PETE TYRE: The Serendipitous Savior

 Pete Tyre never set out to be a savior of lives when he studied about Jesus during Royal Ambassadors meetings  at the Baptist Church.  He never  dreamed of trampling through deadly Asian jungles while he was camping out with the Boy Scouts and hunting with his father in the woods around Laurens County.  Pete never pondered of being in the middle of highly intense and deadly firefights when he was standing on the sidelines of Battle Field while his teammates won game after game.  All of that changed when Pete Tyre joined the United States Navy after high school.

Those of you who know William Craig "Pete"Tyre, know him as an arrowhead hunting, joke telling, fun loving, music afficionado.  Some of you may know that he is a nurse, who spent four decades in the health care field.   Most of you don't know that nearly a half century ago, it was Pete Tyre's job to follow the Marines of the 1st Marine Division through the jungles of South Vietnam.  When a Marine fell, Tyre was there to pick him up, stop the bleeding and keep him comfortable until help could arrive.

He can't tell you how many lives he did save.  To this very day he thinks more about the lives of Marines that he wasn't able to save.

In high school, Pete, the son of Bill and Evelyn Tyre,  played football on Coach Minton Williams' state championship team.  Although he only played in a couple of games, Pete persevered,  staying with the team and never missing  a practice.  

Pete, his classmates nicknamed him "Rim," had so much fun that inscribed under his senior yearbook picture is the phrase, "If having fun was a crime, he would be having a life sentence." 

"When I was 18, I was naive and thought I was a world traveler," said Tyre.  His mother wanted him to go to college.  Tyre, who joined the Navy instead,  was swiftly taken through new recruit processing.  

One day, after very little sleep and no showers, Pete and his buddies were forced to undergo a rapid fire, intense battery of tests while standing at a podium with a single light bulb hanging over their heads.  As the instructor screamed at Pete, he was so tired and frustrated that he simply gave random answers to the multiple choice questions.  

Scoring near the bottom of his group, Pete was the only one not to get an assignment to a special school.  He was sent to Point Mugu Naval Air Station in California.

"I had never heard of it.  I had heard of Mr. Magoo, so I had to get a map to find it," Tyre chuckled.

After six weeks in his first assignment as a janitor at the air station, Pete because so frustrated that he kicked a bucket of dirty, soapy water, unaware that a boatswain's mate was watching him.  The supervisor escorted Pete to a psychiatrist's office at the dispensary.  

"He asked me if I would like to be a corpsman, to which I responded 'What is a corpsman?"  Pete recalled  how he was unexpectedly  set on a course that would define his career in the Navy and his adult life.  Pete returned to his cleaning duties, but this time he was assigned to a medical unit.  Eventually, opportunities to perform medical duties and take courses came. Tyre loved his new role, making straight "A"s.  

After Point Mugu, there were a series of assignments at a Hospital Corps School in San Diego and another in Pensacola in an eye surgery unit.    In his early days in the Navy, liberties in Hollywood, watching San Diego Chargers games from the post and going to the San Diego Zoo were a welcome diversion from rigorous training courses.

Another major life altering change  came when Pete was sent to Marine combat training at Camp Lejeune and Parris Island for advanced medical field training.  After short stints back in California and in Okinawa, Pete was whisked off to DaNang, South Vietnam.  

Assigned to the thirty- man 2nd Platoon, Lima Company, 7th Marine Regiment, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Division, it was the new corpsman's job to go along on day time patrols, night time ambushes and sweep and destroy missions.  

"It was my job to protect the Marines.  They protected me a lot, because they needed me to help them when they were sick or injured," Pete asserted.

"It bothers me to this day  that the South Vietnamese villagers were caught in between us and the Viet  Cong," said Tyre, who tried to help the villagers he came upon.

"When the Viet Cong found out we helped the people in the villages, they would burn their houses, take their supplies, eat  their food  and sometimes kill the women and the children there.  War is so horrible, especially the collateral damage to the children.  I don't like to talk about that part of it, I get too emotional about it," Tyre lamented.

There was little time for fun.  In his 14 months in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967, Tyre had five days of R&R, one time going 41 days without a bath or taking his boots off.  After missing his mother's home cooking, Pete Tyre went from 125 pounds down to 100 pounds.  

Most of his time in Vietnam was spent in the field with little time for fun, and Pete always loves to have fun.  He missed not having iced cold drinks, forced instead to put iodine tablets in his canteen to keep from getting sick from stream and well water.  A life long music lover, Pete heard very little music except during a camp sing a long, or when his sergeant would sing every Lefty Frizzell song he ever heard.  He does remember the first song he heard as he was getting ready to come home, "Let's Get Stoned" by fellow Georgian Ray Charles.  He can still tell you most of the lyrics to that classic song.  

Life in the jungles was constant chaos, Pete will tell you.  There would be 2-3 weeks of nothing and then a rapid fire fight. He welcomed the choppers and the fighter jets which got Pete and his platoon out of hot situations.  There was always the threats of booby traps, snipers, and even children firing at them.  

"I was scared all the time, I was no hero," Pete admitted.

Tyre and other corpsman carried weapons to keep the enemy from believing that he was an officer or a corpsman.  He also carried a heavy pack of medical supplies and helped out the BAR carrier's ammo.

There were sometimes when Pete had to improvise.  He found out that cellophane wrapping from cigarette packs made an excellent tool in preventing oxygen from seeping into sucking chest wounds.  

"It was amazing that the cellophane would stop the air from getting into the wounds.  I can't say that I saved a lot of lives that way, but a lot of men were still alive when they were airlifted back to a field hospital," recalled Tyre. 

It was a long time ago that Pete Tyre quit trying to figure out why he, with no family, was saved, while others with a wife and children were not so lucky.  

"God looked after me. I was blessed and I don't deserve it," he laments.  

Pete 2nd from left.

"It was good for me and it helped me in more ways than I can count," said Tyre, who firmly believes that his time as a corpsman in Vietnam made him apply himself and become a better man.   

Upon his return from Vietnam, Pete was still not sure what his next mission would be.  He began working  at J.P. Stevens, but soon decided that he could do so much more in his life.  Using the GI Bill to take courses in medical studies, Tyre eventually obtained a Master's Degree in Nursing from the Medical College of Georgia. 

He worked at Claxton Hospital in Dublin and later at hospitals in Statesboro and Americus, before beginning a career with the Veterans Administration, first in Augusta and then in Dublin for more than a dozen years.  

"I took a job with the prison system in Florida and one time I visited the prison where the movie 'Cool Hand Luke' was filmed. Now that was cool," Pete fondly exclaimed!

After four decades in the health care field, Pete retired in 2003 and soon returned home to Dublin.

Today, Pete Tyre looks back on his days in Vietnam.  Not one to talk about the terrible times during the war, he points to his days of training as a Royal Ambassador for Christ, a Boy Scout, and a Dublin Irish football player or the grand times he spent in the woods around Brewton, Georgia, where his father taught him how to hunt, fish and survive in the woods with getting him  through the war.

More directly, he points primarily to God and ironically to his movie hero.  Tyre, an ardent admirer of Steve McQueen, often pretended that he was in a movie, thinking that it was the other guy who was going to get hit and not himself as a way of getting through the sporadic chaos and that helpless feeling grinding his soul when he couldn't save one of the Marines.

Serendipity still  seems to follow Pete Tyre where ever he goes.  The lessons he learned in Vietnam continue to save lives. Back in the summer, Pete came upon an automobile accident.  He quickly exited his car and ran to a badly damaged vehicle.  He saw a woman pinned inside.  Unable to open any door, Tyre broke a window and climbed in.  Instinctively, he pulled his shirt off and used it as a  tourniquet.  To keep his patient from going into shock, Pete kept the pressure on the wound, held her head up and kept consoling the wounded lady by repeating that  she was going to make it.

"When the EMTs got there, I told them what I had done.  I got some alcohol and washed my hands, got back in my car and left the scene" Tyre stated, humbly believing that it was his training in Vietnam which helped him to save the life of a stranger.

And so goes the life of the serendipitous savior, Pete Tyre. 

MAJOR GENERAL RENDER BRASWELL

A BORN STORYTELLER 

    They say I was born to tell stories.  I had a long and happy life.  And, I went to a lot of places around the world.  I loved to tell stories to whoever would listen to them.  There are so many stories to tell, but for now, I’ll stick to my own story.  

I was born on October 27, 1907 on the road leading from Adrian to Norristown in Emanuel County, Georgia.  My daddy was  Timothy J. Braswell, an insurance salesman and farmer.  His daddy and my grandpa, John Arthur Braswell, was known to be one of the greatest story tellers around.  He studied and read law, but never became a real lawyer.  

Grandpa Braswell used to tell the story of when he was with the Confederate Army over in South Carolina in the last few months of the Civil War.  He was only 18. He and his fellow soldiers were forced to dig out undigested grains of corn from the horse manure, just to get something to eat.  Starving, freezing  and homesick, my grandfather took a man’s horse and rode home to Emanuel County as fast as he could. 

My mother, Diva Dewberry, used to teach school over in Meriwether County. My momma and daddy split up before I was two. I moved with my mother, a beautiful and smart woman,  to Covington, Georgia.  She was later introduced to and married  Dr. Courtney Brooks, a pharmacist and later, a mayor of Covington.  

When I was only fifteen, I enrolled at the University of Georgia.  I liked science, so I got a degree in Pharmacy at Georgia at a time when most of my contemporaries were just getting out of high school.  I stayed on at Georgia and got another degree, a Bachelor in Science, four years later.  The thought of going to Medical School kept coming into my head.  So, with the help of my stepfather, I went on to Emory where I finished my studies in medicine in 1932.  At 25 years old, I was one of the youngest doctors anywhere around the state.  When I was in school, I joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Alpha Kappa Kappa, a  medical fraternity. 

After finishing my internship at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, I made a career change.  In fact, my decision to join the Army would change my life forever.

As a newly commissioned second lieutenant, I was ordered to report to Fort McPherson, where I was appointed the Chief of Surgery.  I went back to school at The Medical Field Service School in Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania before I was sent overseas to Manila in the Phillippines, where the Army made me Assistant Chief of Surgery in the Sternberg General Hospital.  

Just after Valentine’s Day in 1938, I married Elizabeth Willingham, the most beautiful and wonderful woman, I had ever seen.  We got married in a real big wedding in St. Philip’s Cathedral  in Atlanta.  We had a grand time traveling all across the country on our honeymoon, before we traveled to the Philippines to make our first home.  

Just before the war began in 1941, Elizabeth and I were sent back to the states, where I was assigned as Assistant Surgeon at Walter Reed Hospital.  Soon they chose me to become a member of the American College of Surgeons.  They say I was the youngest doctor ever to receive that  prestigious honor.  

I decided I wanted to serve in the Army Air Corps.  My first assignment came as a Commander and Chief of Surgery at the base at Big Springs, Texas.  In September 1943, I was promoted to a position at the Air Force Cadet Center in San Antonio.  I took some time to attend the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

Then just as the war was winding down in Europe but heating up in the Pacific, the Air Force sent me to serve as the Command Air Surgeon of the 20th Air Force in Guam.

Our planes flew almost every day or night, bombing the island of Japan.  Tens of thousands of the Japanese people were dying every day when our bombers dropped bombs which exploded and ignited fires that  wiped out many Japanese cities.  Then on August 6, 1945, the course of the war changed forever.  

I was called in to examine the pilot of a B-29 who had just returned from the most important mission of the war.  It may have been the most important military mission of all time.  My patient was Col. Paul Tibetts.  His plane was the Enola Gay.  You know, it was the plane which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan.  That almost ended the war right there.

I was at the hospital  in Iwo Jima when they brought Col. Tibetts in to see me.  The Air Force was concerned that the rashes on his body may have come from atomic radiation.  I went over every  part of his body.  I finally figured out the rashes were actually scratches from the dirt and grit which were blasted up from the ground and went through the Colonel’s flight suit.

My wife and I returned to the states in May 1946, when I  was assigned as Commander and Chief of Surgery, Keesler Field Hospital in Mississippi. After a little more than a year, we moved to Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, with the same duties as I had at Keesler. 

In 1952, I was assigned as an air surgeon in the Third Air Force.  We enjoyed our stay in London, before once again we came back home, When we returned to the US, I went to work as a surgeon for the Military Air Transport Service. 

My colleagues gave me a great honor when I was recognized for my professional attainment in the field of aviation medicine.  My uniform was filled with all sorts of medals.  I was given a Legion of Merit for my work in Iwo Jima and an oak leaf cluster for my time as Command Surgeon of the  World-wide Military Air Transport Service.  I got Air Force commendations for my surgical work at Maxwell and as the Senior American Medical Officer in the United Kingdom from 1952 to 1954.  They gave me three battle stars for the time I served in the South Pacific during the war. My greatest award came when the Air Force gave me a Distinguished Service Medal.

After I retired from the Air Force as a Major General, I went to work as a Medical Director of General Motors in Atlanta.  I later went into practice with my half-brother, Dr. Courtney Brooks.   

My darling Elizabeth died in 1971.  Elizabeth and I had three fine children, Stephen, Thomas and Elizabeth.  Some three years later, I married Lillian Cox Dawes de  la Fuente in Atlanta. 

I died on May 20, 2001.  They buried my body in Section 5 of Arlington National Cemetery.  The Air Force gave me one grand send off into the skies of heaven.  I can’t remember if I ever wanted to be a lawyer like most of the men story tellers in my family.  But, the government buried me in a crowd of Supreme Court Justices.  They are a right smart bunch of fellows.  Sometimes they get together and talk about the law.  And the stories they tell, well you can’t make up these tales.  Right around me are Chief Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Warren Burger, and others like Thurgood Marshall and four more Associate Justices. 

You can’t see them from my grave, but not too far from me, a few hundred feet or so,  and just across a small hill out of sight of the Justices and myself are the Kennedy boys;  Joseph, John, Robert and Edward.  Boy, do those Yankees  have a good time when they all get together! I can’t they say what they do.  After all, one of them was my commander in chief for a thousand  days. And what happens in Arlington, stays in Arlington.  

Well, folks this is my story.  Obviously, I couldn’t speak to you directly. So, I asked my first cousin Claudie Braswell Thompson’s grandson, Scott Braswell Thompson, Sr.,  to tell my story. He’s a hopeless storyteller  like me.  He got it from his daddy, Dale, who was another one of us who every time you see one of us Braswells, we’ve got a story or three to tell.  

I WILL ALWAYS LOVE A WOMAN NAMED EBBIE

          I cannot tell you exactly when I first fell in love with a woman, maybe some fifty years ago.  I do not count the women of my family nor  the two pretty blonde-haired girls who lived on either end of the street on which I grew up on.  She was of regular height, had a beautiful, gold-tooth, sparkling  smile and a light bronze, freckled complexion.  My sister Janet, my brother Henry  and I couldn’t pronounce her real name, Evie.  We called her “Ebbie.” And, some fifty years later on the 101st anniversary of her birth, I think of the days of my youth, when most things in America were still good. And, I think about the woman I first loved and one I always will love, a woman named “Ebbie.”

Evie “Ebbie” White was born on a farm in southwestern Laurens County on July 31, 1912.   Her grandparents, Stephen and Violet White and Guyton and Caroline Fullwood were all adult or teenage slaves at the end of the Civil War.  Ebbie’s momma and daddy,   Loyd and Rosa Fullwood White, had a hard life, working in the fields for more hours a week than any should - working all the time,  just to keep themselves and their family fed and as comfortable as they could.

Ebbie too worked in the fields picking cotton and other crops.  She had very little education compared to us. Her lack of advanced schooling did not mean that she was ignorant, far from it.  As she matured, Ebbie took on all sorts of jobs cleaning houses, offices and even Claxton Hospital for a good while.    I do not mention Ebbie’s married name.  She had not too much use for the scoundrel she regrettably married early in life. 

We first came to know Ebbie on Saturday nights.  Our  parents, Jane and Dale Thompson, while they were in the prime of life, loved to go to dances and play bridge games.  So, when it was time for them to go out on the town, Ebbie became one of our first baby sitters.  Her sister, Laner White Manning, had been our maid and baby sitter as well.  

It was these two sisters, Ebbie and Laner, along with our other maids from time to time, Elaine Thomas and Ethel Wells, who first introduced me to the inner beauty of the African-American maids of the mid 20th Century South.  I still remember the day I cried and Ethel cried when she was not able to work for us anymore.  There was a whole lot of squalling going on that sad afternoon when Momma took her home for the last time.  I can still show you the spot where the Ethel’s old ramshackle house on Highway 319 was once located.  And Elaine, well there was a character is there ever was one.  Elaine carried the spirit of the Lord with her everywhere she went.  She would get upset at some of our antics , but soon the joy of Jesus took over and you could see the gold teeth shining and the spiritual music exuding out of her soul. 

The mid 1960s were a time of trials and tribulations in our nation and our community.  As pre-teenagers, we were somewhat immune from the strife here in Dublin.  We used to hear Ebbie tell tales of the days when Sheriff Carlus Gay would come to the black neighborhoods and “all the colored people” would run and hide.  

When we moved from Stonewall to Brookwood, our nights with Ebbie became even more wonderful.  Our parents didn’t have enough money to furnish our living room.  With its large expanse and green carpet, the new empty room served well as a tackle football field and wrestling arena.

Although we were banned by our mother from wrestling and throwing a football  in the living room, Ebbie tolerated our foolishness until we got too wild or interfered with her hearing her television shows.  Her favorite, Gunsmoke, would bring her to her feet, squealing and cheering Matt Dillon as he pommeled the bad guys.

Without a doubt the best times came when the all too unreal wrestling matches came on our black and white television.  All of us eventually figured out they were fake, but you could never convince Ebbie that the fighting wasn’t real.  

New Year’s Eves were the best.  That’s when we learned about all the things you are supposed and not supposed to do on New Year’s Day. 

“I learned a lot of superstitions from her; ‘Don’t wash your bed sheets between Christmas and New Year’s, don’t gather broom straw in the New Year - wait for frost, then collect it prior to New Year’s day,” my sister Janet recalled.

Ebbie would say, “Anything you do on New Year’s Day, you will be doing all year long,” so right after midnight I would go find some left over Christmas candy and gobble it down.  I later figured out that she really meant household chores.

Gardening was a special talent in which Ebbie excelled in.  To keep the snakes away, she would  go to Black’s Seed Store and pick up a big paper sack filled with sulphur.  And, to make doubly sure, she would line the perimeter of her house and soak any possible entrances with the smelly yellow powder.  Ebbie was a master grower of roses.  Her secret - tea grinds - placed around the base of a rose bush produced bushes more than seven feet tall.  I know, I saw them and couldn’t reach the tops.  She also figured out that to keep a house plant container from flowing over, place ice cubes in them  which would slowly melt into the soil.

No one, with the possible exception of our  mother and few other people in our lives, could  bake a pound cake more delicious than Ebbie.  On every occasion and just because she loved us, she would bake us a fresh, warm and oh so delightful pound cake.

For most of her later years, Ebbie got to live in a new, or virtually new, house.  It was one of the greatest times in her life when she moved into a Housing Authority apartment for seniors on Druid Street.  We all helped furnish her home with some of our furniture from our old home.  Later we bought her  a color television. 

Ebbie continued to work for me in my office until the late 1980s.  Most days I would take her home to save the cab fare.  Lots of times, I got a whole or a half of a pound cake out of the gesture, although that’s not why I did it.    Ebbie didn’t eat “hog meat” and she didn’t like the government cheese she got once a month.  So, I would buy her a month’s supply of peach snuff at Piggly Wiggly and swap it for those foot long, delicious blocks of cheddar cheese. You couldn’t get them in any store. 

I count as one of our  greatest legacies from our parents  the fact that their children were never taught to hate black people just because of their color.   Many white people of our  parent’s and grandparent’s generations did not allow black people to eat at the table with themselves and their families.  My sister, my brother and I weren’t raised that way.  Ebbie ate with us just like she was a member of our family.  We knew in our hearts that she was family as if she was one of a score of great aunts we cherished.  She was always there, at graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, births and weddings.  

"She was more like a grandparent than a baby-sitter.  I loved to see her smile, it would light up the room.  She was as proud of us as our own parents were.  We were her's and she was ours," my brother Henry recalled.  

There were many “Ebbies” Laners, Elaines and Ethels in our community and around the South.  They worked hard with very little pay. And, they were the last of  a generation. Surely, many of these treasured women were never given the recognition and the rights they should have been afforded.  But, in my mind, they were put on this Earth in some way to help bridge the gaps of racism and violence and to bring us forward as a nation.    

L-R - Back Row, Scott Thompson, Henry Thompson

Front Row - Evie White, Janet T. Greer, Rosetta Horne

Many of you who grew up before the 1980s knew and loved ladies like Ebbie who had a profound influence on our lives.  Make no mistake, the lives of these ladies were not easy and most often not fair.  They truly loved us and we, well, we truly loved them.  Sadly, the days of ladies like Ebbie White are nearly gone forever.  

But they don’t have to be.  For you see, the greatest gift Ebbie  ever gave to us was an undying, unwavering, color blind love for us and we for her.  We obviously knew what color she was. But when we saw her there was no color of her skin.  All we saw was a smiling, laughing, and caring soul. 

Ebbie left the Earth on October 17, 1995.  Both of our grandmothers died that following winter.  It was indeed a sad time for all of us.  Three women who had meant so much to each of us were no longer there for us to visit and recall the good times we used to have.  I loved them all, but as long as I breathe I will remember the first woman I ever loved, a woman named Ebbie.

LUCY MAY STANTON

Miniature Artist Extra Ordinaire

Lucy Stanton  found her niche as a miniature artist.  In fact, she became famous both in the United States and around the world.  To prove that assertion,  Lucy Stanton was awarded the highly coveted Bronze Medal of the Society of American Miniature painters, being the first or second woman in America to receive such a distinction.  For one brief term,  this teenage artist taught art at what is now called Middle Georgia State College.  

An artist who worked with oils, pastels and watercolors, Miss Stanton is most recognized for her miniature watercolor portraits on ivory during the Arts and Crafts period at the turn of the 20th Century.   Critics laud her mature style,  innovative use of broad washes and evocative portraits depicting African Americans without sentimentality or prejudice.

Lucy May Stanton was born to William L. and Frances MeGee Stanton, on May 22, 1875.  As a child, Lucy grew up living across the street from the legendary Georgia journalist and writer Joel Chandler Harris, the author of the Uncle Remus tales.  

It is said at the age of four, Lucy began to mold creatures out of modeling clay and  took her first art lessons in New Orleans when she was a mere seven-years-old. 

Lucy became totally captivated with  the arts when she attended Southern Female College in LaGrange, which later became known as Cox College after its removal to College Park.  As an 18-year-old, Lucy accepted a position as an art teacher at the New Ebenezer College in Cochran, which is currently known as Middle Georgia State College.  After serving a one year term during the 1893-1894 school year, Lucy returned to the Atlanta area.

Lucy traveled to Paris, France to receive a formal and very prestigious education in painting. She would remain in the capital of European art for two years until 1898.  Seven years later, Lucy returned to France to further improve her artistic talents.

Stanton's first paying job came in 1896 when she was commissioned to paint miniature portraits of Spanish born opera singer Adelina Patti.  Over her thirty five-year career, Lucy May Stanton would become one of Georgia's premier portrait artists, painting portraits of her former neighbor, Joel Chandler Harris, (LEFT) and the iconic Georgia politician, Howell Cobb, who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the latter of which still hangs in the national capital.

After a single year spent in New York, Lucy Stanton returned to Georgia in 1902 to make her home in Athens, where she would live for most of  the remainder of her life.  By her late twenties, Lucy became a popular artist across the country.  Her works were exhibited in galleries in the largest cities in the world, including London, Paris, New York, Boston and Philadelphia.   

Stanton moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1916, where she painted and taught art for nearly a decade.  

Lucy May Stanton's interests extended beyond the visual arts.  Stanton was highly involved in the social, cultural and political affairs of Athens and the nation. In 1914, she headed the Equal Suffrage League of Athens. 

In 1928, Stanton, along with Jeannette Rankin, helped to co-found the Georgia Peace Society, an organization dedicated to preventing any more wars.  Rankin, the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives, voted against the country's entrance into World War I and lead the fight to adopt the 19th Amendment to allow women the right to vote. 

''It was so interesting to me ... She was one of the first people to paint (African Americans) in a serious fashion, without propaganda or sentiment.'' Georgia Museum of Art Curator Betty Alice Fowler told the Athens Banner Herald. 

"She did a lot of stuff that I certainly don't think my grandmother or great-grandmother were doing at the time. She was well educated, clever, smart and talented. She made the most of it,'' Fowler added.  

At the height of her career, Stanton's works were featured in a solo exhibition in Atlanta's High Museum of Art.   

A worldwide acclaimed artist, Lucy May Stanton's seemingly endless list of awards  includes; The Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Blue Ribbon, Paris, 1906), Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters (Bronze Medal, 1917), Atlanta Art Association (first prize, 1917), Concord Art Association (Medal of Honor, 1923), and National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors (honorable mention, 1925).

More than eighty years after her death in Athens on March 19, 1931, her works are among the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Emory University, and the Georgia Museum of Art.

LAURENS NATIVE IS OLDEST PERSON IN THE COUNTRY

 

    On a fair, warm, late spring day a child was born to Samuel James and Amelia Kurtz.  William McKinley was President of the United States.  On May 23, 2013, some nineteen presidents, fourteen hundred plus full moons and 41,368 sunsets later, that child will celebrate her 114th birthday.  It is on this May day when Jeralean Kurtz Talley reaches yet another milestone in the time line of her longest life.  In fact, Mrs. Talley is the oldest living person in the United States and the oldest known living person on Earth outside of the Island of Japan.  Photo @ Detroit Free Press.

Jeralean, who was among a dozen children of Samuel and Amelia Jones Kurtz, grew up in the outskirts of Montrose, Georgia in western Laurens County, Georgia.  Her grandfather, Andrew J. Kurtz, husband of Rachel Kurtz, was most likely a slave owned by Dr. William J. Kurtz,  who owned nearly two dozen slaves during the Civil War.

Jeralean and her family moved to Inkster, Wayne County, Michigan during a vast migration of African-American farm workers who left Laurens County in the 1920s for Detroit, Michigan. That group includes the family of world champion boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson and Ford Motor Company inventor and innovator, Claude Harvard.  

Jeralean married Alfred Talley, who died in the 1980s.  Although she was from large family,  Jeralean had only one child, a daughter, Thelma Holloway, who is now seventy-five years old. She has three grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren. 

As for Talley, she credits her God for her longevity.  When asked by Congressman John Conyers as to what her secret to a long life was, she pointed upward and said, "The good Lord up above. If it wasn't for Him, none of us would be here."

Talley was almost 107 before she moved out of her home and into her daughter's home.  She gave up bowling when she was a mere 104.   And, she scored a very respectable 200 in her last game.  

If all goes well, "Mother" Talley hopes to go on her annual fishing trip with friend Michael Kinloch, which has been scheduled for this Memorial Day weekend. 

"Until recently Talley cooked for herself. She likes fish, squash and banana nut bread, "said her daughter, who added, "Every day she has to have her cup of coffee. The doctor wanted to put her on a diet, but she wouldn't listen.  She doesn't believe in diets," Holloway said. "She eats whatever she wants to eat," Holloway told Candice  Williams of The Detroit News. 

"She loves to share wisdom with younger people," said Pastor Dana Darby of New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church in Inkster, where Talley attends. 

With 114 years behind her Jeralean has many stories to tell.  One of her favorites is the tale of her first and only attempt to drive a car. 

"I tried that one time," in her 30s, she said. 

"I  didn't hit the right one to make it go forward and it went backwards," Talley told Elisha Anderson of The Detroit Free Press.

When her husband Alfred yelled at her, she opened the door and got out of the car and never drove again.

A verified supercentenarian is a person who is at least 110 years old and whose age is documented by at three or more reliable documents as determined by an international body - the most respected organization being the Gerontology Research Group.

The world's oldest verified person ever was a French woman Jeanne Calment, who died at the age of 122 years, 164 days.   Today, the oldest living person is a  Japanese man,  Jiroemon Kimura, who turned 116 on April 19th.  Misao Okawa, who is 14 and one half months older than Talley, is the world's oldest living female.   As of today, Jeralean Talley stands as the 92nd oldest verified living person since 1955 and is poised to move into 90th place within a week.

Supercentenarians, at least not fully documented ones, are nothing new to Laurens County.  At lest ten former slaves, Madison Moore, Billy Coates, Tempy Stanley, Jack Robinson, Thomas Allen, Isaac Jackson,  Frances Thompkins, Emily Horn, Daisy Wilson and Llewellyn Blackshear, reportedly lived well into their twelfth decades.  

Isaac Jackson died in Montgomery County at the age of one hundred and twenty-two.  Isaac was a former slave of Gov. George M. Troup of Laurens County, who lived on  Troup's Valdosta Plantation in 1846.  Isaac Jackson is credited with being the last surviving slave of President George Washington by the  Hawkinsville Dispatch in its  Oct. 19, 1876 edition. 

Jack Robinson was born during the French and Indian War.  He lived the better part of his life as a slave.  In 1865, at the age of 111, Robinson gained his freedom.  He died in Laurens County in December of 1872.   Jack Robinson had survived many hardships during his lifetime, but in the end the Milledgeville Union Recorder stated that "tobacco was what cut him down in his prime."  He was only 118 years old. 

Aunt Daisy Wilson claimed that she was born in 1804, two years before Laurens County was created.  According to the Macon Telegraph, there were white people who stated that she had authentic records showing that she was 117 years old in the summer of 1922.  Daisy was born into slavery in North Carolina and purchased by John Manson, who brought her to Wilkinson County, where she lived well beyond her 100th birthday.  If her claim could be substantiated, Daisy Wilson may have been the oldest woman in Laurens County history and one of the oldest in the State of Georgia.

Thomas Allen maintained that he was born in 1800 and was 114 years old just before he died on the plantation of Dr. W.B. Taylor, outside of Dexter, Georgia.  Owned by the Giles family, the former slave was a native of Wilkinson County.  Although his age cannot be documented by census records, Dr. Taylor, who knew the old man for many years, did not doubt the accuracy of his claims.

Happy Birthday Mrs.  Jeralean! We hope you catch a big mess of fish.

WILLIAM MCINTOSH

 Thle-Cath-Cha  - The Broken Arrow

He was a man of two people - one white and one red.  His mother’s people, the Lower Creek Indians, called him “Tustunnugee Hutke,” or “White Warrior.”  His father’s people were Scottish Highlanders, who immigrated  to Georgia during the state’s  infancy.  William McIntosh never abandoned either of his people, all the time struggling to maintain the precarious balance between the two nations during the first quarter of the 19th Century.  It was his desire for peaceful coexistence that led to his death - an untimely and senseless death at the hands of his own bitterly divided people on April 30, 1825.  This occasional  visitor to Laurens County was one of the most important and influential Indian leaders in Georgia history.

William McIntosh, a son of a  British officer during the  American Revolution, was born in Wetumpka, an Indian village in eastern Alabama northwest of Columbus, Georgia.  He was nurtured in the Indian ways of life by his mother, Senoya, and his Coweta Indian uncles.  His father, William McIntosh, Sr., sided with King George during the War for American Independence.  William and his half-brother Roley,  son of their father’s second Indian wife, were put on board a ship bound for Scotland, where they would receive a formal education.  William was interested in learning.  Roley was somewhat less interested.  The boys were spirited away from the ship by their Indian uncles.  Their father, oblivious to their absence until the ship had sailed, continued on the voyage to his ancestral homeland.  Discouraged by the way his sons were being raised, the elder McIntosh left his family and returned to McIntosh County on the southeast Georgia coast. William’s uncles taught him all of the things he needed to know about life.  As he approached manhood, William was given leave to visit his father’s home.  William made one final trip to the coast to attend his father’s funeral.

About two hundred years ago, William was chosen as Chief of the Coweta town, at the age of twenty five.  He married Eliza Grierson, a woman of Scottish and Creek parents.  The couple’s first son, Chilly, was born at their home on the Tallapoosa River.  McIntosh, then Chief of all of the lower Creek towns, encouraged commerce with white merchants and traders.  The Lower Creeks believed that their “mixed-blooded” leaders were best suited to deal with the leaders and the people of the United States.  McIntosh stood more than six feet tall -  a height which made him a near giant during his day.  He was light skinned, but retained his Indian features of dark eyes and hair.  He wore buck skin pants and a calico shirt.  His headdress consisted of a turban with a single feather plume.

As tensions became more strained between Georgians and the Creeks (and even among the Creeks themselves), a war between England and the United States broke out in 1812.  McIntosh was commissioned a major in the U.S. Army.  He led a contingent of Indian warriors under the command of Generals John Floyd and John Coffee.  McIntosh led his warriors in support of Gen. Andrew Jackson’s legendary victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.  In near total disregard of the Indians who remained steadfastly loyal to the U.S. Army, Jackson negotiated a treaty.  McIntosh believed the treaty took too much lands from the tribes who had supported Jackson.

In the years which followed the war, McIntosh and his family moved to a new home on the Chattahoochee River.  It was during this time when McIntosh maintained a home near the springs on the west bank of the Oconee River.  The springs, known later as Well Springs, is located south of Dublin  in the Rock Springs Community.  While he was visiting in Laurens County, he sent his son Chilly to school in Dublin.

Relationships between the Americans and the Seminoles flared up again in 1817.  McIntosh was commissioned a brigadier general and was placed in command of thirteen hundred Creek warriors.  They fought in several engagements with their mortal enemies, known as “The Redsticks.” After six years of fighting, McIntosh left the army, still torn by the strife between his two peoples. His uncle, Chief Howard, the leader of a friendly Cheehaw village, was killed by members of the Laurens County Dragoons under the leadership of Captains Obed Wright and Jacob Robinson.

McIntosh established a ferry across the Chattahoochee at Coweta.  He was assisted by Joe Baillie.  The Chief built a large tavern and inn at the famed mineral water springs in Monroe County, which became appropriately known as Indian Springs.  As more and more of Georgia was being settled by white settlers, McIntosh became involved in negotiations between Creek and Georgia officials.  A meeting was held at the McIntosh Inn at Indian Springs in 1821.  Despite his deep-seated objections to the U.S. government’s treaty proposals, McIntosh reluctantly signed a treaty ceding more lands to Georgia.

In 1823, George M. Troup of Laurens County was elected governor of Georgia.  Troup pushed for the removal of all Indian tribes from Georgia. Relationships with the Creeks became more tenuous.  Various towns of the Creek Nation were at odds with each other.  Troup, in an ironic quirk of fate, had an ally in his efforts to rid Georgia of the Creek and the Cherokee.  Chief McIntosh’s father was a brother of Catherine McIntosh, the mother of Governor Troup, making the two leaders were first cousins.

While some have questioned the closeness of the cousins because of their strong efforts in support of their respective constituents, the two men consulted with each other on the matters of Indian lands.  According to local legend, an accord was reached between the two leaders at McIntosh’s home at Well Springs.  McIntosh stood firm in his belief that interaction with the white people would strengthen his tribes.  Troup took an opposite view.  His determination to remove the Indian tribes led to a war of words with President John Quincy Adams. President Adams eventually backed off of his demands for Troup to desist with his plans for Indian removal.

A second treaty between the United States and a council of  Lower Creeks, led by McIntosh, was signed at Indian Springs in 1825.  The new treaty provided for the ceding of all lands claimed by the Creeks in Georgia in exchange for a comparable amount of land in Arkansas.  A bonus of addition land and cash was awarded to McIntosh for his role in convincing other chiefs to agree to the terms of the agreement.  When the leaders of the Upper Creeks learned of the treaty, the outraged Creeks attacked Chief McIntosh in his home,  setting his elaborate house on fire and stabbing and scalping the martyred leader. 

It is said that his son Chilly, who went on to become the first School Superintendent of the Oklahoma Territory and a Confederate field officer, ran from the scene all the way to the capitol in Milledgeville to inform the state of the massacre. 

Chief William McIntosh has been called a hero by some - a traitor by others.  He was one of the most intriguing characters in our state’s history.  His murder was condemned by both of his two peoples.  Eventually the members of his family were pardoned by the tribal council.  They left Georgia for the Indian territory of Oklahoma, where they followed in the footsteps of this once great Creek leader.

PARAMOUNT PRESERVATIONIST

Like Forrest Gump, Jeff Davis finds himself just drifting and floating around in time, being int the right place at the right time.  So said the Dublin businessman, who was honored by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation this past Friday at its annual meeting in Milledgeville.  The members of the trust honored Davis’ restoration of the Old Dublin Post Office on Madison Street with its Marguerite Williams Award.

The award, named in honor of the first vice president of The Georgia Trust and a  longtime proponent of historic preservation in Georgia, is periodically given out to the project that has had the greatest impact on preservation in the state.   

“This project sets an excellent example of how to preserve and repurpose a decommissioned historic government building, a particular issue facing preservationists today,” the Trust proclaimed.  

“I am grateful to be a part of this award.  The building deserves it historically and architecturally,” Davis commented on receiving the prestigious award. 

The Post Office was originally completed in August 1912 after a long series of delays of funding and alterations of plans. Davis completed the bulk of the work and held an open house on the 100th anniversary of the opening of the building as a Post Office.  

“When I bought the building, it took me about four or five times in there to realize that about 85 percent of the building was still here,” remarked Davis, who personally flyspecked every nook and cranny of the sturdy structure finding hidden clues to its past.  Sometimes the clues came to him in the form of stories of bygone days and visitors to the building.  He discovered secret windows in the top of the work room, where the postmaster and inspectors could spy on employees, looking for sticking fingers while they were sorting mail and taking money orders.  

Calling the project a team effort between himself, local banks, businesses and interested citizens, Davis claims as his only credit of simply putting back a building which was already there.

Now that the project has made it through it first phase, Davis is taking a short break before marshaling his resources to make his hometown an even more special place in the future.

“A lot more good things are going to happen in downtown Dublin in the future,” Davis asserts. 

The Georgia Trust was organized in 1973 to help Georgians to understand and  appreciate the irreplaceable value of historic buildings and places and their relevance to modern life.  Its members strive to be careful stewards of our state’s historic buildings. The group hopes to boost local economies by stewardship by reinforcing downtown areas and historic neighborhoods.

At the 36th annual Preservation Awards ceremony, Davis’ award included a citation for Excellence in Preservation.  The Trust also acknowledges projects in restoration, rehabilitation and stewardship. 

“There will never be another one like this building.  Even though I am the caretaker of it now, this building belongs to everybody.  When you put yourself in that context, you can’t really say that you own this building,” Davis believes. 

“It’s a special building. It holds a special place in people’s hearts,” remarked  Davis, who operates a data-technology business inside the 101-year-old building.  

"This year's winners represent a tremendous dedication to restoring and revitalizing Georgia's historic buildings and communities," said Mark C. McDonald, president of The Georgia Trust.

  

For more than 35 years, the Trust has recognized preservation projects and individuals throughout Georgia who have made significant contributions to the field of historic preservation.  Awards are presented on the basis of the contributions of the person or project to the community and/or state and on compliance with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.

Now celebrating 40 years of work, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation is one of the country's largest statewide, nonprofit preservation organizations. The organization is committed to preserving and enhancing Georgia's communities and their diverse historic resources for the education and enjoyment of all.

The Georgia Trust generates community revitalization by finding buyers for endangered properties acquired by its Revolving Fund and raises awareness of other endangered historic resources through an annual listing of Georgia's 10 "Places in Peril." The Trust also helps revitalize downtowns by providing design and technical assistance in 102 Georgia Main Street cities; trains Georgia's teachers in 63 Georgia school systems to engage students in discovering state and national history through their local historic resources; and advocates for funding, tax incentives and other laws aiding preservation efforts.

To learn more about Historic Preservation in Georgia, go to www.georgiatrust.org.