Autumn 2023

Description

AUTUMN 2023 • VOLUME 22, NUMBER 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS

4
Along the Backroads: Maysville’s Old Mercantile and New Music
There’s plenty of interesting history and contemporary charm in this rustic northeast Georgia railroad town.
BY DANIEL M. ROPER • BANKS & JACKSON COUNTIES
7
Vanishing Georgia: Our Doctors, Our Nurses
By furthering the welfare of his people and profession, Dr. Lois Tompkins Wright struck mighty blows for humanity.
BY CHARLES E. FITZ-GERALD • TROUP COUNTY & STATEWIDE
14
Never to be Forgotten Crossroads
Ga. Highway 79 takes the writer to the place where family, history, and nature intersect.
BY TOM POLAND • LINCOLN & ELBERT COUNTIES
18
Hero Story
Medal of Honor recipient Luther Story made it home for Memorial Day, 73 years after he was killed in action in Korea.
BY FRED BOYLES • SUMTER COUNTY
22
Portrait of a Woman in Blue
After his wife’s tragic mishap, a sailor in San Francisco made a frantic 33-day journey by ship, mule, and train to be at her side.
BY S.T. LANTER • GLYNN COUNTY
25
Mountain for SalePreserved more by chance than design, Pine Log Mountain’s wooded slopes and numerous historic sites suddenly face the possibility of development.

BY DONNA COFFEY LITTLE • BARTOW & CHEROKEE COUNTIES
30
One of God’s Good People
A brother pays tribute to legendary and beloved writer Terry Kay.
BY JOHN KAY • MADISON COUNTY
33
Georgia’s Lost Blue Ridge Parkway
The planned extension of the famous mountain highway deep into Georgia would have dislocated the scenic Appalachian Trail.
BY ANDREW J. BRAMLETT • NORTH GEORGIA MOUNTAINS
36
Thwarting a South Georgia Pigskin Prophecy

Even before the 1962 state championship football game, a Valdosta newspaper reported that the local team had thumped its opponent, 40 to 0.

BY DONALD MARTIN • LOWNDES COUNTY
38
Historic Rural Churches of Georgia: Ground Penetrating Radar Finds Lost Graves
Technology that helps rsearchers locate lost graves and burial grounds is especially important in reclaiming the history of the marginalized.
BY CLAYTON H. RAMSEY • GREENE & WILKES COUNTIES
43
Dixie Adair’s Peculiar Birthday

Feeble cries from a newly dug grave alerted a passerby that this was to be a day of birth, not one of death.

BY DANNY PELFREY • BARTOW COUNTY
45
Adventures in Retail

Working at Rich’s Department Store in the 1970s and ’80s meant long hours and opportunities to mingle with celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Jenner, and the “General Lee.”

BY HOLLEY CALMES • FULTON COUNTY
50
No More Rights than Lunatics, Felons, and Traitors

For decades, Mary Latimer McClendon led the fight for women’s suffrage in Georgia.

BY CLAYTON H. RAMSEY • DEKALB COUNTY
57
Soul of a Southerner
A southerner fondly writes about growing up, and living, in the South.
BY MARY ANN ANDERSON • GEORGIA
58
Talking about Cotton via Rays of Sunlight

Bell Labs tested a pioneering solar-powered telephone system in Sumter County in 1955.

BY EVAN A. KUTZLER • SUMTER COUNTY
61
Civil War Portrait

Moses Liddell Brown suffered a severe foot wound at the Battle of Manassas in 1861 but found ways to serve throughout the Civil War.

BY DAVID W. VAUGHAN • DEKALB COUNTY