knees and seek the wisdom of God.

Many of us, probably most of us as adults have an emotional attachment and love for our mother. And in cases where the mother has such personal problems as to neglect, abuse or abandon the child there is always unbelievable sorrow. In case where the mother dies while the child is young, there is a great feeling of loss.

Just the thought of "mother" brings about great emotion in many of us. I remember one morning a few days before Mothers Day when I was sitting in the sanctuary at Grantville with our church music director.

We were discussion the music for Mother’s Day and got into conversation about some of the old time songs about mother. She mentioned two of the old gospel songs from her childhood, "That Silver Haired Mother of Mine" and "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again," and we both choked up with tears in our eyes.

Mother seems to see possibilities in us that other people seem to not notice. Just as God sees possibilities in us that we do not see in ourselves and others fail to see.

My father died when i was nine so i was raised by a bright, loving and hard working widow in the 1930 depression years.

Neighbors were an important part of life in the twenties and thirties. My mother used the term "We were neighbor to..
We did not locked our doors even at night when I was a child. Neighbors were in and out of our home all the time; often to borrow a cup of sugar or flour or an egg to finish out a recipe for a cake. Often a neighbor would stop in to share vegetables or cookies.
Sometimes the visits were just to sit and talk. Our house was usually the gathering place after dinner at night on our front porch. Our porch had several rocking chairs as well as a swing that seated two or three.

While the adults were talking, the children played "hide and seek" or "kick the can" out in the front yard or on the unpaved road in front of our house.

My mother lived to be nearly 89 years old and she had a philosophy of life as a Christian, not to worry about things that “could not be helped” and to take each day as a new beginning. I wrote a ballad for Mama:

1. My mother grew old...
Had lines etched in her face
Worked hard all her life. . .
With uncommon grace
She lived by the Bible. . .
And I'd visit awhile
She taught me her secret. . .
of life with a smile

She said: "Today is the first day
Of the rest of your life.
Don't borrow trouble
With yesterday’s strife.
Take time. . . smell the flowers
Make life worth while
Pick up each new day
With love and a smile!

Widowed while young. . .
Mama worked in the mill
Washed on a scrub-board. . .
Brought wood up a hill
She sang as she labored. . .
To stay out of debt
She taught me this lesson. . .
I'll never forget!

She said, "Today is the first day
Of the rest of your life
Don't borrow trouble
With yesterday's strife...
Take time...smell the flowers
That makes life worthwhile
Pick up each new day...
With Love and a smile! "

3. One day I said, Mama. . .
Your life has been hard
You've buried two babies. . .
Out in the church yard
You've known all the heartache
Of struggling for bread,
She smiled through her tears..
These words she said:

She said "Today is the first day
Of the rest of your life.
Don't borrow trouble
With yesterday’s strife.
Take time. . . smell the flowers
That makes life worth while
Pick up each new day...
With love and a smile! "

4. Her old fashioned tea cakes. . .
We ate the last crumb
Her old fashioned flowers. . .
She had a green thumb.
She lived by the Bible. . .
Each day and each mile
She taught me her secret. . .
Of life with a smile!

Ruth Baird Shaw

Recipes, Rhymes and Reflections by Ruth Baird Shaw (Second edition)
was recently published,

Recipes, Rhymes and & Reflections is a lifelong collection of time-tested recipes that were given to Ruth by some of Georgia's best cooks.

Along with the recipes are nineteen of Ruth's most popular poems.

Included by request are six meditations and homilies written during Ruth's United Methodist pastoral ministry.

Critics say "Ruth's poetry speaks of human emotions and experiences with a light heart and a profound faith." Ruth is often asked to share both her poetry and homilies with a wide variety of groups.

When Ruth was speaking at a Homecoming service a few years ago,a lady came up after the service to tell Ruth that she read her "Butterfly Poem" every morning as a part of her daily devotional.

Recipes , Rhymes and Reflections is a book of 122 pages selling for only $10. (add $2. postage for mailing ). You can use Ruth's email mailto:emailRuthshaw@aol.com to request a copy giving you name and mailing address.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Try everything that is worth trying! Twice! On Madam's tombstone (of Whelan and Madam) she said she wanted this epitaph: "Tried everything twice...loved it both times!"

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
(Keep this in mind if you are one of those grouches.)

3. Keep learning:
Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening,
whatever. Never let the brain get idle.
"An idle mind is the devil's workshop."
And the devil's name is Alzheimer's!

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and Lots of time with HIM/HER.

6. The tears happen: Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves.
LIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love:
Whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever.
Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health:
If it is good, preserve it.
If it is unstable, improve it.
If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips.
Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county,
to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

Class Relations in the 1920's and 30's.

CLASS RELATIONS

There were many class inequities and much class consciousness in the 1920's and 30's. Mill workers were generally considered inferior. Many things that working class people (both black and white) had to endure were not right.



Celestine Sibley liked to point out that people in the South were proud to be poor and "working class." This meant they were honest and at least not "carpet baggers."



Aubrey Simms, a cousin and I talked briefly about this when he told me how his father did not want him to get a job in one of the cotton mills only a few miles from thir farm, even after it became increasingly difficult to make a living on the farm and unions were making changes such as better wages and decreased working hours in textile mills.

The advent of World War II and the need for textiles for the army made it more "respectable."

No doubt the mill owners and officials were paternalistic toward mill workers. Mill hands! People were called "hands"! It is difficult to be intelligent (or so we thought) and perceptive and have to work 12 hours a day for barely enough income to survive. But in those days people were thankful for any job and no one seemed to have thought it was "the Government's " responsibility.

This was the situation "down South" after the South lost in the War Between the States and before the wage and labor laws. This seemed to be the lot of most people who worked in textile factories in the South in the twenties and thirties.

My mother (whether correct or not) felt that the mill officials tried to "run the church" as well as the mill and the town. So employees looking with disdain toward the employer is nothing new. I think Mama was right in that the Bibb officials probably did try to exert as much influence as possible on the churches. After all they had a responsibility as they had built three impressive "up to date" brick church buildings, a Methodist, a Baptist and a Presbyterian church.



The companies who brought their cotton factories south for cheaper labor after "the war" ("The War Between the States") built the whole town including schools, churches, business, police, fire and community buildings.



Probably mill owners and officials did the best they could for their times and understanding. When we look in the past to criticize or to re-write history we need to keep this in mind.

The mill owners and officials felt that they must look after their workers (some of whom were illiterate and superstitious.) As uneducated and lacking in social graces as we were, I remember Mama being disconcerted at the superstitious talk and grammar of a few co-workers and people in our town.

Mama told me that when they first moved to Porterdale she felt that she had moved to the "jumping off place" in her strange surroundings. She seems to have thought of it as a wild and pagan town. Many of the rough, non-Christian crowd seems to have been our neighbors back of the large brick Osprey mill building.



Mama (with some condescention) was especially horrified to see that when the children would get into fights as they played together, the mothers would often dash outof their houses and take their child's side of the argument. Sometimes the mothers would get into loud shouting matches and even physical fighting. Some of the women actually got so mad they "cussed."

Mama pbserved and commented on the fact that the children would often be back happily playing together while their mothers were still angry and hostile toward one another.

Sis (my sister Louise ) told me this story: When we first moved to Porterdale, my young brothers,Charlie, Tom, and Jack, were out playing with the neighborhood boys and got into a fight.



One of the mothers came storming to our door, saying, "Miz Baird, I've come to'whoop' you!" Mama opened the door and calmly said, "Well, come right in, Mrs. Smith,and tell me what I've done to need a whipping ." Sis was happy to report that Mama made friends with the woman and did not get “whooped.”

Speaking of cursing or "bad words" as we called it, I never heard even slang inour house -- and rarely in the neighborhood. One day when the little boys were playing out in front of our house at 32 Hazel Street (the larger house we lived in before my father died), I heard my brother Jack say, "Oh, Heck!"



I was shocked . I was concerned for his immortal soul. Of course, I did not say anything. Since I remember this so vividly as being in front of the house where we were living when my father died, I was 7 or younger at the time, and Jack was about 12.

Before I started to school, my parents were able to move to a house in a "quieter part of town." I have no memory of women fighting in the streets.

Our neighbors on Hazel Street were hard-working church folks and, like my parents, although unschooled by today's standards, were intelligent with old-fashioned common sense and a strong Protestant work ethic.



They did not seem to consider themselves "victims", nor did they seem to be lacking in self-esteem. After all, we were made in the image of God and so important and loved that Jesus died for us.



For me, is was a good neighborhood in which to grow up, even though I was well-aware that many Covington residents put mill workers in a box labeled "inferior."



Covington (our "town") was the Newton county seat. Porterdale was a village with three large textile factories owned and operated by Bibb Manufacturing Company. Covington also had a "Covington mill village" as a part of the town.



In Porterdale, we also had two large brick school buildings with grades one through nine and a "teacher's cottage" across the river but in walking distance to the school. It was a two story house to board school teachers, a well built attractive ante-bellum house.



A friend of mine recently was visiting with me. When I told her I lived in Porterdale as a child. She told me her mother had taught school in Porterdale when she was barely out of her teens and before her marriage. Her mother apparently had had a store of stories show-casing the quaint ignorance of mill folks in Porterdale. I would like to have heard the stories but she changed the subject when she learned I had lived there.