Maddox Farm Road

Name reveals storied past of
Odenville entrepreneur

Story by Joe Whitten
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.
Submitted Photos

Maddox Farm Road, named for John Luther Maddox Sr., lies off U.S. 411 about two eyeblinks north of Liberty Church. Who was this man?

A July 16, 1908, an article in the St. Clair County News, published in Odenville, states, “John Luther Maddox … moved to St. Clair County 21 years ago [c1887], where he … engaged in farming up to 1895. He then entered the mercantile business in a small scale but has been very successful…. Mr. Maddox is a self-made man and is successful in his undertakings … He is … interested in educational matters, good roads, the general upbuilding and development of Odenville and adjacent territory.” Maddox was founder, owner and editor of this newspaper.

He was born March 23, 1869, in Benton (Calhoun) County, Ala., to Chesley Benton and Annie Majors Maddox. John Luther’s great-great-grandparents, John and Rebecca Teague Maddox, had settled in the Blue Mountain area of Benton, now Calhoun County, early in the 19th Century. According to family historian, Dorothy Maddox Bishop, John Maddox fought with Gen. Andrew Jackson “… at Horseshoe Bend,” and indicates that John settled in Alabama because of serving with Jackson.

Just what prompted him to locate in St. Clair County isn’t part of family lore. However, rich farmland probably lured him here c1887. Also, the excitement of a new century lay ahead, and St. Clair stood ready to flourish. Springville, Ashville, Odenville and Ragland bustled with businesses. By 1905, the Seaboard Airline Railroad would connect Ragland and Odenville with Birmingham. Sumter Cogswell was developing Pell City, and by 1902, a railroad would connect that town with cities east and west.

John Luther Maddox married Sarah Elizabeth Jones (1870-1927) on Feb. 24, 1895, in St. Clair County. She was the daughter of Joel Wheeler Jones, who was born in South Carolina to Steven and Polly Jones. According to Dorothy Bishop, Steven served in the American Revolution and is buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery near Springville.

Joel Wheeler Jones bought 40 acres in July 1854 near Harden’s Shop, today’s Odenville. Sixty years later, his acres would be called “Jones’s Cut” because of the cut for Seaboard Airline railroad tracks nearby.

In 1858, Joel Wheeler Jones married Jane E. Simpson, and they had two children, James and Lorenna. In December 1861, Jones enlisted in the Confederate Army and fought in battles at Shiloh, Corinth, Tullahoma and Chickamauga. He was captured Nov. 25, 1863, at the Battle of Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and imprisoned at Rock Island, Ill.

At Rock Island, the Union offered him release from prison if he would fight for the Union. He agreed and was sent with Union forces to quell Native American uprisings in the “Northwestern Frontier.” Dorothy Bishop’s research showed he was sent there, “because General U.S. Grant, among others, did not believe that ex-Confederate troops should be assigned to areas where they might have to fight their former comrades in arms.” Discharged from the Union Army Nov. 7, 1865, Jones headed home to St. Clair County.

According to Maddox’s oral history, Jones’ wife, Jane, not having heard from her husband for maybe three years, assumed him to be dead and married again. Working in the yard one day, she looked up, and Joel Wheeler Jones came walking down the lane toward her. Seeing him, she fled, leaving the children behind and never returned. Jones’ mother helped him with the motherless children until her death in 1866.

Joel Wheeler Jones married secondly Aug. 1, 1866, Mary Rebecca Bolton, daughter of Henry C. and Margaret Vandegrift Bolton. Joel and Rebecca had five children, one of whom was Sara Elizabeth Jones who was destined to combine both the Jones-Maddox genealogy and the Jones-Maddox farmlands which remain in the Maddox family today.

John Luther Maddox added store business to farming c1895. His daughter, Myrtle Maddox Kenney, in a 1990 interview recounted, “When my father started out, his first store was up there at Friendship in Miss Nancy Mize’s old house. It was a log house with a lean-to.” A descendant of Nancy Mize relates that they believe Nancy’s house was near the foot of Beaver Mountain between today’s Prison Road off U.S. 411 and Friendship Baptist Church.

John L. Maddox, Jr. and sisters Tennie Barnes and Myrtle Kenney

About 1900, he moved his store a few miles north of Friendship to Julian, a late 19th Century community where today stand the “Rock Stores” landmark. Of this community, Gary Pool wrote in a Leeds News article, Sept. 26, 1985, “There were only a few wooden frame buildings and one small post office. Even as towns were rated back then, Julian was … no more than a wide place in the old gravelly road.”

Maddox built a wood-frame store at Julian at today’s rock stores. His was on the right side going north. Will Dollar later bought that property. Maddox’s wooden building burned in 1926 and Will Dollar constructed the rock stores.

The Julian store flourished and was noted frequently in the Springville newspaper. The “Odenville” column of the Springville News reported March 17, 1898, “J. L. Maddox passed through our town first of the week on his way to the Magic City to buy goods.” An April 3, 1902, Springville News ad reads: “All next week we will be pleased to show you the largest stock of ladies trimmed hats, misses trimmed hats, and children’s hats all sizes … J. L. Maddox, Julian, Alabama.”

In 1902, excitement ran high in Odenville, for the Seaboard Airline had begun drilling the Hardwick Tunnel and laying train tracks that would run through Odenville and on to Birmingham. Always alert for business opportunities, Maddox now set his sights on Odenville and supplying the needs of railroad workers.

Myrtle recollected, “He built a store over there at the Hardwick Tunnel, and then he started the one down there where the Chevron Station is.” The Ridgeline Roofing Company operates at that location in 2021.

Wanting to move to Odenville, in 1904 Luther began construction of a family home there. “We moved in it in 1905,” Myrtle said. “It wasn’t finished on the inside. You see, everybody farmed back then, and the carpenters … stopped work when the crops came in.” After gathering crops, the carpenters finished the house.

About the same time, Myrtle continued, “He built a four-room house” in Odenville for Dr. C.C. Brown, the first doctor to live in Odenville. Both these houses still stand today. This house may be earlier than 1904 because Dr. C.C. Brown is mentioned in a Springville Item, June 11, 1903 issue.

The doctor’s house is sometimes referred to as “the house with two front doors.” Speculation is that one front door opened to Dr. Brown’s office and the other front door opened to his living quarters.

Over the years, several rooms were added to the first four. The original roof was wood shingles and traces of forest green paint was discovered on old trim-work. The historic designation of the house is the Maddox-Whitten House since this writer and his wife bought it in 1974.

In 1907, Alabama proposed building accredited high schools in counties that did not already have a state-supported high school. St. Clair County wanted a county high school, and Springville, Odenville and Pell City began to vie for location. Realizing the strength of a newspaper in campaigning for the school location, Luther Maddox founded the St. Clair County News, c1908, and built a newspaper office building.

In his efforts for the school location, Maddox wrote editorials in favor of Odenville as the best spot in St. Clair County for the new school. Pell City had no newspaper in March 1908 and made no public response to Maddox’s comment that Pell City was good, “a cotton mill town,” but “nature never intended it for an educational site.” (St. Clair County News March 5, 1908)

However, in May when Odenville was chosen for the school location, Pell City had a newspaper, The Pell City Progress, and the editor, McLane Tilton, wrote in the May 7, 1908, issue that he feared the state would come to regret having put a “Ten thousand dollar school building in a one thousand dollar town.”

As a member of the St. Clair County High School Building Committee, Maddox worked tirelessly to raise funds for construction of the building. Completed in 1909, the school’s first seniors graduated in 1912.

Maddox was among the first shareholders of the Bank of Odenville which opened in 1908. He was listed as vice president of the bank in a Southern Aegis ad May 6, 1909.

Civic responsibilities did not preclude Luther Maddox’s involvement in the church life of Odenville. The Methodist congregation had organized and met in the Odenville Elementary School from about 1906. Then in the April 19, 1909, edition of the St. Clair County News, the church announced the construction of their own Methodist sanctuary. Listed as a member of the building committee was J. L. Maddox. The article reported that the committee were obligated “for a generous donation of lumber to the new church.” The beautiful building, completed c1911, stands today and serves the Odenville United Methodist Church congregation.

Anna Lee (White) Maddox – Across Old Springville Road

Maddox caused excitement and newspaper reports when he purchased Odenville’s first automobile. The St. Clair County News reported Sept. 9, 1909, “Mr. J. L. Maddox purchased a fine automobile last week and Odenville can now take her place with the other towns throughout the country who have passed the horse and buggy stage.… The auto is made to carry about six passengers and has good speed.”

Two weeks later, the Sept. 23, 1909, issue of St. Clair County News reported, “A party of five went to Ashville Sunday in the automobile belonging to J. L. Maddox. Mr. Crow Harden, who knows more about the machines than anyone else in this area of the county, acted as chauffeur. The trip was made in record breaking time, one hour and ten minutes.”

In 1990, when the interviewer asked Myrtle about these newspaper articles, she laughed and replied, “That was the surrey with the fringe on top! My daddy guided it with a stick – steered it with a stick.”

She told another trip. “Coming home we got in Canoe Creek, and the old thing got wet and quit. Daddy had to pull off his shoes and roll up his pants and crank the thing to get it to start.” She remembers how the automobile’s “chug, chug, chugging,” scattered chickens near the road and frightened horses pulling wagons near Bethel. “The horses rared up and down. It scared me,” she laughed.

Luther Maddox prospered, and in November 1909, he entered into a partnership with W.L. Steed in the Odenville Mercantile Company. St. Clair County News reported Nov. 11, 1909, that “Mr. J. L. Maddox is president of the new firm and Mr. W. L. Steed Secretary-Treasurer.”

Economic downturns often swallow up the good, and Luther Maddox’s fortunes began to diminish. The July 12, 1911, Southern Aegis ran a legal ad announcing that on Aug. 7, 1911, the Sheriff, J.D. Love, would sell “at the courthouse door, Ashville, St. Clair County …” three tracts of J.L. Maddox’s land to satisfy a circuit court case in favor of J.L. Newton. The Southern Aegis of July 24, 1912, and Nov. 20, 1912, Sheriff Love advertised two more tracts of land to be sold on the Ashville Courthouse steps to satisfy J.L. Newton.

Despite these setbacks, Maddox continued his business operations in Odenville for a while. However, the June 23, 1916, issue of the St. Clair County News, published in Ragland, noted in the “Odenville News” that “Luther Maddox is moving out to his farm near here. Maddox has gone into farming and cattle raising.” Then in the July 23, 1916, “Odenville News” reported, “J. T. Newburn has bought the Maddox store and will run the business at this place.”

Myrtle recalled her father’s misfortunes: “In 1916, it rained, and they didn’t make any crops that year. That’s what put my daddy out of business. People just didn’t make anything, and he’d sold ‘em fertilizer on credit, and they didn’t even have corn to eat. They had to go in debt to keep themselves living. So, my daddy borrowed $1,200 and had to pay 6% interest on that. Yes, $72 a year…. That was 1917 that he’d borrowed to keep everything going.”

Maddox stood on the brink of disaster – the possibility of losing more land and the houses he still owned. However, family loyalty rescued Maddox. Myrtle recalls, “My brothers joined the Navy. They made their money out of the Navy – their little bitty bit of money – and they’d send it to Daddy, and he paid it off that way.” She paused, then added, “It was terrible.” The brothers were Chesley Benton and J.L. Maddox, Jr.

J.L.’s daughter, Mary Ann Maddox Moore, told how her father took none of his free time but instead did the laundry for his shipmates to earn extra money to send back home to help pay off the debt. Little by little, John Luther Maddox cleared his debt and saved his property. Since he no longer had business dealings in St. Clair County, the Maddox family moved to Florida.

Myrtle recalled the move, “My father closed out everything, and he just went to Florida after we got everything paid out. Daddy didn’t have money to try to get back in business, so he went to Lakeland, Fla. The boys got out of the Navy, and that’s where the boys got jobs.”

In Florida, Sarah Elizabeth Jones Maddox became ill with cancer and died May 1, 1927, and was buried in Liberty Cemetery, Odenville.

Myrtle recalled the Great Depression and that in 1932, she along with her father and sister, John Luther and Tennie, returned to Odenville. Renters lived in the family home, so they all lived in the house built for Dr. Brown.

Over the years four more rooms had been added to that house. “It was a great big place, and we were all there. After Mama died, Daddy took her insurance money and got back in business again. Store business was all he knew. He started again, and then he died in 1935.” John Luther Maddox, indominable entrepreneur of Odenville, was laid to rest next to his wife in Liberty Cemetery.

Maddox’s last store stood where the Oakridge Outdoor Power Equipment conducts business today on U.S. 411. “My sister Tennie inherited the store,” Myrtle recalled, “but everybody was in debt to her, and my brother, J.L. Jr., just came up here and closed it out.” Tennie went with J.L. to Florida where she married and lived out her life.

At John Luther’s death, Myrtle inherited the family home, Jack Maddox, the Dr. Brown house, and brothers Chesley Benton and J.L. Jr., inherited the farm. J.L. bought out his brother, and the farm remains in possession of J.L.’s children, Dorothy Maddox Bishop, Mary Ann Maddox Moore and deceased John Wesley “Jay” Maddox’s wife and children.

Bert and Mary Ann Maddox Moore and their three daughters moved from Mulberry, Fla., just outside of Lakeland in 1977 and built their home on the land in sight of where Joel Wheeler Jones built his home before the Civil War.

Bert and Mary Ann’s daughter, Lee Ann Moore Clark, loved spending time at the farm during summer visits from Florida. “Prior to living here, we traveled from Florida to Odenville during the summer to visit my grandpa Maddox’s farm.

“My sisters and I loved exploring the property and seeing the lightning bugs at dusk. We would catch and put them in a mason jar to light our room at night. A whippoorwill just outside my bedroom window would always lull me to sleep every night. Picking blackberries along the road was also the highlight of my summer except for the chigger bites. Licking the drop of nectar off a honeysuckle flower, was something our dad taught us, that we thought was the coolest thing ever! One time our mom found a perfect arrowhead on the farm which prompted a discussion about how it got there and how long it had been since Native Americans spent time on the property,” Clark said.

“We played in the creek that flowed through the property, caught minnows in a jar and always stopped at the spring for a quick drink to quench our thirst. Conveniently, there was always a cup left hanging on a limb close by. From there we could hear the rushing water over the waterfall, which was our last stop before climbing back up to the shady road lined with large trees,” she said.

“Names carved in the trees included my grandpa’s. Not only did we have fresh water to drink, but we also found a crabapple tree, something we had never seen or tasted before.

“My Maddox grandparents would come up from Florida and stay for a month in the farmhouse during the summer after we moved here. Grandpa always worked hard to remodel the farmhouse he loved so much. We often had lunch there, and our Grandma cooked all kinds of delicious things for us like chicken and dumplings and rice pudding. She also made watermelon rind preserves. Unlike folks today, she didn’t waste anything,” she recalled.

“These are just a few of my favorite childhood memories of a place that one day would become my home.” 

Life spans run out, and community leaders change from one generation to another. Without written records and recorded memories, people and names fade into forgottenness. Be thankful for St. Clair County road names like Maddox Farm Road that remind us of a man Odenville owes a great deal to, John Luther Maddox Sr.

Educators’ lasting impact

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

“Any person or persons who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read, or write, shall upon conviction thereof of indictment be fined in a sum of two hundred and fifty dollars.”

This doleful Alabama law underscores the importance of education. Enacted in 1833, the law aligned with other Antebellum states’ laws which resulted from literate slave Nat Turner’s brief rebellion of 1831. Until then, slaves could be openly taught to read and write. Turner’s Rebellion ended in three days, and he was hanged.

Sometimes referred to as the “Black Moses,” Nat Turner was literate, preached from the Bible and influenced both races. From his rebellion, slave owners realized that educating slaves was dangerous. Therefore, soon after Turner’s execution, slave states began passing laws forbidding educating Blacks – slave or freedmen. Ex-slave Frederick Douglass would later write, “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”

So, it’s no wonder that after the Civil War and toward the end of Reconstruction in Alabama (1874), freed slaves began organizing their own churches and schools. Established Dec. 17, 1868, the Alabama Black Baptist Convention urged their members to foster education through the local churches. In his history, Uplifting the People, Three Centuries of Black Baptist in Alabama, Wilson Fallin, Jr., records: “In 1870, the convention advised its churches ‘to build schoolhouses and churches in their own means, declining all union with others, unless absolutely necessary.’”

In St. Clair County, though, Ashville’s Black citizens had the “union” and support of White citizens in establishing the first school for children of former slaves. Old St. Clair County records show that on April 15, 1872, Pope Montgomery and wife deeded to the Methodist Episcopal Church a building to serve as a church and a school for “colored children.” That church was named St. Paul’s and continues today.

About 90 years later, this school evolved into Ashville Colored High School and in 1965 to Ruben High School.

According to Mrs. Bessie Byers’ valuable handwritten history of the school, the 1872 school began with two teachers who “were qualified to teach by having passed the teachers’ examination.” Attendance increased, and in a few years, more teachers were added, and both St. Paul’s Methodist Church and Mt. Zion Baptist Church served as classrooms for grades 1-7. Students sat on the church benches. Potbellied stoves supplied heat, and the men provided the wood and pine knots for starting the fires.

The school had no PTA, but parents and community came together to support education. Mrs. Byers writes, “The parents began having ‘Saturday Nights at the Hall.’ Admission was 25 cents, and every child who came was given 25 cents to spend on goodies, such as parched peanuts, cookies, and drinks. The money collected went to the teachers to purchase blackboards, chalk, erasers, and other necessities.”

These Saturday nights not only provided teachers with essentials but also brought the community together for fellowship. Those attending enjoyed spelling bees, poetry readings, games and singing. This community camaraderie has all but vanished in the whirlwind of today’s business.

As years progressed, music became part of the curriculum. Many of the students had natural musical gifts though they never had lessons. Mrs. Byers wrote of Ila and Eva Byers, “They could play any melody once they’d heard it, although they’d never taken piano lessons. Each day,” she recalled, “a time was set aside when lessons were put aside and every child sang, filling the building with the sound of beautiful old Spirituals.” She mentions that four graduates of Ashville Colored High School formed a quartet called The Happy Four and sang to groups as far away as Chattanooga. If they added a fifth member, they called themselves The Happy Five.

Margaret Bothwell LeFleur, class of 1963, recounted, “We had a little group of us girls called The Red Skirt Gang, and we used to sing the songs of the day – like Sincerely.” Gloria Williams, Gloria Woods, Pauline Mabry, Doris Turner and Margaret sang with the group.

By 1935, the school needed a new building. Mrs. Byers recorded that the County Board of Education, led by Superintendent of Education James Baswell purchased from Jim Beason three acres on the “hilltop known as Jim Beason’s pasture,” where the Board constructed a three-room frame building.

“It was a neat building,” she wrote, “painted white, with large classrooms and numerous windows. It was known as Ashville Colored High School, with grades one through 12.” The new school had running water but no lunchroom. Attendance grew quickly and the board added two more rooms. Five teachers gave instruction.

Earlier times

Let’s go back to1897 for a moment, for that year in Ashville was born to Wash and Sarah Yancy a baby boy they named Ruben. Sarah Yancy’s 1963 obituary lists Ruben’s siblings: Della Mostella, Gordan Yancy and Myrtis Noble. Ruben was the one destined to move Ashville’s Black school forward in the 1940s when he was known as “Professor Yancy,” principal of Ashville Colored High School.

Information about Professor Yancy remains scant. Where he attended college seems a mystery, although 91-year-old Boone Turner recalls that Professor had several college degrees and “When school was out for the summer, he would take off to Chicago and take up classes.”

He probably started at Millers Ferry, Wilcox County. He was teaching there when at age 21, he enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 28, 1918. Teachers were exempt from registering, but he patriotically enlisted. However, the war ended less than two months later, and he received an honorable discharge on Dec. 26, 1918.

Just where he taught after the war and what year he arrived in Ashville to teach is elusive. By 1947, Professor Yancy had been appointed principal of Ashville Colored High School. Some local senior citizens recall him well. Joe Lee Bothwell recalled, “When he told you to do something, he meant it. He was all about you learning.” Boone Turner said, “I can tell you he was a good man. He was the principal of the school and taught classes.” His influence was on both Black and White communities, Boone said. When White parents whose children needed tutoring in math, they sent them to him for tutoring. Jay Richey, whose dad, J.W. “Shag” Richey, principal of Ashville High School and later St. Clair superintendent of education, recalls hearing stories of the math tutoring and how “extremely intelligent” Professor Yancy was.

As a well-educated, hometown man, Professor Yancy was respected throughout Ashville. Mrs. Byers observed that he “commanded the respect” of both students and parents. He also knew his students deserved a better school building with a lunchroom and library, and he set to work to bring that dream to fruition. “White citizens of Ashville,” Mrs. Byers wrote, “helped Mr. Yancy plan the new building,” which took several years.

When Professor Yancy’s health forced him to retire, Lloyd Newton took over as Principal. On Feb. 26, 1958, Professor Yancy died, never seeing the fruit of his labor.

The community’s love for him moved them to successfully petition the board of education to rename the school for him. Therefore, at the dedication of the new building, Dec. 15, 1965, they changed the name from Ashville Colored High School to Ruben Yancy High School.

Eloise Williams recalled that after integration there was a move to change the school’s name, but Brother Clifford Thomas led the way in gathering petition signatures to present to the board of education to keep the name Ruben Yancy. The board approved. The school served the middle school for some years and now serves alternative education students.

Under Professor Yancy’s photograph in the dedication day program appears these words: “The school is being renamed in honor of the late Prof. Ruben Yancy who was a native of Ashville and principal of Ashville Colored High School from 1947 to 1956. Because of his humanitarian efforts, the community has grown and become a better place to live. His life was an exemplification of all that is embodied in ‘The Teacher’s Creed.’”

Another legend

Professor Lloyd Newton’s education career in St. Clair County made him a legend not only in Ruben Yancy High School but also in the integrated Ashville Elementary School.

Lloyd’s father was a cotton farmer in Sumter County, according to a retirement article in The Anniston Star, Aug. 11, 1985. His mother died when he was three and his father married again.

Professor Lloyd Newton

Erroll Newton, Lloyd’s son, recalled that after his dad graduated from high school, he lived with relatives in Fairfield, where several other relatives lived and worked. One of his aunts recognized Lloyd’s scholastic aptitude and introduced him to the president of Miles College. He enrolled in Miles, lived with his aunt and worked his way through college.

The United States had entered World War II, and Lloyd joined the Navy where he was a first class motor machinist mate for four years. Erroll Newton says of his dad, “During WWII, the military was beginning to integrate all branches of service, and it was in the Navy that he developed his skill as an instructor.” According to the Anniston Star, “After working for Seaboard Railroad, the Navy, and (attending) Wayne State University in Michigan, he landed back in Alabama.” “It was after being discharged after WWII that he began his odyssey to further his career,” Erroll said. “He worked as railroad porter in the Ford Foundry and the Fairfield Foundry, and continuing college in Michigan.”

“Back in Alabama,” Erroll continued, “He ran a nightclub in Fairfield a while before Dr. Bell, president of Miles College, gave him a reference to teach veterans in St. Clair County. A St. Clair News-Aegis article of Nov. 14, 1991, states that Professor Newton returned to his home state in 1947 and that he spent 37 years in St. Clair County education.

Teaching veterans seems to be the beginning of his education career in St. Clair County, but at some point, he began teaching for Professor Yancy and taught until he became principal and was known as “Professor Newton.”

Thousands of children profited from his teaching and mentoring, and each has a memory, as does his son, Erroll, who spoke for himself and his deceased brothers Lloyd, Jr., and Paul when he said, “To me he was just ‘Dad.’ With me not having a mom, he played both roles, and he did a good job. When we came along, he kind of took the reins off, so to speak. It was like, ‘If you want to advance, I’m setting an example for you. You choose your own way, though.’ He was Dad; that was him to me.” And later he was Granddad to Terrell, Chery, Shawn (deceased) and Ryan and several great-grandchildren.

Margaret Bothwell LeFleur credits her teachers and Professor Lloyd Newton at Ashville Colored High School for much of her own success in teaching. 

Margaret LeFleur at 75th birthday

“All of our teachers were dedicated,” Margaret recalled. “Mrs. Marcelline Bell taught seventh- through 12th-grade English. We had textbooks, but we didn’t have a library. But she taught us the Dewey Decimal System even though we had no library to use that knowledge in. However, when I went to Bethune Cookman College, I knew how to use that system in a real library! Our teachers knew what we needed, and they did their best to compensate for the deficiencies.”

Margaret’s dad drove her to Attalla twice a week for piano lessons for there was no Black piano teacher in Ashville. She progressed quickly, and as a seventh-grader played for high school graduation. She accompanied the school choir, which Professor Newton directed. In college she majored in music, which led to her career of teaching music in the schools of St. Paul, Minn.

After Margaret’s mom bought her a typewriter and instruction book, Professor Newton helped her learn typing, and she became an office assistant to him during her high school years.

Eloise Williams remembers Professor Newton as one who “set examples for the kids, and he and the teachers did a good job educating us.” She recalled that he disciplined when misbehavior called for it.

She also knew him as the principal of Ashville Elementary School where her son attended the integrated school. “When the law passed,” she said, “the school had to integrate. Our kids had a hard time. The Whites weren’t used to the Blacks, and the Blacks weren’t used to the Whites. It was new thing for all of them. It didn’t work for a while, but then it smoothed out, and they began to get along with each other.” Mrs. Williams is lovingly known as “Sister Ella” in Ashville today.

Most folk from the 1960s years agree that Professor Newton’s respect by both races, his professional demeanor, and his calm guidance helped ease tensions of integration in Ashville.

When Ruben Yancy ceased being a Black school in 1969, the County Board placed Professor Newton over the elementary grades at Ashville High School (grades K-12) where J. W. “Shag” Richey served as principal. When he moved to the central office of the county board, Mr. Keener became principal of Ashville High School and Professor Newton, principal of Ashville Elementary School, where he served until he retired in 1985.

Jay Richey said of Professor Newton, “He was first class, and a loyal school man to my daddy, and I loved him dearly. Whatever job needed to be done, Mr. Newton did it well.” 

Recalling his father’s career, Erroll added that his “Dad considered Superintendent D.O. Langston a great asset to him” during his administration, and his “faculty members assisted him over the years.” He also mentioned the love of his “endless number of students.”

Professor Newton’s students and teachers hold his memory dear. Maurice Crim started teaching for Professor Newton in 1957 and described him as “a man of integrity who was very supportive of his teachers. There were no problems for we all got along well there.”

“He had a deep booming voice that made you automatically respect him,” student Joy Walker Raysaid. Others, too, recalled his voice and his love of singing.

Glorine Williams became his daughter-in-law when she married Erroll Newton. “Growing up, I remember Mr. Newton coming to my home, and he always talked about the importance of education, attending school and doing your best no matter what. He believed in helping students, and he didn’t show favoritism with anyone. Everyone was treated equal.”

His teachers at Ashville Elementary speak fondly of him. “Mr. J.W. Richey hired me,” recalls Beth Jones, “but Mr. Newton was my first principal. I remember ‘the Professor,’ as Mr. Richey affectionately called him, as a strict father to his teachers. He also had a firm but kind rapport with his students.

“My first year, I had 43 fourth-graders. That year, Mr. Newton reminded me of something very important. The two of us were standing in the hallway at dismissal time, trying to find ways to get poster projects home. There was one last poster with no way to get it home,” she said.

Margaret Jane
Williams Bothwell

“As a new teacher and taking this lighter than I should, Mr. Newton chided me; for that last poster, even though not the best, demanded the same respect as any other. That poster was his work and important to the child. The child who made it was important. As a young, impressionable teacher, I never forgot Mr. Newton’s words to me, words that colored my entire career.”

Susan Kell also has memories of the professor. “When Mr. Newton came to Ashville elementary, I was teaching first grade. I later became librarian and worked with him until his retirement.

“Mr. Newton cared deeply for the Ashville community, especially the young children of Ashville Elementary. The 1970s were before school nurses, so he took care of the sick and all the playground ‘boo-boos.’ He once removed a tick from a child’s ear.

“This, however, is one of my favorite Mr. Newton stories. There was a disturbance in the lunchroom, so I walked to the table to investigate. I heard, ‘Is too.’ ‘Is not.’ ‘We do.’ ‘Do not.’ I asked, ‘What is the problem?’ and a child replied, ‘We do have a school doctor, and there he is,’ as Mr. Newton walked into the lunchroom.”

“He wore many hats other than principal – teacher, friend, counselor, singer, and yes, medical doctor!”

Professor Newton retired in 1986 and continued his influence in St. Clair County through the Alabama Retired Teachers Association, serving on the Committee for Protective Services, and in service to his church.

As a man of Christian faith, Professor Newton served as deacon and Sunday school teacher at Mt. Zion Baptist in Ashville. Well known for his basso profundo voice, he sang in the church choir and often sang solo.

Combining his love of singing with his love of children, one wonders if when he arrived at the empty school some mornings, he may have voiced the old children’s gospel refrain:

Jesus loves the little children,

All the children of the world,

 Red and yellow, black and white

 They are precious in His sight,

Jesus loves the children of the world.

“Children are the greatest thing in my life,” Professor Newton told Viveca Novak of The Anniston Star, and his loving influence continues in the multitude of lives that he touched in his lifetime.

Professor Newton, St. Clair County thanks you.

First Baptist Church South

A storied history worth telling and preserving

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

Today’s destination is the corner of 19th Street South and 7th Avenue, the location of First Baptist Church South, hereafter FBC South. Organized by ex-slaves and their families, this church has served Pell City for 119 years.

During antebellum days, slaves worshiped together with whites, but in separate areas. When freedom came, Blacks continued worshiping interracially for a while. In Uplifting the People: Three Centuries of Black Baptists in Alabama, Wilson Fallin Jr. writes, “After emancipation, many Blacks began to leave white churches and form their own congregations. … By 1874, the year in which reconstruction ended in Alabama, the process of separation was complete….

“A desire for independence and …the opportunity to worship as they desired motivated Blacks to establish their own churches. …Blacks wanted a setting in which they could listen to and react to their own preachers, singing, dancing, and shouting in their own church.” This gave the freedmen “some measure of freedom over their lives and the opportunity to develop pride and self-respect. … These churches provided former slaves with a caring community.”

This freedom resulted in Blooming Light Baptist Church in Seddon. The former slaves who organized this church probably first met in homes, but by 1881, they officially organized as Blooming Light.

They soon joined Rushing Springs Association which served churches in Coosa, St. Clair and Calhoun counties. According to The Cyclopedia of the Colored Baptists in Alabama, Their Leaders and Their Work by Charles Octavius Boothe, by 1895, there were 6,500 Black Baptist in this Association.

 Now, picture Pell City in 1901. The booklet, Hon. Sumter Cogswell and His Service as Founder of Pell City, Alabama, records that the town had one grocery store, the Cornett House Hotel and a train station for three railways traveling through. No highways – instead, “the principal artery of travel being the road from Eden to Cropwell to Talladega and Anniston.” The town progressed, and by 1902, a second St. Clair County Courthouse stood in Pell City.

By 1900, Blacks had formed a community south of today’s Cogswell Avenue and the railroad, establishing homes from today’s 19th Street South to U.S. 231. Many of these families belonged to Blooming Light Baptist, the nearest Black church.

Many ministers had a circuit of four churches, preaching once a month to each congregation. Pell City members of Blooming Light walked to church, and bad weather on Sundays hindered attendance.

By 1902, Pell City’s Black community had enough Baptists to form a church. Therefore, several Blooming Light members requested dismissal from that church so they could organize their own.

A typescript history of FBC South names some who met to organize: “Bro. C.J. Collins and wife, Coline; Rev. A.Z. Beavers and wife, Mary; Bro. Sam Collins and wife, Mary; Bro. Joe Collins; Bro. Joe Lawson and others.” The group chose the name Union Baptist Church with Rev. J.T. Chatman as pastor. This meeting took place “… at the old House of Knowledge School. …on U.S. Highway 231 North of the Alacare Center location where the home of Bro. Dibb (and Millie) Curry…was located.”

The Currys

The Currys’ granddaughter, Josephine Curry Watson, grew up in their home and called them “Mama and Papa.”   “They were plain people who stayed home and took care of the household,” she recalled. “They didn’t have problems with anyone.”

She remembered their home as a welcoming one where visitors sought advice from Dibb. “I got my values from them,” she reflected. “I learned the Bible from them, and today, I’m a teacher and a missionary. They were good people.” This describes a stable, “salt-of-the-earth” family and probably describes other families who formed Union Baptist/FBC South.

Union Baptist soon joined the Colored Baptist Association, which served churches in Shelby and St. Clair counties. Today, the Association’s name is Mt. Zion Coosa Valley Association.

Sometime after 1902, Union Baptist purchased a lot on 19th Street South and constructed the building where New Beginnings Baptist Church holds services now. The church history records that, in 1934, “…the church was rebuilt on the site and was named the First Baptist Church of Pell City.” Rev. M.H. Sims was pastor.

Community news in The St. Clair News-Aegis regularly reported church activities, as shown in this of Jan. 31, 1952, “Rev. M.H. Sims, pastor of the First Baptist Church, Pell City, preached his farewell sermon last Sunday. He has pastored here for 23 years and is the oldest minister in the district.”

After Rev. Sims, Rev. R.E. Avery pastored for a few years. The St. Clair News-Aegis of Oct. 13, 1955, reported, “Sunday October 9th was a grand day at the First Baptist Church in Pell City. Rev. R.E. Avery, pastor, preached a wonderful sermon. His text was ‘Stay on the ship or you will be lost.’ Sunday afternoon the church held Appreciation Day for R.E. Avery.” Remembered as a dynamic speaker, Rev. Avery pastored until 1955.

About two years later, Rev. W.F. Poole began his 19-year ministry and worked for racial unity in Pell City during that time. On Oct. 19, 1962, The St. Clair News-Aegis published this letter from Rev. Poole:

“To the Citizens of Pell City: Please allow me this space to express my gratitude to all our white and colored friends for the fine support we have received during my five years of pastoring in the city of Pell City.

“I have worked in other places, but at no other place I’ve worked have I received any better cooperation. …

“Let us continue with peace between the races and the cooperation we have enjoyed in the past. Rev. W.F. Poole (Colored), Pastor First Baptist Church Pell City.”

Rev. Ronnie C. Beavers accepted the pastorate of the church Feb. 2, 1976. Under his leadership, the church expanded its ministries, updated the sanctuary and purchased property for future expansion.

Marion Frazier remembers well many of these pastors. Rev. Avery baptized her in the outside baptistry the deacons had recently dug and lined. “I was baptized in August of 1952, and he stayed, I believe, until 1955. He was a dynamic preacher. … He would end his sermons by singing a hymn, and the congregation would sing with him.”

Of Rev. W.F. Poole, Mrs. Frazier said, “I remember him and his wife and children very well. He was instrumental in our church because he loved singing hymns. He often closed his sermons with a hymn. His favorite hymn was In a Time Like This, I Need the Lord to Help Me.

“Rev. Poole came in ’56 or ’57 and stayed for 19 years. He worked for unity among the races, and we had a good relationship. We had associations with First Baptist here in Pell City on the north side. That’s where the distinction of FBC South came in; they were First Baptist North.”

“Rev. Beavers came in 1976 and stayed until 2000,” she recalled. During his ministry, he organized The R.C. Beavers’ Singers. Rev. Beavers loved to sing.” Under his leadership, the church choirs recorded an album.

Mrs. Frazier loves her church and enjoys recalling its history and events. Known in Pell City as an exceptional singer herself, she spoke fondly of their Choir Anniversaries. Observed every September, FBC South invited choirs from throughout the district to participate. Choir member Billy Joe Robinson, Dibb and Minnie Curry’s grandson, sang with the Star Lights of Pell City and often invited choirs from outside the district. These concerts filled the church to capacity.

District churches observe yearly homecomings, and they have arranged for each church to hold celebrations on different Sunday so congregations can celebrate together. Celebrating together results in unity and cooperation. FBC South has Homecoming the second Sunday in August.

On Oct. 18, 1981, FBC South celebrated its 79th anniversary. The memorial booklet for that event contains observations by pastor Rev. Ronnie C. Beavers, who gives praise and thanksgiving to God for the church. It also records historical events and a rich pictorial history with names under the photos. Rev. Beavers conducted the regular worship hour after which the congregation enjoyed a meal together. The afternoon service included Deacon Charles Jones singing the chosen anniversary hymn, Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah, and Rev. Samuel Turner of Union Springs Baptist Church, Talladega, preaching the sermon.

In the memorial booklet, Rev. Beavers wrote, “We are truly grateful to God our Heavenly Father for those who toiled and labored so hard before us in breaking the ground to establish the foundation of this church which is dedicated to the up-building of God’s kingdom. Surely, He has smiled on us down through the years as even the old patriots continued to worship Him after having walked to the church in the rain, sunshine, sleet, and snow. Now, we, the present generation, must continue to move forward with that same spirit of determination to meet the need of a sinful world by spreading the message of Jesus Christ. This is the task of the church, and we dedicate and rededicate ourselves to accepting the challenge that the Lord has put before us ….”

Prayer at the groundbreaking in 2002

Rev. Beavers concluded his remarks by thanking the church for working untiringly during his six years of his ministry and concluded, “I ask you to join me in looking to the Hills from whence cometh our help to seek the future directions through the grace of God that has brought us safe thus far and that His same grace will lead us on.”

Rev. Beavers’ comments for that 79th anniversary spoke of the past, present and future. Under his ministry, the church purchased the property on the corner of 7th Avenue and 19th Street South for constructing a larger sanctuary. In 2000, at the end of his 24 years as pastor, the church stood ready, through God’s grace, to plan for a new sanctuary.

In a special service on Jan.12, 2002, under Rev. Elliot T. Ivey’s ministry, the church broke ground for their new building. Goodgame Co. of Pell City did the work, and construction progressed steadily month by month. Goodgame completed their work in October 2002 in time for First Baptist’s 100th anniversary.

And what a celebration that was for church members and their friends! The Goodgame family, construction workers, Pell City mayor and city officials attended and joined the congregation’s afternoon walk from the old building to the new one for a dedication worship service.

Mrs. Frazier recalls, “We got congratulation letters from the State of Alabama, the governor and local officials. We framed those, and they hang on the church walls today.”

Among the papers about First Baptist on file at the Pell City Library is a page titled, A Prayer for Our New Sanctuary, which reads in part:

“Thou gracious and giving God…,We thank Thee for having given to our predecessors the vision and will to provide the church which has served us so far. Because of their devotion and Thy blessings our church family has outgrown the work of their hands. …

“We would build wisely and so well that long years hence our sons and daughters may gratefully say, ‘See! This our forefathers builded for us.’

“In HIS NAME, who loves us and gave Himself for us, we pray. Amen.”

George Forman grew up in this church and said of Rev. Elliot T. Ivey, “He was the most electrifying preacher I ever heard.” Forman also told how FBC South deacons mentored him as a boy. “My father died when I was one year old. Mr. Tobe Williams, Mr. William Matthews and Mr. Virgil Oden took me under their wings and taught me about life – what’s right and what’s wrong, how to respect and be respected, how to love your fellow man, how to go through life treating people. If people mistreat you, don’t go back and try to do the same thing to them; just believe in the Lord, cause, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ They went out of their way to spend time with me. And Mr. M.C. McCoy was a businessman who taught me that education was essential.

“All those men were a blessing to me. They didn’t have a high school education, but they had more than a high school education. And they shared it.” That’s high praise for any man, but especially so for the deacon body of a church.

Twenty-four-year-old Christopher Evans II joined Forman in the interview, and both spoke of taking part in Christmas and Easter programs at church. Forman said that participating in these music and drama programs “… was like living what you’d been taught. You act it out and it’s gonna stick with you.” Christopher agreed, saying that for young people, the dramas “… helped us understand what was going on.” He added that sometimes “young people don’t like to read,” and the programs helped them understand the Bible. Mrs. Frazier directed the drama, and the late Ronnie White the music for these programs.

One of Christopher’s favorite times as a youth was yearly Vacation Bible School at FBC South. “That was the best thing,” he recalled. “We always went to Boys’ and Girls’ Club, and we just went from there to Vacation Bible School where you learned different things.” Other churches took part, so there was fellowship among the congregations at these events.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic curtailed in-person worship services, which precluded the joy and comfort in corporate fellowship. At FBC South, beginning in March, worship was streamed online, but by autumn 2020, the deacons and choir members were meeting each Sunday with Dr. Wilson to stream the service. The pandemic prevented these yearly events in 2020.

Dr. Wilson, pastor since 2007, recently reflected upon this unprecedented situation:

“In the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic, it is no secret that many people are suffering or experiencing loss in some way. The same holds true for the believer. Fear, stress and hopelessness have gripped many homes, even the households of Christians.

“As we endure this season in which social and spiritual interactions have been greatly thwarted, not by choice but rather by circumstances that are beyond our human control, we have been forced to make many adjustments in our daily lives.

“Consequently, the church, in these times of uncertainty, has also had to make adjustments. We understand that congregants have an affinity for joining hearts and hands and worshipping God together. Yet, this pandemic has placed a great strain on the church. No longer is it deemed ‘safe’ for large groups to congregate. This definite lack of socialization has caused some to suffer more than others.

“As a pastor, it has always been my job to guide and uplift the people of God through whatever season of life they are experiencing. There are more seeking this pastoral direction than ever before, and I must admit, facing so many obstacles has become a daunting challenge. It is sometimes hard ‘reaching’ to your congregants when the physical doors of the church are closed because we understand that the spiritual doors of the church are always open, along with other measures in place due to this pandemic.

“However, we understand that the spiritual doors of the church are always open, making way for the obstacles to become opportunities through continual prayer. As I strive to continue to render an effective pastoral ministry and to provide social support for those members who have become slightly anxious, to say the least, I try to remind my congregants that although we may be going through a brief period of separation as a body of believers, God is still in the business of protecting His own, and we are to stay strong until the Lord’s deliverance is fully exerted over this coronavirus outbreak.”

For long-time member Peggie Bothwell Frazier, Dr. Wilson has been a blessing to her and her family, for under his ministry her son, Charles Ryan Frazier, was ordained as a deacon, and her grandson, Griffin Ryan Frazier, was baptized. Griffin, at an early age, began talking about wanting to be a preacher. He spoke of it so often that Dr. Wilson and deacons met with Griffin and his parents to talk about his desire to serve Christ by preaching. Satisfied about his desire, Dr. Wilson baptized him. Griffin’s dad, Charles, stood in the baptismal pool with him.

Dr. Wilson was a special comfort to the Fraziers when Peggie’s husband, Charles, battled cancer. The Wilsons met with the Fraziers the night before Charles’ surgery, then visited him faithfully during his cancer journey. Peggie recalled that, Charles, knowing that Dr. Wilson especially enjoyed banana pudding, said to him, “Any time you want a banana pudding, you just tell her, and she will make you one.” She continued, “I do make him banana puddings. Dr. Wilson and his family will always have a special place in my heart.”

Chairman of the Deacons, Donald Allen, spoke of the blessing of working with Dr. Wilson. “We deacons work out of his office, and whatever he asks us to do we try to do it. If he calls us, we try to do what he asks us to do.” He also spoke of the disruption of COVID-19. “We’re used to coming in there, shaking each other’s hands, acting as a deacon body, you know, deacons and the pastor together. We miss that so much now – meeting with the pastor before he goes out to give the message. … I love working out of Dr. Wilson’s office because of his ability and gift to preach the unmitigated truth of God’s word. I pray every day that God keeps him and his family in his loving hands.”

Wilson Fallin, Jr. notes in his Black Baptists in Alabama that some owners allowed slaves to worship with singing and preaching, whereas irreligious owners didn’t, and their slaves worshiped secretly. One of the old hymns from that era speaks as much of the church today as it did then.

“We will travel on together, Hallelujah,
Gwine to pull down Satan’s kingdom, Hallelujah,
Gwine build up the walls of Zion, Hallelujah!
I don’t feel noways tired, Glory Hallelujah!”

One hopes that those former slave families who founded today’s FBC South are aware that this church continues “to build up the walls of Zion” as they “travel on together, Hallelujah!”

Macedonia Baptist

One of St. Clair’s oldest churches is still home to many

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

On Aug. 16, 2020, Macedonia Baptist Church, No. 2, Ragland, celebrated 180 years of faithful spiritual service in St. Clair County. The anniversary celebration occurred on a modest scale because of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The congregation went for regular worship and afterward enjoyed a lunch in the fellowship hall.

The county is home to several churches organized in the early years of both St. Clair County and Alabama.Some churches have surviving records documenting the church’s beginnings, while others have scant information. Over the years, many original minute books met destruction through a house fire where the minutes were stored.

Researchers come face to face with this in researching Macedonia Baptist, No. 2. The official organization date of 1840 is recorded in St. Clair County Baptist Associational meetings, but the year that families began to meet to worship together in the area of Macedonia Mountain lies in the long shadows of two centuries. Furthermore, undocumented published accounts deepen the shadows of the past rather than giving light to them.

In the Daughters of the American Revolution book, Some Early Alabama Churches (Established before 1870) Commemorating the Bicentennial of the United States of America, published in 1973, authors wrote this about Macedonia Baptist: “This church is said to be the oldest church in St. Clair County, and it is thought that it was organized in 1812. It is located in the mountains near Ragland. Records go back to 1840.” However, the authors, Mable Ponder Wilson, Dorothy Youngblood Woodyerd and Rosa Lee Busby, give no documentation for stating this. This is a great frustration to the church and any historian, for someone gave them that information. One can hope that in some old trunk or chest, a forgotten diary or family Bible will come to light to prove the 1812 date.

The Minutes of the St. Clair County Baptist Association for 1932, 1936 and 1942 record 1840 as the official organizational date. The fact is that, as settlers formed communities, families met in homes to worship together. At some point, a circuit-riding minister would come to preach once a month. A desire for a church name and building would burn in the hearts of the group who would petition ministers in the county to help them organize a church. Probably believers worshipped together long before organizing and naming the church Macedonia. The Grizzell and Johnson families are known early members of the church.

The person who gave the 1812 date to DAR also gave a description of the first Macedonia church building. The log structure had no widows. “On the interior of the structure was cube of rocks about three feet long, three feet high, and three feet wide, with a rock shaft going out the side of the building. This was for light when it was necessary to meet a night. Pine knots were burned, giving light, and the smoke went out the shaft. A lean-to that joined onto the building accommodated the slaves.” According to oral history, the first church sat where today stands the pavilion protecting the long “dinner on the ground” tables.

Lela Alverson Grizzell told great-granddaughter Sheila McKinney that a storm destroyed the log structure, but she didn’t give a date for the storm. In a St. Clair News-Aegis article of Oct. 15, 1992, Elise Argo wrote, “The log building was replaced in the early 1900s.” The article indicates Ms. Argo got that date from Brother Archie Maddox, pastor at that time. An up-to-date, wood-frame church replaced the log building, which served the congregation until the present brick structure replaced it in 1948.

In 1956, the church started a building fund to add classrooms. This came to fulfillment in 1965 when the men of the church added two restrooms, a pastor’s study and eight classrooms. In 1985, the men added the fellowship hall with kitchen and dining areas.

The lovely painting gracing the baptistry was done in 1998 by Ken Maddox in loving memory of his mother, Mary Maddox, wife of Brother Archie Maddox.

Baptistry painting by Ken Maddox in memory of Mary Maddox, his mother

The original log building served as both church and school according to local family accounts. Shelia McKinney recounted what her great-grandmother, Lela Alverson Grizzell, told of attending the log school.

“The Alverson family settled these hills and valleys, and Lela’s brothers and sisters attended school here,” Shelia recalled. “Lela and her older brothers and sisters walked to school from Macedonia Mountain where they lived. A pond ran over the road, and she told of ice skating on the pond.

“The school had a potbelly stove, and when it rained, they took off their boots and lined them around the stove to dry. They’d wrap their feet in their coats until their feet got warm. Lela said the log church-school blew away in a storm.”

Surviving church minutes of Aug. 20, 1922, show Macedonia as a member of the Coosa Valley Baptist Association, and Rev. Joe Mitchell, pastor, appointing Russell Arnold, Calvin Wood, Henry Johnson, William G. Wilder and J. H. Trammell as messengers to the 1922 meeting. Baptist churches’ messengers represent local congregations and have voting privileges in associational business meetings.

The St. Clair County Baptist Association minutes of the 1929 annual meeting at Broken Arrow Baptist Church, Sept. 14-15, records that “Macedonia No. 2 was received, and the Moderator gave the messengers the right hand of fellowship.” The messengers were M.C. Sagers, H. Johnson, J.S. Bunt and Rosa Jane Bice. Brother Clifford Streety of Pell City was Macedonia’s pastor in 1929.

Macedonia, Ragland, was designated No. 2, and Macedonia, Margaret, No. 1, because the Margaret church had been a member of the association since 1915.

Shelia McKinney, church clerk, has collected church memorabilia and history, some of which is tattered fragments of minutes from the 19th and early 20th centuries. As with many old records on paper, deterioration has taken its toll, but those tattered remains are treasures.

Fragments of old minutes record the Church Covenant and Order of Decorum. As with most early Baptist churches, Macedonia practiced church discipline. The purpose was to help members and restore them to fellowship. Common infractions found in most old church minutes show that drinking, swearing and dancing were causes of “being brought before the church” for discipline and restoration.

The cemetery adjacent to the church is one of the older ones in St. Clair County, and as with all old graveyards, some of the oldest graves are marked by large rocks or crosses. The oldest known grave is that of John Chambliss, May 23, 1826 – Jan. 23, 1881. The oldest person buried there is Chesley Phillips, 117 years old, Aug 7, 1810 – Oct. 25, 1927. According to 1890 church minutes, Macedonia began observing Memorial Day at the cemetery “… on Saturday before the 3rd Sunday in May.” This continues today.

Macedonia’s records show that the Singing Convention often met at the church. Open doors and windows of the church allowed those outside to enjoy the singing going on inside. Newspapers usually announced these events, as shown in this Aug. 12, 1954, St. Clair News-Aegis invitation.

“All-Day Singing, Food Galore, To Be At Macedonia Aug. 15. The Annual all-day singing with dinner on the grounds at noon will be held at Macedonia Baptist Church No. 2 Sunday, August 15. Special singers for the annual event will be Mack Wright and the Victory Quartet, in addition to several others. You are cordially invited to this great day of fellowship,” it reads.

Vacation Bible School week has been another annual event for the church. During the week, children are taught Bible stories and work on crafts or art that correspond with the theme of the week. Several years ago, one of the teachers started the Bible School Quilt, with good results, as shown in the photographs.

Rev. Edwin Talley, pastor of Ragland First Baptist and a former member of Macedonia, said, “I was a member of Macedonia in the early 1980s. It was there that I accepted my calling into the ministry, and there I preached my first sermon. I remained an active member there until I was called to pastor Oak Grove No. 2 in 1986. Macedonia ordained me at the request of Oak Grove. I will always consider Macedonia my home.”

McKinney echoes Talley’s sentiments. When asked for a comment and memory, she replied, “All I can say is, ‘It’s home.’ This was the first church I ever attended. I accepted Jesus in the alter to the right of the pulpit, and I was baptized here. My daughters were saved and baptized here.

“My great-great-grandfather helped organize this church and pastored it. My great-grandparents met and married here. My aunt, Louise Grizzell Sterling, was the song leader for many years, my uncle was a deacon, and my granny taught Sunday school. Following in her footsteps, I also teach Sunday school. Seven generations of my family have attended this church and worked for God here.

“This church – not just the building – the people are my family, and I wouldn’t want to be in any other church – unless God told me to go. I pray that as long as God tarries Jesus’ coming again that my family and I will be here serving God and community to the best of our ability.

“My favorite childhood memory of Macedonia Baptist is learning to recite all 66 books of the Bible in order as they are in the Bible. I was 12 years old, and my granny, Marcene Grizzell, was my Sunday school teacher. Our class had to recite the 66 books in front of the church on a Sunday morning. When we accomplished this, the church gave us our own Bible. I still have mine. My most cherished memory now is that I saw my grandbaby, Katelyn Serenity Byers, dedicated in this church. She is the seventh generation Grizzell descendant attending here.

“I will be buried in the graveyard beside the church with my beloved family members that have gone on before me.”

Brother Bryan Robinson has pastored Macedonia Baptist since 2016. He said, “Macedonia, Ragland, is truly a church that God has ordained to be the church today where we see people saved and baptized even during a COVID-19. This church has seen many wars, the Great Depression and many United States presidents. Over the years, Macedonia’s members have endured many trials and have been victorious through it all. It makes me humble, thankful and truly blessed that God would allow me to help His church go a little further till He comes again. Macedonia members are the salt of the earth. They are a loving, caring and praying people who still use the altar every time the church doors open. I thank God for this church, my church. My wife Sandy and I call it home.” 

Each of these referred to Macedonia as Home. What they express connects perfectly with modern Christian author Philip Yancey’s words, “I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God’s family.” Such is Macedonia Baptist Church, Ragland, a family of believers who feel at Home in church.

Jim Nunnally

Beloved cheerleader for
Ashville, hometown hero

Story by Joe Whitten

Jim Nunnally

Submitted photos

A quote on Facebook, “Hometown is the place where I was born, where I was raised, where I keep all my yesterdays,” express well Jim Nunnally’s affection for Ashville, Ala., his own hometown.

And although he lived and worked in Texas for many years, he returned to Ashville for his “golden years” and left an enduring influence. Shortly before his death in 1968, Ashville High School dedicated its yearbook to him and established the Jim Nunnally Award to an outstanding athlete.

Born Aug. 5, 1888, James Renfroe Nunnally was the seventh of the 10 children born to Robert Thomas and Emma Mary Montgomery Nunnally. He grew up in Ashville, and when World War I engulfed the globe, he joined the Army and served in the 167 Infantry, the Rainbow Division, which earned renown in France and Germany.

Garrett Spears, a young distant cousin of Jim’s, researched Jim Nunnally for his fourth-grade history project, sponsored and judged by the St. Clair Historical Society. He noted that after the war ended, “the Alabama troops were honored by parades in Gadsden, Anniston, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile before being discharged at Camp Shelby.”

Surviving both the war and the flu pandemic of 1918-1919, Jim lived and worked in Birmingham. According to research by Jerri Jenkins of Springville, Jim married Fannie Archer of Birmingham in 1921, but the 1930 U.S. Census shows them as married but living apart: Fannie living with her parents in Birmingham and Jim boarding with Albert and Pauline Teague back in Ashville. By the 1940 census, Jim was divorced and living in Houston, where in 1940 he married Effie Violette Torrance, a naturalized Canadian. Effie died Feb. 4, 1953 and was buried in Forest Cemetery in Gadsden.

Around the time of Effie’s death, Jim returned to his hometown of Ashville and lived in the Teague Hotel, owned by his cousin, Annie Teague McClendon. In July 1958, Jim married Louise Heath of Gadsden, and they continued to live in the hotel until it was sold.

The salient memories of those who knew Jim personally deal with his love of all things Ashville and especially the Ashville High School teams – baseball, football and basketball – that he faithfully supported. Dr. John McClendon, Temple University, recalled recently, “He was there for every sporting event, every practice. I remember when I was in the fifth-grade – I was manager, water boy with the team – and we played somewhere on Sand Mountain, and we got up there about an hour early to warm up, and there were he and Louise already in the stands. I remember the coaches saying, ‘You can’t play far enough away for Jim Nunnally not to be the first person there.’”

Jim’s enthusiasm for all Ashville Bulldogs sports earned him the reciprocating respect and love of the players and students. Dr. McClendon recalled, “Just a few days before Jim died in 1968, the senior class decided to dedicate the annual yearbook to him. The class visited with him shortly before he died to tell him about the dedication. He’d been in the hospital several days and was back home and he died at home.”

The yearbook dedication reads, “Sixteen years ago Jim came back to Ashville after many years away. During these years he endeared himself to all of us because we knew that he was our friend. He had a keen and enthusiastic interest in us and our many activities. He had the ability to be any age he chose to be. Toddlers met him on equal ground. He easily became a pre-teen when one of them sought his company, and he was one of us – the high school gang. He was ageless!

“His three loves were the Rainbow Division of World War I, the town of Ashville and ALL young people.

“To show that we returned his feeling for us, we the Seniors of 1968, lovingly dedicate the annual to his memory.”

Jim died May 7, 1968. To further show their love and respect to this man who had won their hearts, Ashville High School established The Jim Nunnally Memorial Award with these words in the annual: “In honor of a great man who was loved and respected by all at Ashville High School, a memorial award has been established. This athletic award will be presented each year at graduation to a senior girl or boy who has been selected as the ‘Best Athlete.’ We hope this award will promote athletic desire, sportsmanship, scholarship and determination.”

Harlan Sanders, 1969 Ashville High School yearbook photos

The first Jim Nunnally Memorial Award was presented at the 1969 graduation to Harlan Sanders, son of Mr. and Mrs. Austin Sanders. The 1969 yearbook recorded of Harlan that he lettered four years in football, playing center on offense and linebacker on defense and was voted to the All-County Team. Harlan became the first Ashville player to be voted to the Birmingham Post Herald’s All State Team. He lettered four years in basketball and was team captain of the 1968-1969 team which went to the state tournament and placed on the All-County and All-Area teams his senior year. Harlan also lettered two years in baseball. John McClendon recalled that “the football team Harlan was on was one of the best in Ashville history – 8-2 record.”

The Jim Nunnally Memorial Award is still presented at Ashville High School with one change. Today, awards are presented to both male and female outstanding sportspersons. Winners for school year 2018-2019 were Chris Sanders (Harlan Sander’s nephew) and Erika Williams, and the recently named 2019-2020 winners are J-Brelin Cook and Chloe Wills. Recipients of the award are chosen by Ashville High School coaches of all sports.

Life at the Teague Hotel

The Teague Hotel, where Jim took up residence around 1953 was located on the town square where today stands the Union State Bank. The hotel was owned and operated by Jim’s cousin, Annie Teague McClendon. Annie was a sister to Mattie Lou Teague Crow. The genealogical connection with Jim Nunnally and the Teagues came through Annie and Mattie Lou’s mother, Tullulah “Lula” Nunnelley who married John Teague in 1886. (Jim spelled his name differently from his relatives.)

Lula and John’s marriage ended in 1905 with John’s sudden death, leaving Lula with two daughters and four sons to raise and provide for. Mattie Lou in her memories wrote, “My mother purchased it when I was 3. … My father was a farmer and a schoolteacher. When he died in 1905, my mother sold our farm in Beaver Valley and came to Ashville.” She recorded that not only did her mother have children ranging in age from 19 to 3 years in age, but she also had “our grandmother Nunnelley, who was then 80.”

Caroline Ballard, great-great-great-granddaughter of Lula Teague, researched the Teague Hotel for a school project and found it was built as a stagecoach inn by a Mr. Cranford in the early 1800s. Later, Curtis Grubb Beason ran it as an inn and trading post. Caroline wrote, “Mrs. Lula Nunnelley Teague purchased the Inn and ran it until her death in 1942. Annie Teague McClendon, my great-great-grandmother, ran the hotel after her mother’s death.” Annie lived in the hotel until it was sold.

Lula Teague’s granddaughter, Nancy Willison, recently described the hotel as “… an L shape with two stories on the side parallel to the courthouse and there may have been two stories on the entire building. There was a porch at least on the long side. There were two large rooms on the side next to the courthouse.

“Miss Anna Smith, longtime fourth-grade teacher, lived in one of the rooms during the school year. The hall in front of these rooms led to a few steps down to a landing in front of the bathroom, and there was a door to the dining room from this landing. The table was usually full for one family-style meal, and, when necessary, a second seating was served. My mother, dad and I ate lunch there often during the week. My grandmother did most of the cooking with help. She made wonderful tea cakes that I have worked for years, unsuccessfully, to duplicate. She pulled those cookie sheets out of that woodburning stove using her apron or bare hands.”

Nancy married in 1969 and remembered Jim’s wife as a “delightful lady who enjoyed attending my bridal showers.” However, Jim had moved back about the time Nancy left for college. So, growing up she saw Jim infrequently and remembered him as “… a mysterious person. He would randomly appear in Ashville, stay for some period of time and then disappear. He was my grandmother’s nephew. I remember when he would come to Ashville that he would spend time in my dad’s store, Teague Mercantile Co., visiting with everyone who came in.”

Annie Teague McClendon, who married Perkins McClendon, wrote of her mother’s buying the hotel. “After she had made a small down payment on the place, we had no money, so we all worked helping as best as we could. The boys helped, not only with the chores, but at any job they could find in order to buy their clothes and shoes and to help with the expenses. I stopped school to help with the housework. Our baby sister, Mattie Lou, did her part, too.” Of her mother she wrote that she “arose long before daylight and worked long after dark.”

Mattie Lou Teague Crow remembered that the boarders at her mother’s establishment were “… school teachers, a music teacher, a judge, superintendent of education, clerks, young men who were high school students, a sprinkling of laborers – road builders and sawmillers – and a young doctor and his wife.” She spoke of the meals served and that when the dinner bell rang, there was rarely an empty chair at “our banquet-size dining table.

Exciting times at the hotel for Annie were court weeks. She remembered the “… judges, lawyers and farmers at the same table and had such a good time. I remember the old jury room where thirteen men stayed for many days and nights and had at our table three square meals a day.”

Poignant moments

Annie’s memories flowed from her heart to the written page as the Teague Hotel, her old home, was being taken down, beam by pegged beam. So many years ebbed and flowed that one hears both sorrow and happiness in her words. “I remember when our baby brother left home to find a job and never came back. I remember he was identified by his registration card which was in his pocket. I shall never forget that our mother never stopped grieving and she never stopped working, nor did she fail to keep faith in the One that is over us and hears our prayers.”

An open hall ran through the hotel providing a cool “summer living room,” Annie recalled. The hot days would find the women of the house sewing or mending garments while other townsfolk and guest congregated to visit. “Often, there were as many as 12 or 14 regular boarders at our house. Many were cultured, educated people who brought us treasures unnumbered – books, conversation, music and, best of all, friendship.”

Annie wrote that the rooms were named for people who stayed in them – Mama’s Room, just off the living room; Drummer’s Room, the front bedroom; Jury Room, the big bedroom upstairs; and her brothers’ room called the “Bull Pen, because it was so often full of boys, their friends and cousins who came whenever they wished.”

Lastly, Annie spoke of her cousin’s return to Ashville and his living in the hotel after his second wife died. “I remember when Jim Nunnally came home to live. He was all alone, and he took a room across the hall from the living room. It was so good to have someone whom I loved to share the old house with me again. That room will always be Jim’s Room in my memory.”

Being a never-meet-a-stranger man, Jim soon renewed friendship from former days and made new ones throughout Ashville, and everybody knew he lived at the hotel in “Jim’s Room.”

Annie and Perkins McClendon’s grandchildren have wonderful memories of Jim and the hotel, which was almost a second home. As Jim’s younger cousins, he quickly became friends with them.

Susan McClendon Kell, recalls, “Jim’s room had very high ceilings and was across the breezeway that was off the wraparound porch. All the cousins loved visiting him there and were always welcomed. We loved Jim. He loved us and all of Ashville’s youths.”

The cousins loved playing in the hotel, Susan recalled. “There was a large upstairs ‘plunder’ room filled with treasures my brothers, cousins and I loved to play with. Old trunks, soldier uniforms, etc. Fond memories of that fun-filled room. I would love to see all those items again now that I could appreciate them.”

Martha McClendon Richey, Annie’s granddaughter, vividly recalls her grandmother, “Big Mama” Annie McClendon, and Eddy McClendon, a cousin, crying as they watched the Teague Hotel being torn down. Being too young to understand their sorrow, their tears disturbed her and linger in her memory.

Mattie Lou knew the sorrow and wrote of the hotel where she grew up, “For all of us there was something about our house. … I believe that very old houses hold memories of all the lives that have been spent there.” Annie, Eddy, and no doubt, Mattie Lou, wept because they saw the dismantling of the past.

John McClendon, Susan Kell’s brother, loved Jim like a grandfather and cherishes wonderful memories of him. “I never knew either of my grandfathers, but I had Jim. And, boy, was he the best grandfather a boy could have. Fishing, tossing the baseball, roasting marshmallows, long conversations and all the stuff one could expect from the best grandfather ever.

“We had this daily ritual of going to Whitney Junction to watch the train go by at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And it would deliver the mail. Haley Nelson would pick up the mail; that was his job. And he would be there at Miss Sheffield’s store – and he’d get the mail and take it back to Bunt Jones at the post office in Ashville. We would eat sardines and crackers and watch the train go by. That was the big event, watching the train go by!

“And my older brother and sister, Eddy and Susan, did the same thing when they were kids. He’d been taking kids to watch the train go by for years.” John paused, reflecting, then said, “Eating sardines as a kid – which is lovely. He was always there.”

John’s memories kept flowing. “Jim had a classic car. I don’t know what it was, but it was clean. This was in the mid-60s and it was a car out of the ‘30s. I wonder if anyone would know the make?” John’s young nephew Garrett Spears had it recorded in his history report: “Jim drove a black Chrysler c1930.”

Not only did John and Jim meet the train and eat sardines, but they also fished. “We’d go over to Red Wood’s lake and to Canoe Creek and to Lake Camac to fish. We went to the creek all the time – down Double Bridge Road at the creek there.”

A 911 forerunner and more

Of Jim’s Ashville activities, John recalled that “Jim took a job at the Sheriff’s Office. He was a radio dispatcher in the courthouse. He was a friendly, social guy, and this job and its location placed him smack in the middle of the ‘goings and comings’ of day-to-day activity in the middle of town. He did that maybe three or four years before he died.

“I was a kid, and I would go up to the courthouse and spend the day at the Sheriff’s Office right there on the first floor. Jim would be manning the radio. They had four or five cars at the most in the county, and he would be the dispatcher for that. The original 911, I guess. Way before 911. But I think he wanted to have a reason to hang out at the center of all action – the drugstore, the post office and the courthouse. Always friendly and up for good conversation, this fit Jim perfectly as it meant Jim was central to the daily lives of the town as ‘best friend’ to everyone.”

Helen Sweatt, daughter of a deputy, recalled Jim as clerk in the Sheriff’s Office as well as dispatcher. “My daddy, Lee Allen Thompson, was one of three deputies at that time. When Daddy would come home for lunch, he would park the patrol car in front of the house. Although the car wouldn’t be running, the police radio would stay on. My younger brother, Timmy, loved to play cops and robbers, and often he would get in the car and pretend to be our dad, whose call number was SC3. Timmy would key up the mic and say ‘SC3’ to whomever he thought he was calling.

“Mr. Nunnally would call our house phone and say, ‘Lee, your boy is on the radio again.’ Daddy would run out on the porch and say, ‘Boy, get out of the car and stop playing with the radio!’ Timmy never got a spanking for playing on the radio,” Helen laughed.

“Daddy had to furnish his own car,” Helen added. “He had a 1955 black Ford that he had a siren installed in it that worked from a button in the floor, just like the old-style light dimmer. Timmy would set off the siren and upset the neighbors because during that time, unlike today, a siren meant that something terrible had happened.”

After the hotel closed, Susan Kell recalled, “Jim and Louise lived in a house right down from the church. My grandmother, Stella Moorer, lived in one half and Jim and Louise in the other. Grandmother Annie McClendon lived directly across the street from Stella and Jim.”

Lasting legacy

2020 winners J-Brelin Cook and Chloe Wills

As the interview with Dr. John McClendon drew to a close, he spoke of Jim Nunnally’s influence. “Jim didn’t just belong to me or the local kids, he belonged to all of Ashville. Think about this: He was not a principal, teacher or a coach. He was not a famous or rich alumnus. He was never an elected official. He never held any official position in the town that would suggest a role with the school. But the Jim Nunnally Award is presented still today. He was ‘Jim: supporter and friend.’ A great person loved by all who knew him.

“In short, Jim loved Ashville and Ashville loved Jim – and it was an unconditional love, the best kind of love there is. So, I guess, an even better word to describe Jim is ‘love.’ He cared deeply for the town and its people.”

There could be no better affirmation of a man’s life than to be remembered as a man who loved. Such was James “Jim” Renfroe Nunnally.

A long journey

Dry cleaner escaped Holocaust, traveled storied route to Ashville

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

For Bernie Echt, the journey from Gross Kuhren, Germany, to Ashville, Alabama, included stops in Africa, China, the Dominican Republic and sojourns in various cities in the United States.

Bernie’s parents, Solomon and Erna Czanitsky Echt, already had daughters Ruth and Eva when Bernie was born on Nov. 4, 1937. Sister Sarah would arrive Nov. 4, 1938.

His parents and grandparents owned a farm in Gross Kuhren and dealt in horses and cattle. Although Jewish, they conducted business with both locals and the German military before the war.

Relations seemed good with people in the area, for as Bernie recalled, “My parents and grandparents had lots of connections; that’s why we are still here. Otherwise we would be …,” he let those words hang, then added, “They helped us to get the hell out of there.”

Bernie wasn’t yet a year old when they fled the Nazis, so he recounts what he was told by relatives. In spite of the apparent good relationship, “At the end of 1937 or the beginning of 1938, one evening, they knocked on the door, and calling Solomon by his nickname, they said, ‘Sally, you need to go with us down to headquarters.’”

Solomon and Erna both asked for a reason, but the only answer they got was, “We can’t tell the reason; you just need to go with us. You don’t have to take nothing along.”

Erna asked where they were going, and they replied, “To town.”

“It was the Gestapo,” Bernie continued. “They took him to the concentration camp, Sachsenhausen, and put him to work in the stone quarry. He was in there until the end of ’38, or thereabout.”

Bernie is unsure of how this happened, but his mother and grandparents paid off certain Nazi officers to get Solomon out of Sachsenhausen. He believes they gave money and cattle, and that one of the officers was a close friend who used to visit on Sunday afternoons.

The officers warned that Solomon must disappear immediately, so within 24 hours of release, he was on a freighter to Shanghai, China. He lived in Shanghai a year before Erna and the children could journey there.

And what a journey Erna and the children had getting to Solomon in China. The grandparents hoped to emigrate to Palestine, but borders closed before they could leave. They never got out.

Along with other Jews, Erna and the children secured passage to China on an Italian freighter. Difficulties arose at the Suez Canal when authorities refused the freighter permission to proceed.

Low on fuel and food, the ship diverted to an African island where it languished for six months. A Jewish organization managed to get money to the captain so he could continue to China.

Finally, in 1939, Erna and children joined Solomon, where he worked on a missionary farm in Shanghai.

Because of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the Japanese occupied Shanghai. For the moment, things seemed peaceful. “The Japanese soldiers would come to the house,” Bernie remembered, “and my mother would cook them something. They had a good time.”

Concentration camp

All that ended Dec.7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor. “The Japanese came for us,” Bernie remembers, “put us up on a truck and took us to a camp. They took our passports. Everything. We had just the clothes we wore.”

There were 2,000 in this Japanese concentration camp with 16 people to a room. They devised privacy curtains with the bed blankets during the day, then took them down for cover at night.

The rabbis in the camp made sure Jewish boys received religious instructions. Going and coming from the place of instruction had its dangers, as Bernie recalls one night: “I remember rabbi took us one evening to the main building there, and the Japanese were shooting the guns with light-balls to light up the streets inside the camp, so they could see if anybody was walking around. And the rabbi said to us, ‘Just stand against the wall and don’t move.’ That’s what we did, and that’s how we always got through.”

The rabbis made sure that the kids who went to temple had kosher food for Passover, a sacred necessity for Orthodox Jews, such as the Echts.

World War II ended, and liberation finally followed. Bernie recalled, “McArthur came, and the streets were full of military. The Japanese commander who mistreated so many – he didn’t do it personally, but he had command over it – the teenage boys in the camp went to the Japanese headquarters, got the commander out, brought him to the camp and got sticks and hit him.”

Bernie didn’t participate in that. “That wasn’t my idea. I couldn’t join in beating him. He was only a man. I look at things a little bit different. I shouldn’t, maybe, but I do. A human being is a human being.”

The American nurses took the internees into the country, gave them food, and American military doctors gave physical exams.

The Americans taught them songs, Bernie recalled. “The first song we learned was ‘God Bless America,’ and then we learned the military songs – the Navy song and ‘This is the Army, Mr. Brown.’” He laughed and added, “We changed that one a little bit.”

Wanting to leave China, Bernie’s family went to the consulate and asked about being able to come to the United States. A Jewish organization (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) took over and organized the Echts’ and others’ exodus. They left for San Francisco on the Marine Lynx, an American transport ship. “We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was wonderful,” Bernie said. “I was 9 or 10 years old.”

In San Francisco, the family stayed quarantined in a hotel for six weeks. Bernie recalls that the Jewish organization fed them and took them to a clothing store and bought them garments and shoes. He got his first pair of long pants and pair of shoes.

Dominican Republic

When the quarantine ended, the Jewish Distribution Committee came to tell the Echts the three countries available for relocation: Australia, Canada and the Dominican Republic. The family chose the Dominican Republic.

As early as 1938, General Truijillo of the Dominican Republic offered to the Jewish organization refuge to as many as 100,000 Jews fleeing Germany. On the north coast, now Sosua, General Trujillo set aside a large section of wooded land, and the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), a Jewish group, cleared land and erected barracks. “It was similar to a Kibbutz,” Bernie said. “They all ate together, and the women did everybody’s laundry. There wasn’t that much that each one had separate.”

DORSA built houses on plots of land, families with kids got the first houses built, then couples without children. To get them started, for the father of the family, DORSA gave 10 cows; for the mother, six; and for each child, one. A family paid so much a month to DORSA until they had paid for the farm, house and livestock.

The Echts lived on one of the DORSA farms until Bernie’s mother died in 1949. After her death, Solomon left the farm and moved the family to the city. When Bernie turned 13, his father and sisters arranged his bar mitzvah. “I learned all the rituals,” he said. “I already knew a big part of it. I was very orthodox when I started out. Very orthodox until my mother died, then I slowly let it go.”

Home-life deteriorated for Bernie after his mother died, and a few months after his 13th birthday, he set out on his own. He had only the clothing he wore and no money.

He went to the Jewish organization in Sosua, met with the administrator, and told him about leaving home and needing a job. The administrator told Bernie he had no job for him because he lacked education and job skills.

Unsuccessful there but undaunted, he made his way to the farmers’ cooperative and told them his predicament. “I need a job. I need something to do to make a living.”

They listened to him, then, offered him the only available job, cleaning the animal intestines in the slaughterhouse, which paid $25 a month.

Bernie took the job. He lived in a barrack room for $3 a month, which included electricity and water. He commented, “I earned $25, paid $3 for lodging, and had $22 left. I didn’t need nothing.”

Work ethic rescues him

Although he started with a nasty job in the slaughterhouse, Bernie worked hard, and that served him well. The manager of the meatpacking plant soon took him out of the slaughterhouse and taught him about choppers and carvers. Mr. Meyerstein, who had worked for Armour and Swift in Chicago, taught him how to make sausage.

A careful observer and fast learner, Bernie said, “When I saw anybody doing something I wanted to learn. I caught it with my eyes and remembered it. I had no other choice. There was no Social Security, no unemployment, no insurance. Nothing. I had to learn.”

Management liked Bernie’s work ethic and raised his salary to $45 a month. He saved $10 a month until he had about $30 put aside. Then he went to a farmer to buy a calf. When the farmer found he had the money, he asked where he would keep the calf, and Bernie bargained with the farmer to pasture the calf for $1 a month.

They both agreed that when the calf became a milk producer, the milk belonged to the farmer, but calves born to those cows belonged to Bernie.

Next stop: USA

In 1957, when Bernie came to the United States, he was earning $85 a month and had 12 head of cattle, which he sold to finance his trip to the States and for Washington’s required $300 security deposit in case his job fell through.

Some Marines were the first who tried to help Bernie get to the United States. They said if he were willing to join the military, they would help him join the Marines. Bernie was willing, but the Marines weren’t – he was 2 inches too short at 5 feet, 5 inches tall.

Regulation height was 5 feet, 7 inches tall.

However, when a Mr. Weinberg came over from New York City, Bernie had success. He asked Weinberg if there was a newspaper in New York where he could run an ad for work in the United States. Yes, there was, the Aufbau, published in New York City for the German Jewish Club. Weinberg placed the ad: “Young butcher looking for a job in the U.S.”

Bernie waited. Then a letter from a Mr. Krucker arrived at the consulate in the Dominican Republic. Mr. Krucker owned a Swiss restaurant in Pagona, N.Y., and needed a butcher there by May 27, no later.

Bernie leapt into action. A visit to the consulate produced a list of “must do” things in order to leave. He took the list and returned in two days with everything else on the list.

Then he needed a “quota number,” but the consulate said that would take two weeks, and that would be too late to make it to New York by May 27.

Bernie tells it best. “It was hard to get out of the Dominican Republic at that time. Because of Nazi persecution, I was stateless – no passport. All I had was an ID from the Dominican government, like a driver’s license, but not a driver’s license.”

Bernie had to be in New York by May 27, so he begged the consulate to call Washington and get a quota number. “I will pay for the call,” Bernie said.

The consulate said, ‘Are you serious? We don’t do that normally.’ But with a little more pleading from Bernie, he said, ‘All right. Go outside and sit and wait. I’ll let you know. I can’t promise you.’

Bernie waited an hour and a half before the consulate came out and said, ‘I can’t believe it. I got you a quota number. Everything’s ready. Go to the airport and get yourself a ticket and you’re ready to go.’

Then, another problem loomed. Bernie had no passport, but he knew who could help. A German Jew named Kicheimer could work miracles almost. Bernie told Kicheimer why he was in a rush and gave him his paperwork.

Kicheimer returned the next day with the necessary documents, and Bernie was ready to leave. At the airport, Ruth and Eva were crying, afraid of what the police would do if they found out how he’d gotten his documentation. Bernie told them, “I did nothing; the man did everything. I’ve got a legal piece of paper.” He laughs and adds, “I was so glad when that plane went up and I looked down.” He was on his way to a new life that one day would land him in Ashville.

Bernie woking at Krucker’s Restaurant

When Bernie arrived at the restaurant, Mr. Krucker gave him a place to stay in his hunting shack, telling him to unpack, come to the restaurant and eat, then rest for the next day when they both would go to New York City to buy fish, meat and vegetables for the restaurant.

Bernie spoke of Mr. Krucker’s kindness to him, saying, “He treated me like I was his son. He was very good to me. When I bought my first business, he co-signed the loan for me.” Bernie’s respect for Mr. Krucker was evident when Krucker asked him not to wear his David Star because it made some German patrons uncomfortable. Bernie removed it, saying, “Mr. Krucker, I am Jewish in my heart, I don’t have to show it.”

Saying, ‘I do’

The restaurant’s head waitress, Pia, was a German gentile in an unhappy war-bride marriage that would end in a divorce. She was 10 years older than Bernie, but age presented no problem to him, and a few years later she became his wife. She converted to Judaism, going through the counseling sessions with the rabbis.

This was important to Orthodox Jews for descent is traced through the mother and gives both male and female children irrevocable Jewish status. It was a happy marriage that held strong until Pia died of brain cancer in 1979. The couple had three children: Bernhard “Bernie” Jr., Daniel and Katharina.

Bernie and Pia in the 1950s

Mr. Krucker had urged Bernie to ask Pia out. He was reluctant to do that because of lack of money. Pia knew this and said, “This time, I will buy you a root beer float and a hamburger. If you did have money, I don’t want you to spend it. You are new here, and you need to save your money.”

They didn’t go out again until Bernie had saved up some money. Mr. Krucker knew this and came to Bernie and gave him an envelope and said, “That’s for you.”  It contained his $50 weekly pay, inside. “I was rich,” Bernie said.

Never afraid of hard work, Bernie worked in the restaurant through the summer and into the fall, and when the number of diners dropped, Bernie got a job in the meatpacking plant in Mazzolas, N.Y., earning $65 a week. When he got off work there, if an auction was being held, he would sell hamburgers at the auction house. “You know, a couple of bucks here and there, and I made money,” he said. On Saturday and Sunday, he worked at the restaurant.

Bernie and Pia were engaged now, and he wanted more income. One day he asked the man who picked up and delivered the restaurant’s laundry if there were money to be made in laundry work. He told him, “If you work hard you can make money. It’s on a percentage of what you collect.”

So, Bernie went to see the owner, Frank Senatores, who told him, “I don’t pay until you bring in work. You deliver it and collect, and I pay you a commission on that. You have to use your own car. I don’t supply no vans or anything.” Bernie accepted the job.

Making of an entrepreneur

He worked hard – and so did Pia. After working his dayshift at the meatpacking plant, he and Pia would run the laundry and dry cleaning routes until about 8 p.m. Pia would drive, and he ran to the houses delivering and picking up. “I’ve been doing that for 60 years,” Bernie said recently. “The same system. And it works. Believe me, it works.” They built up a good route and eventually bought the drop business.

In another village, he saw a laundry and dry cleaner that wasn’t doing well because of the lazy owner. Obtaining a bank loan, Bernie bought that company and gave up the restaurant job to concentrate on the laundry business.

Always the quick and thorough learner, Bernie learned the dry cleaning and laundry business hands-on. He bought a 1952 Chevrolet truck van, put hanging racks inside, and had a high school art student paint the truck white with a crown for Imperial Laundry and Drycleaners, with the address and phone number.

From the beginning, Bernie has never turned down a challenge, for he’s always assumed he could do it. Early on, a man came in with a wide lapel, double-breasted suit wanting Bernie to cut the lapels down to a narrower size. Although he had never done alterations before, Bernie said, “We can do that, but it will cost you.”

Pia thought he was crazy, but Bernie said, “Don’t get excited. We have a suit hanging here. I’ll lay it on top of the one to alter, mark all around the lapel but leave a half inch. Then we’ll cut the material off and turn the rest under and sew it.” They did, and the customer was so happy he gave them a generous tip. After that, Pia learned to do whatever alterations that were needed.

By the time Pia died of cancer, they were living in Florida, and Bernie had expanded into selling laundry and dry cleaning equipment.

Five years after Pia’s death, Bernie exhibited his machines at a convention in Atlanta. One evening after the exhibits closed for the night, Bernie went to eat a restaurant where there was dancing. There he met Doan, who was buying merchandise for her dress shop in Springville, Alabama.

The magic of dance

She and Bernie danced that evening, and that dance blossomed into a courtship that resulted in a wedding the next year, 1985. The love affair has lasted 35 years. Although Doan didn’t convert to Judaism, she attends temple with Bernie.

Doan and Bernie Echt in Ashville today

It was Doan’s St. Clair County roots that brought them to Ashville and the establishing of Imperial Laundry and Professional Drycleaners there in 1994. Their pickup and delivery routes extend into Jackson and Cherokee counties. Bernie’s original method of building a business by meeting and knowing his customers still holds him in good stead today.

Katharina Echt says of her father, “My brothers and I were raised with a strong foundation of what it means to work hard. We each have a keen understanding, by our father’s example, of what is possible with sheer will and determination. Ever present is his steadfast belief in our ability to achieve anything we set our minds to. And so we have.”

Bernie never lost hope or purpose in the face of hardship, adversity or tragedy. He has focused on the good of life rather than the bad and remains a cheerful man who is a delight to know.

Stop by and say hello. You’ll enjoy meeting him.