The Complete Transcript

[00:58] They called her Vassie. Albert was my mother's mother.

I was born on Rockland Road—I mean Klondike Road, close to Rockland Road. The church and the school were very near and handy. You turn on Rockland Road, you turn left, and my grandfather's and grandmother lived about 100 yards from the road.

We lived in the tenant house—my granddaddy's tenant house. And they were farmers. My grandfather and grandmother were farmers. Both families were farmers, because most people were then I guess.

My father was Graylee Kelly and my mother was Ari Dini Abbott.

It was very nice that we lived that close because mama and dad were farmers, and mama would go to the field with my daddy. And grandma and two aunts would keep the children. So one of these aunts was Adeline, and she was my favorite in that family. She mentored me all the way through high school and was just all of my life—she was just a great person.

Because mama had so many children and she didn't have two, she was involved with my life. So she was very interested in mama's children because she lived right on the next street. You know, just a little bit—she lived right on the next street. If you could have walked straight across, just a hundred yards or so, but we had to go up the railroad track to get to her house. And she was always seeing about us, you know, just helping mama out a little.

[02:52] I was born December 7, 1914. I was born just 11 years after Henry Ford put cars on wheels—the assembly line—and the Wright brothers did the airplanes.

My grandfather and grandmother Kelly had the first—they were two cars in the community. One was the Maxwell and the other one was my grandfather Kelly's.

My grandmother had the first phone I ever heard, and it was a party line. And Mr. Alph Howard lived up next door to us, up the street, up the road. And we went over to his house to hear the first radio.

So I have been around.

[03:40] And we moved when there were three children—in the second—I was in the second grade. We moved two miles over, and that house wasn't too much bigger, but we did have a room that we didn't sleep in. In the other place, in the new place, it was so bigger.

And then it was too far for us to walk, and there were lots of kids. You know, it would have to cross the creek before the bridge was put up. So we moved to the Wakeford place, and it was about 200 yards from the school.

And it was at the North Pole. You know, I told you you came up a hill. But anyhow, mama didn't like that because it was big rooms and a bigger house, but the rooms went into the hallway, and you had to go into the hallway to get here and there. And it was not made the way she could do it easily.

So we moved to Lithonia then. And I rode the bus for them—for months—from the start until Christmas. And then we moved to town to where we could walk to school.

[05:00] And then the Depression. And if you didn't live through a Depression—did y'all? If you...

All right, Papa lost his job. No, Papa was put on part-time, and he went to Everton to have a full-time job. And he hurt his wrist.

When I was a junior, we didn't have any money much at all. Dr. Stewart's house—you know, his house was up there. I don't know why people were so nice to the Kellys.

Dr. Stewart was just great. He let—we had to pay tuition then to go to school. It was not a county school, it was only high school. And we paid a dollar at Christmas, and a dollar to begin, and a dollar a month.

Well Dr. Stewart would let Papa have the money, and then they'd chop—all these little kids—and go out that were big enough to chop cotton and pick cotton and whatever—to pay it. That's the way we went to school. And it wasn't easy.

That's the kind of doctor he was. And I don't know—he couldn't have done it for everybody—but I don't know why he did it for us. You know, you just see God's hand in everything that happened.

[06:30] Even to a big collard patch. Papa put about a third of the garden spot in collards, and they just grew and they grew and they grew.

And we lived in an alley. You know, went down—I don't know if you know anything about alleys—but they went down this side, and the Negroes were down there.

And one girl came here and told me she wanted to talk to me. She said, "Did you know you have an angel for a mother?" And I knew my mama was mighty good. I knew that everybody liked her.

And Oro was the girl that came, and she said that she didn't know what they would have done if they hadn't come up to our house and said they wanted to buy some collards or some beans or some corn or whatever was in that garden. And said mama would give what she bought, and then if she had any onions or tomatoes or whatever, she had put some in.

And so that's what this girl came to tell me when I moved in here—that "did you know you had an angel for a mother?"

[07:45] The fact is, I was the oldest that lived big enough to work, and my mother needed me. It was hard for her to have that many children and want every one of us to go off and try our wings.

I don't remember ever not having clean clothes. With a cow, and all of those chickens and things to take care of, and cook three meals a day. And after we got to town, you know, the depression was on, and people would go home with us for lunch. And my mama would have vegetables and stuff, and she never, never, never griped.

She needed more help than she got. She died when she was 52 with uterus cancer. And that was sad looking back. But while I was there, I think I was doing what I could.

[08:30] I was very comfortable in high school. I went, rode the bus for four months from close to the church at Rockland.

And we had so many children to educate. And mama was, and daddy were, you know, they just were so educated minded. I mean they weren't educated, but they were only enough to have one—all ten of us got a high school education. And all the two got some further education.

And when you think about no money at all, you don't know how. But God had to—God had to handle it.

[09:10] I graduated in May. I went to Sunday school the following Sunday.

Back up, I want to tell you who preached at our—who taught at our graduation: PETER MARSHALL. He had just come from Scotland and he was preaching in Decatur. And he'd go to Covington on Sunday afternoons.

And I don't know why, who got him, but he was there. And the only thing I remember him saying was: "Don't give up your dreams. Don't ever give up your dreams. Hitch your wagon to a star."

That's all I remember. So that was one of my first quotes.

[10:00] Anyhow, I went to Sunday school the first Sunday, and a girl was going to GSCW to school. They had let me teach when the teacher was not going to be there in the third grade when I was a senior. And I was the salutatorian.

Anyway, this girl was going to school, and all of a sudden I had to go to school to GSCW with her. There wasn't any money in our house—there just wasn't any. You know, we had plenty to eat, but there wasn't any money. We had plenty to wear because my mother could take this and make something.

But anyhow, Lucille Langley was going to school the next Monday, a week. And I went home—I had to go. There was no way I could—I wanted to go.

And my daddy says, "You know we don't have any money." And I knew we didn't, but I cried anyway.

So he came in to where I was and he said, "Hush crying. I'll take you to see Uncle Yulis tomorrow—no, I'll take you to see Mr. Rainey." He was the school superintendent. "And he'll give you a job. I will see if Uncle Yulis will let you have some money."

Well, we went the next day to Decatur. And Mr. Rainey gave me a job in a two-teacher school to teach first, second, and third grade.

[11:30] And I taught three years there in that little school. I started when I was 17 and a half. I had a boy older than me in school. Mrs. Partington came out, you know, to see about him. And he needed to go to school and learn to read. And so he was older than me.

And in this two-teacher school, you had to be the janitor. We had an outhouse. We had a well. You had to sweep your own coal. Build your own fires. 17 and a half.

And the first year, we had an exhibit. And we built an Indian village. We didn't have 17 children. So in the back of the room, we put pine trees on—little things like Christmas trees—and put pine straw on and made costumes for the Indians out of crocus sacks and put some fringe around the bottoms.

I made $50 a month and couldn't go to work until October. And so I worked eight months that year and made—wait a minute—eight months—$400 for the year.

I paid $6 to get over there, to board. $9 to board. And I had $35. And I needed to pay Uncle Ulis back.

Well, somehow in two years Uncle Ulis was paid back, and I always had enough money saved to go back to GSCW because you had to go every year.

[13:00] So I went to GSCW in the summer. And I went to Georgia State at night and taught school and worked at Comfort Zone Saturday to buy cloth to make dresses and things for the kids.

And I taught there three years. I went to Salem on the other side of town and taught three years.

And then we consolidated with Rockland and Klondike and Belmont—well, no, Philadelphia—I mean Klondike. Three schools consolidated and we had a great school with a great principal. And I just had a heyday there.

I taught third grade one year. I wanted fourth. So they didn't give me the third grade the first year—but they gave me—I mean I wanted fourth grade and they gave me third. So the next year I got the fourth grade. So I taught one class two years. And they just were smart and it was just so much fun.

[14:00] In the tenth grade, the White family—Ray White's family—gave us a Christmas party. And my cousin invited Theron.

And that was after I had taught four and a half years. I didn't see him anymore—I guess—I don't remember that I did.

We had election night, and I had my car then—and it was the '29 Ford. And I went to Decatur to see if Mr. Rainey got elected. And he and his partner had come up there to see who got elected. And we met on the street and talked a little while.

And then I was going by his store everyday to where I was teaching. And so one day he stopped and asked me for a date.

And the second date that we had, he said, "You want to go to church with me?" And that suited me great.

And so we—that was when school started—so September till the next December 18th, we went together. A year and four months. And on June the 6th, he gave me the engagement ring. And then from June 6th till December 18th we were engaged.

[15:15] When we got ready to go get married, we went to the pastoral room at Conyers and got married in front of a Christmas tree. And my sister Christy and his sister Gladys were our attendants.

We didn't have a camera. We just went and got married. Didn't have any money at all to even get married—I mean, to get a little trousseau. And wore my sister's clothes a lot that year.

But I think I had $20 to buy what I got married in. But it didn't look that bad at the time. I think I gave them $11.98 for a suit. $1.98 for shoes and hat and that sort of thing. Because you see that was way back in '37. The Depression had hardly gotten over.

But we did have an apartment. We needed it. And the furniture and everything when we were married.

And it was the best thing I ever did in my life. Because nobody else would have put up with me. But he let me be me. You know, he let me be me. And he was always just helping. He worked my way through school—what I had not really done.

The first Christmas he gave me this secretary.

[16:30] And we didn't have—that was '37—and Mickey was born in '42. And I had taught school nine years then. And we went to Montgomery for him to work, make the living. And so it was time for our children.

So he was born June '42. You know that was during the war. Because '41 we were eating dinner on Sunday, and it came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

So it came time for him to be drafted. And he went back to—he was supposed to go to Tucker. And he went back to tell Mr. Lee, the man in charge of garages here and there I guess.

Anyhow, Mr. Lee says, "Will you take a letter?" He says, "I didn't come after a letter." "Well I'm going to send one."

And so he sent a letter. And Theron said everybody in front of him was saying, "I'm sorry we got to meet our quota, we got to meet our quota." And they got to him and they said, "You're more important where you are."

Because there were two—Gunner Phil and Maxwell Phil—and the depot was there. You know, that's—got supplies, kept supplies for the two things. And so he was there during the war.

[18:00] We moved to Montgomery after the three years at Murphy-Kellum and stayed there for four years and three months. And it was sat down on the friendliest corner in Montgomery, Alabama.

I had met a woman on the train. Her husband worked for the train, for the company. And she came to get her husband—he was a driver. And we got in the car and talked.

And on Saturday, the military up the street came down and said, "Go to Sunday school with me tomorrow." And we did. And we went in and sat down by Elizabeth—the girl that I'd sat in the car with. And she's my best friend now.

And she has—I had lots of health problems—in the hospital two or three times while we were there, four years and three months. And she was always there. And she said she prays for me every day. I don't know how in the world you could get a friend like that that lasted this long. But she puts up with me.

[19:00] And Mrs. Burton was the Sunday school teacher. I wish I could have been—I guess I tried—I would love to have copied her.

Her husband sold children's ready to wear from Monday through Friday. And she just gave her time to the 45 folks she had in her class. And every one of them felt like they were special.

She would be at the hospital. And I'd be there—probably every day—and have some flowers that she would have. And somebody said there aren't anybody—and give them to them.

And after we came back, she came out to live—I mean to visit, to see us. And we visited her until she died.

[20:00] And I was going to have—Mama was sick and she knew she was dying. And she asked if we'd come back and look after the three that had not finished school.

So the question was, "Theron, what do you think?" Well, he never grumbled and griped about moving. But Theron never hesitated. His mother had died and left a lot of children, and I guess he got used to knowing that you had to sacrifice.

So we moved back in this little house. It was too little for us—with a bed in the dining room and a bed in the living room and for a while—but anyhow—and a bed in the back end of the hall. And stayed four years.

Those last three children Mama wanted to be sure that they got their education. They did graduate from high school. It wasn't easy. That was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. But it was necessary. It wasn't easy for them either.

But Mama wanted them to have some supervision. And they couldn't have washed their own clothes and played basketball and all the things they did—could they? I don't think so.

But anyhow, it was hard. And Theron never grumbled at all. Never.

[21:30] It was time for our children. Now, Mickey was born in June 1942. Now he is selling long term care insurance for MASS. And he was salesman of the year in the nation for MASS in 2002.

Martha Marie was second. She was born October 6, 1945. She was just one of a kind. But a precious one to me. And wouldn't do—there's nothing in the world she wouldn't do for me.

Martha was next and she was born July 13, 1948. She is the secretary—the only helper that the district of Decatur Oxford Methodist Church has. And she works for him and has for years and years.

[22:30] When I came back from Montgomery, I did not go back to teaching school of course. I was still at Papa's until '49. You know, in 1949 three of us went into business for children ready to wear.

My two sisters-in-law—one was their sister and one was his sister-in-law. They made draperies and bedspreads, and I sold children ready to wear. I guess until about '52 maybe, or '50, or somewhere, '51 or '52.

And they decided that they didn't want to do it. And Theron said, "You just go back to teaching school. We'll be better off in the long run."

What if I had stayed in that store and didn't have any income now? Would it be awful? But anyhow.

[23:30] In 1952, after I was out of the little shop—and it was pretty close to Main Street, and it used to be a dry cleaners, and it was just a cute little shop—that's what it was, a cute little shop, and we had quality stuff.

But in '52, I had already stopped the store. And they called me at Rock Chapel and wanted me to come out there. They didn't have a teacher.

And I said if I could get somebody to keep them off... Well, the Lord just sent the nicest nineteen-year-old girl with this bright smile and enthusiastic lifestyle to keep Martha. And she would walk her and she would read to her. And so therefore Martha was pretty smart.

[24:30] One day when I was at Rock Chapel, there was a thing on the bulletin board that said if you wanted to teach special ed, you could go to Georgia and get a fellowship and teach special ed at Stolzview—that's the Lithonia school, grammar school.

And I had 42 children that year and they did great. But about five of them needed special help. And I worried my life away because I couldn't give them much special help.

But I did try to get them a church where they could go to. But anyhow, I wasn't the only one—you understand that now—a lot of people helped out. And they're still helping out.

[25:30] Pretty soon they wanted somebody to go to the mission at Collinsville—the Lithonians. And Theron and I went down there. And you know, it was just such a great thing. They had a good preacher.

And it was—you know—they didn't feel comfortable in a big church. But they surely did like the Lord.

So the highway got our building at Collinsville. And the church decided we'd bring them to Lithonia.

I took two—I was bringing two loads—and Theron was bringing one. Because they said, you know, it was fine if we brought them in. They had a place to go.

Pretty soon there was not anybody much going. A couple ladies were going—maybe they didn't go every Sunday.

[26:30] Then they stopped. And they asked me to teach seven year olds the next year. And I accepted.

Two ladies came to me and said, "If we find a place for you to have Sunday school, will you come back and teach us?"

And from then until years and years and years, we hunted a place. It would either be too small and you couldn't bring the children, or there wouldn't be any parking place, or you just couldn't find a place.

So finally—and I know the Lord wanted us to have a place, a church, for them. Because he would have let me alone and I wouldn't have just thought about it all the time and stopping here and there and asking "where can we have Sunday school here?"

So one day I went by the nursery on Conyers Street and I said, "Could we have this—rent this on Sunday to have Sunday school?" And they did. And so we had it there a year.

And the next door of the building came for sale. And we bought that and had Sunday school there. And then the next door came for sale. The church bought that for us. And it was the ranking house and it was big enough for Sunday school. And we had a trailer in the back that the association owned us.

And the next—the house next door was the Shaw house. And it became available. So it's that one on the right—I mean on the left with the steeple. And that building back there is the educational building.

And some people came from Center Alabama or somewhere in Alabama and put the foundation up. We'd eat in the soup kitchen and cooked their lunch everyday. But they framed it up and our men finished it.

And we had a couple that just was giving their life—every inch—secretary and treasurer or whatever. And they named the building for me. And it wasn't supposed to be—it should have been her. And I don't know why they did. But you know, I'm not bragging about it because I had nothing to do with it.

[28:30] You know, I taught school 28 years.

He kept those kids when I was going—taking three courses of history in the last quarter I was at Georgia State. I took off a year. And he looked after the kids to the degree that I could come home and study history until—I guess I had to get supper, I don't remember if I did. But if I hadn't, it would have been perfectly alright with him I think.

But anyhow, the kids—I would wash the clothes and put them in a box and they were responsible for ironing theirs. And I read till I couldn't see and go to bed and get up in the middle of the night and read some.

And then go to—because when I asked the advisor, I went to him and he says, "All you lack is three courses of history." And I don't know if anybody can pass three courses of history.

And I said, "What I want—if I don't try, I won't know till I try." So I did. And I made three C's. I did pass.

But I was—see—I graduated in '60 and I was 46 years old.

[33:00] I was in my 20s, so I was already loving the Lord. But when I went to Mrs. Burton—and she was such a good Sunday school teacher, like you wished you could be—then I just realized that I was growing.

And the fact that she thought enough of me to come to see me, and for me to come to see her—see, that was what was so nice about it.

Then I went to the Collinsville Mission and just having such fun with those kids.

[33:30] Because my heroes are George Washington Carver—the little slave boy who became this great, great man, scientist.

I remember he asked Mrs. Washington—no, Mrs. Carver—I believe it was Mrs. Carver—"What made these flowers blue?" Because he grew flowers. And she said she didn't know. And he just said, "I'll ask God."

Then when he went back to Tuskegee—after he had gone to Washington to cook the bread, to show the flour that he made out of potatoes, and had to go to the back door—you just were so mad about that.

Then he came back and went to Tuskegee when he probably could have gone anywhere to teach. He knew so much. And he said he was going to help the man furthest down.

Well, that's why I went into special education—because they needed help. Because if they're in a regular classroom, no teacher can, with four or five—no teacher can take them individually and tutor them enough to get them anywhere.

So I just think that I liked that idea of helping the person furthest down.

[35:00] And I remember when we had the soup kitchen at Lithonia at our church. We made the best soup we could make—for the Lord. You know, it was good soup. I just cooked this pressure cooker thing full—I mean a lot in it—and take it out there. And I was making it for the Lord.

But I was going up and down the streets and getting anybody that could get in my car. And we had somebody doing a program while the people in the back were cooking, heating up the soup and cooking whatever they were going to do.

And we had a clothes closet that got down in the floor. When you go to let somebody see the clothes—and I just took it to the back porch and put wires all up across here. And then when somebody would bring some good stuff, I knew who needed it. And I'd call them and say, "Come and see if you need any of this."

And Mr. Brown went to a—I forgot the name of the store that had bread—and he'd just bring boxes of bread to our back porch. And I'd call people in different communities and say, "Come and get a box of bread for your community."

And then we had a food bank. And we'd go to the food bank sometimes—not all the time because other people went. You could buy food, you know, really twelve cents a month I think. We were doing a lot of things.

[36:30] And here's what they said something about—"feed my sheep"—when we were talking about us getting this award.

You know, you'd say, "Lord, what should I do today?" And you know, just a thought came through my mind: "Feed my sheep."

And you thought about Peter. The Lord asked Peter three times—"What do you want me to do?" And he said, "Feed my sheep." "Do you love me? Feed my sheep." Three times.

And I said it must be important. So I just thought that was the Lord wanting us to feed his sheep. And we tried. And you don't try just physical—you try to give them the spiritual food.

[37:00] And they ask what my favorite verse is. I do believe that when the Lord lifted his arms right before he ascended into heaven and said, "Go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."

And then he said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." And I think anything he wrote and read that he asked us to do was a commandment and not a suggestion.

You think something that you shouldn't think, and all of a sudden you know it because you know better. And you say, "May the words in my mouth, the meditations in my heart, be acceptable." And I say, "Oh Lord, my strength and I will do."

[40:00] Now, in our church, we need a prayer partnership going. Because that's the most powerful thing we've got. That's the most powerful thing we can do as ninety-year-old folks—is pray.

And I wish I knew how... "I have no greater joy than to know that my children and grandchildren are following in the way." That's scripture.

And I have no greater joy than to hear Keely tell that she went to church and that she used some stuff that I sent her in an envelope to tell somebody. That's a lot of fun.

[41:00] I want you grandchildren to feel the time and space that I can no longer feel when I go.

Carry on from where I am.

I want you to prepare yourself now to feel my time and space when I'm no longer here.

Because it's just one generation from pagans. And we're losing ground pretty fast, aren't we?

She walked her talk.