41 minute read
A Grand Collection of Memories
Wintergreen Lifesavers. Fishing rods. A favorite chair. We each have our own special things we associate with our grandparents – a signature scent or oft–told joke that will always call to mind the dear members of the older generation of our families.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation naming the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day. In this month’s feature, in honor of that holiday, we celebrate these precious treasures who walk among us and have forged paths for us, by sharing stories from local residents about the grandfathers in their lives. We would like to give a huge thank you to Lawrence Certain for the many hours he spent doing interviews and putting these stories to paper. We also thank everyone who was willing to tell us their stories. Take some time to cherish your grandparents this month, either by spending some time with them, if you can, or simply by sharing some memories of your own.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Five generations of family together, as pictured in 1994. (From left) Sean Michael Valentine (two years old), Dr. Robert B. Butler (57 years old), George B. Randels (97 years old), David B. Butler (33 years old), Scott Ross Valentine (five years old), Robert Wesley Valentine (seven years old), J. B. Butler (79 years old).
Remembering a Gentle Roughneck
David Butler Looks Back on His Grandfather
y grandfather, James Burnett (J.B.) Butler, well deserves the love and admiration I constantly hold for him in my heart. He was a self-made and profoundly self-reliant man of the Midwest, born in 1916 in Haileyville, Oklahoma, as one of my great grandparent’s six children. And though he lived his life half a (continues)
Also among the long lineage of charismatic gents in David’s family was his maternal greatgrandfather, George Bennett Randels.
nation away from me and my family, our regular visits to my grandparent’s home–a simple clapboard house in Shawnee, Oklahoma–shrank the distance and enlarged my memories of him. My family would make the two-day drive to Oklahoma every other summer.
Despite his early life that was often hard, I remember the gentle, loving nature of my grandfather’s countenance as I sat on his lap during these visits as a young boy, raptly listening to those stories of his life’s journey that he shared with me. He always called me “old’ Dave”, regardless of my age. His stories enthralled me, from his high school stardom as a football player and Golden Glove boxer in Ardmore, Oklahoma, to his Pacific overseas service in the Army. He was a man with an unerring sense of duty to his family and country, adamant that his children, including my father who would graduate from dental school, would progress beyond his own school education sweet potatoes, which they ate solely for a full year. Thereafter, he would not eat another sweet potato during his life nor would he allow one in his home!
My grandfather returned home from the war with enough money to start a small restaurant in Ardmore, Oklahoma. When the restaurant closed and he was driven to continue to provide for his family, he spent much of his life on the move throughout the Midwest (demonstrated by the fact that my father attended four different high schools). He was an oil field roughneck with Schlumberger Well Servicing Company in Duncan, Oklahoma, starting as a truck driver. He finished his oil field career 25 years later when Schluberger asked him to go to Alaska and he said it was too cold. He then went to work for the State of Oklahoma Employment Service specializing in veteran affairs.
Two stories about J.B. Butler remain the most vivid in
my memories of him. As early teens, my grandfather and his brother Marvin (who later died of tuberculosis) were less than avid school students. When their absences from school led the local truancy officer to arrive one day to their parent’s home, they both jumped though their bedroom window, ran across the farm fields and with sheer abandon and faith leapt aboard a boxcar on a train heading west. The train’s destination was California, where the two boys jumped off and jumped into the sweaty labors of picking fruits and vegetables in the state’s booming agriculture industry.
Some 60 years later, I would follow in my grandfather’s footsteps. In February of 1993, I set out for California myself, not in a sweltering boxcar, but in my air-conditioned car. On my long drive westward I visited my grandfather in Oklahoma, heard the story of his youthful escape and was struck by the similarities of our young sojourns. He found farming, I sought fame. We both ultimately returned home, worn by our experiences, yet wiser in our understandings of life.
Upon my grandfather’s death in June of 2000, I learned even more about his life. As a postwar young man, he went to work as many did in FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), established to put men and women to work building the nation’s infrastructure. Among the projects on which he labored was a covered bridge spanning a river near Lake Murray State Park in Ardmore, OK. It was in those clear waters beneath the intricate, unseen bridgeworks he helped to build, that
my grandfather’s ashes were gently scattered. He would have liked that. So, do I.
Rev. Rainey
Lawrence Certain Remembers his Grandfather
ranville Newton Rainey was and always will be my grandfather. It is an honor, unearned, that I have carried since birth. My memories of him are not as vast as those of a grandchild who grows up blessed with long hours of contact with their grandfather. Mine afford me no richly detailed portrait of him. Such is the province of others – his children to whom he was a father and members of his congregation to whom he was Brother Rainey. (continues)
My memories of my grandfather are more akin to a kind of connect-the-dots outline – small points of vivid memories that rest in my mind, somewhat detached from each other. Yet when set upon the page and linked to one another, these points form for me the unmis-
takable shape of the only man I knew as a grandfather and create the vessel in which I hold and decant my remembrances of him. It is a shape that can never fully define the three-dimensionality of his love that touched so many lives during his fifty years at a pastor in the South Georgia Conference of the Methodist Church. During the years I knew him we were separated by the distances that the itinerant nature of his life’s work placed between us, drawn together a handful of times each year by family holidays. My grandfather was a quiet man. I cannot remember him ever holding the floor to expound at any length, except during his Sunday sermons. And even then, his remarks were not that of a fiery orator from the mountaintop, but rather the assuring, embracing cadence of one who speaks from the well of grace and the rock-solid footing of conviction. My grandfather spoke little. But in him I saw proof enough for me that God speaks through men.
In remembering grandfather Rainey today, I think first of large family gatherings in small, neat parsonages in quiet, South Georgia towns. My grandfather was the patriarch of a large family. He and my grandmother, Nell Rainey, had six children who married and gave him eighteen grandchildren, of which I was one.
For as long as I can remember, the Rainey clan, as we came to call ourselves, would gather together twice a year, in Spring on Mother’s Day and again in the Fall on Thanksgiving. The army that over the years reached a total twentyeight children and grandchildren (before greatgrandchildren would nearly double that number) would descend upon the town where my grandfather was the pastor at the local Methodist Church. Perry, Macon, and Fort Valley were the Georgia towns I remember most. We all would arrive at my grandparent’s home for these events, filled with great anticipation for these times when we celebrated our common lineage and love. And like the good Methodists we were, each family carried an assigned covered dish: vegetables, breads, pound cakes, cheese straws. These arrived and were assembled in great rows in my grandmother’s kitchen where she scurried and bounced from oven to stove to counter fussing with her green beans, dressing and the turkey. The wonderful aromas filled the house like a thick fog.
With my grandmother busy in the kitchen, my grandfather saw to arrivals. From a chair on the porch he would rise and greet us. I remember that I always kissed my grandfather on his cheek and he, mine. While it was not a gesture he saved for just me, I knew then, even as I would quickly slip from his embrace and race to find my cousins, that it was an act that served to renew our bond and define that small part of him I knew and which was mine alone. As a youngster at these gatherings among so large a crowd, moments alone with my grandfather were rare.
Yet, on a few occasions, I enjoyed the special status of being the only grandchild in his company. On one such Thanksgiving afternoon in Fort Valley, he asked me if I would like to help him shell pecans. Delighted, I joined him in the small workshop that adjoined the garage behind the house. Onto his workbench, he hoisted an odd-looking contraption fashioned from black pig-iron and wood. And from a large grocery sack, he scooped up a double handful of big brown pecans collected from the huge tree that dominated the backyard of the parsonage. I watched closely as he showed me how to place a pecan in the metal trough, resting one end of the nut up against a concave stop, and how to pull the handle that would slide against the pecan, cracking the hull. After a few tries to get the amount of pressure just right, I set about my job. My grandfather deftly finished cleaning the pecans with his fingers and his pocket knife, depositing the sweet amber meat into a metal pan. I enjoyed their taste, yet I savor more that time alone in the darkening corner of the garage with my grandfather.
I clearly remember several incidents when I discovered something new about my grandfather that surprised me and gave me small glimpses into his personality. It seemed that in all the parsonages in which I visited my grandparents there was always one room that housed the sort of stuff one usually keeps in an attic and I generally found no interest in them. However, once, for some reason, I took to nosing around the storage room near the back of the Macon parsonage and was amazed to find in one corner a set of golf clubs. Delighted at my discovery, I carried the leather bag to the back-
yard, placed a yellowed golf ball atop a tee and selected a club. But as I prepared to strike the ball, I was utterly perplexed to find the clubface pointing in the wrong direction. Undaunted, I walked to the other side of the ball only to find the same unnatural situation. It was then I realized that the club I was holding, like all the clubs in the bag, was left-handed. My surprise at finding my grandfather had actually once played golf, was exceeded only by the surprise in learning that when he had played, he had done so as a southpaw.
On another occasion, in the parsonage in Fort Valley, I encountered my grandfather seated at the desk in his small study. As I approached, he stopped working at his ancient Underwood typewriter and extended an arm around my waist. When I asked what he was doing he replied that he was preparing his sermon for that Sunday. I was surprised. For in all the sermons I had heard him deliver over the years, I always believed he was speaking extemporaneously and without the need for study and preparation, as one can when knowledge, conviction, and intuition blend and the subject at hand flows wonderfully free. But his answer, and the papers and scribbled notes scattered about his desktop along with his open Bible, told me that his sermons seemed effortless on Sundays only because of his labors over them in the preceding days.
I remember best, though, the time my grandfather surprised me with his sense of humor. He and my grandmother had come to St. Simons for a visit. A fishing trip had been planned and I, at the age of seven, was looking forward to my very first attempt at catching fish. With poles, bait and a picnic lunch we set out for a spot just off the St. Simons causeway along the banks of the McKay River. I could not wait to try fishing firsthand. We arrived at the river and with great anticipation, I watched as my grandfather selected a rod and reel for me, placed a live shrimp on the hook, adjusted the bobber depth, and then motioned for me to follow him to the edge of the river. He eyed the water briefly and with perhaps too much confidence that I could take it from there, handed me the pole. “OK, Lawrence,” he said, pointing to a patch of water about ten yards from my feet, “this looks like a good spot, toss it in right over there.” Seven-year olds don’t question their grandfathers about such important matters as how to fish. And although his instructions seemed odd, I took them on faith. With the entire family watching, I grasped the rod firmly with both hands and dutifully tossed it– rod and all – squarely into the spot he had chosen where it landed with a thin splash. Even with my pitiful knowledge of fishing, the shocked silence from those behind me told me that I had erred terribly. With my hands over my mouth in horror, I turned to my grandfather and braced for the anger that I was sure my foolishness had earned. He stood there peering at the widening ripples, a look of complete surprise on his face. I began to cry. My grandfather began to laugh. And as he laughed he reached down and gathered me to him and hugged me. I felt silly, ashamed, relieved. It took a while that afternoon for me to regain my enthusiasm for the sport of fishing. But when I did, my grandfather handed me his pole and with a wink and a smile said, “This time, grip it just a wee bit tighter.” Today, this story is fairly legend in my family. Mostly I’m sure, it’s remembered as the day I threw a fishing pole in the river and learned the do’s and don’ts of casting. I remember it as the day a seven year-old stood on the banks of a river in his grandfather’s arms and experienced the joy of unconditional love and forgiveness.
My grandfather Rainey passed away in December of 1979, just days short of his ninetieth birthday. Earlier that year, his health had required that he and my grandmother sell their beloved home in Fort Valley to come live with my parents on St. Simons Island. It was several days after his funeral when I found myself in the room in my parent’s home where my grandparents had briefly lived together when I noticed a long row of identical looking books on a shelf. I reached for one and opening it was startled to find my grandfather’s graceful handwriting on each and every page. They were daily diaries with their title, Daily-Aids, embossed on the cover. I counted forty-one volumes, one for each year from 1938 to 1979, containing a page for each day. Here in these remarkable books, beginning in the early years of his ministry and continuing well into the last year of his life, he reported and reflected on the activities and appointments that filled his days. Though not profound in their content, the entries struck me as enormously powerful in the simple notes and jotted fragments that revealed the day-to-day toil and thoughts of a man who was about his Father’s work. I skipped among the years enjoying his notations on church events, funerals, weddings, family doings and the countless other activities which consumed his time. I blushed at the closeness to him that rose from each page realizing that here were the final treasured gifts from my grandfather.
These are my memories of my grandfather, Reverend Granville Newton Rainey, with whom I shared too scant a time. They are like precious stones whose value rises with little more than the labor of keeping. (continues)
A Devotion to His Family and Community.
Merry Tipton Remembers Her “Grannypop”
y grandfather, Augustus Myddelton Harrris, Sr., was known simply as “Myd” by the countless number of those who knew him, loved him, and are today in so many ways the collective beneficiaries of his vision and actions. As all his grandchildren did, I called him “Grannypop.”
He was born in April of 1899 in his parents’ Brunswick home on Albany Street after my great grandfather moved to the coast from Hancock County, Georgia, to be in the timber business following the Civil War. Over the years, my grandfather and grandmother (Mary Edna Walker Harris) and their children relocated about the streets of what is now Old Town Brunswick – first to Oak Place, then Carpenter (where we briefly lived when I was born) and then to a home he built at 402 Union Street. This was still my grandparents’ home when my grandfather died in September of 1971.
The early 1900s story of my grandfather’s love affair with my grandmother is one of arduous distance and ardent devotion. He lived in Glynn County, she in McIntosh County. Undaunted and thoroughly smitten, he would walk along the miles of railroad tracks northward to Darien to briefly see and woo her. His loving treks had his desired effect and they married in 1918. My mother, Anne Elizabeth Harris, one of my grandparent’s three children, later married Clell Tyler, my stepfather, who I always called “Poppa.” When I was twelve, we moved from Brunswick to a home on East Beach, St. Simons Island.
Those versed in the story of Brunswick’s earlier days know Myd Harris and the impact he had as our community gained its economic footing. His life in the business world began as a young boy in 1916 as a “runner” for First National Bank on Newcastle Street. His innate skills and a blossoming financial acumen ultimately led to an admirable lifelong career of leadership with the bank that spanned being named a bank director in 1927, bank president in 1948, and chairman of its board of directors in 1964. Throughout his distinguished financial life, whether he was loaning hundreds to families in need or millions to businesses in building our community, my grandfather acted with a profound sense of kinship in serving his fellow citizens. The betterment of people and our community was never far from his mind.
To merely say he was active in our community understates his place in its past and present. He served on the Glynn County Board of Education for 15 years, was the first president of the Brunswick Community Foundation, was a founder and lifelong member of the Brunswick Kiwanis Club, was a deacon and elder of First Presbyterian Church in Brunswick (and instrumental in establishing St. Simons Presbyterian Church); and was twice president of the Glynn County Chamber of Commerce. Perhaps my grandfather is most remembered today for his enduring passion and diligent work to ensure a future-minded vision for the vitality of the ports of Brunswick and their places in our nation’s eastern seaboard economy. He was the first president of the Brunswick Port Authority, later vice chairman of the Georgia Ports Authority, and lobbied hard for the successful creation of the railroad connecting the commodities arriving to the port at Colonel’s Island for transportation by trucks to the world, arguably among the earliest visions for what would later become our nation’s vast intermodal commerce and interstate supply system.
Little known to most is the fact that the Colonel’s Island port terminal complex is sizeable enough today in its acreage and prominence to have its own name: Myd Harris, Georgia. It has no mayor nor population beyond the countless commodities that pass through it every day.
Like our community, I treasure my grandfather’s indelible thumbprint left by the life he lived. He will always have my love and admiration. (continues)
Merry Tipton, age four, with her grandfather at his home on Union Street, Brunswick.
The original document reflecting Emmanuel Paraskevas’ acceptance as a U.S. citizen, executed in the District Court of Rhode Island, on February 5, 1902.
My Papou
Recollections of Emmanuel Paraskevas by John S. Dalis, United States Bankruptcy Judge (Ret.)
hat I know of my Papou (the Greek word for grandfather), Emmanuel Paraskevas (Manuel Parrish) I learned from his three daughters Anastasia (Tessie), Mary, my mother and Aristea (Esther). My Papou died at the age of 81 in the eleventh month of my life. To him I owe a debt of gratitude for not only who I am, but more so what and where I am – a grateful and loyal American by birth and proud Hellene by heritage.
Manuel was born in 1871 in a remote mountain village in Peloponnese Lakonia, Greece, near the port of Monovasia. His formal education ended after the third grade when his father decided Manuel would enter the family business, herding sheep and goats. His mother had other plans. So, at the age of 14 he traveled to America to join his older brother in a new family business: a candy store and soda fountain on Lexington Avenue in New York City. The men led bachelors’ lives over the store and shared the dream of every young Greek man coming to America: to work hard, save all you could and retire to Greece to marry a woman half your age, breeding a house full of children, living out your life like an Ottoman Pasha. In no way discounting his dream, Manuel so loved his adopted land that in 1902 he became an American citizen. As is still customary today, newly minted citizens were given the opportunity to change their names. A new name to match a new start in life, Emmanuel Paraskevas became Manuel Parrish.
Yet fate has a way of distorting dreams. My grandfather’s brother contracted tuberculosis and died and Manuel got sick. He was told he needed a dryer climate to extend his life. Taking all of his and his brother’s savings and giving a power of attorney to his lawyer to sell the business and building, he returned to Greece in 1919 to die. There he received a welcome reserved for a Frankenstein-like monster, without the pitchforks and torches. Driven from the village, he returned to his roots. Fevered and shivering, he found refuge in a shepherd’s hovel carved out of the side of a mountain. The irony of his condition drove him to laughter. The villagers believed him insane.
Katherine, the village “old maid,” who was 22 years of age and the youngest of seven, with no dowry and obviously no hope of marrying, took pity on him, fed him, nursed him, healed him and married him. He was 48. The marriage produced three daughters: my mother and my two aunts.
In 1930, the fates intervened again. Aristea needed surgery available only in the major capitals of Europe and New York City. For years Manuel had written to his lawyer with no reply. He was confident that the bulk of his assets–the sale proceeds from the business and building–had been safely secured and invested by his lawyer in America. With that belief, Manuel’s plan was for Aristea to take all the money remaining, travel to New York, collect his fortune, have the operation and return home to her two sisters left behind in Greece. The reality he would learn was painfully different: the business was gone. The building was sold. The lawyer was dead. The money was gone.
With no money, in the face of the Great Depression, my grandfather remained determined to reunite his family. At age 59, he launched a new family business selling fruits and vegetables during the milder seasons, and roasted chestnuts in winter, from a pushcart on the streets of Passaic, New Jersey. Seven years would pass before he could save the money needed to bring his daughters over from Greece to America.
My Papou Manuel taught me faith and love. Faith and love of God. Faith and love for family. Faith in oneself. Every night before bed, he prayed to God for the health of his family, for strength to go on, and for a special place in the bowels of hell for all lawyers.
I’m certain that on the day I graduated from the University of Georgia Law School and took the oath as a member of the State Bar of Georgia, he rolled over in his grave. (continues)
He Shaped an Industry. He Shaped Me.
Micajah Sturdivant Shares His Remembrances of His Papa, Mike P. Sturdivant, Sr.
he hospitality industry, from across the Southeast to here on the Georgia coast, was very much a part of the personal and professional passions of my grandfather. Although owning and operating hotels was not his primary occupation, he believed the professional hospitality industry to be an open landscape when he founded our business in the 1950s. Farming had been in the family for generations before him. After leaving the family farm to graduate from Mississippi State University and enroll at Harvard Business School, he recognized the responsibility that came with such gifts. After returning to Mississippi, Papa married my grandmother, Ygondine, in 1948, joined the Army and was shipped off to Korea the day after my father, Mike Sturdivant Jr. (the oldest of 5 siblings) was born in 1950. Yet as the farm prospered and the cotton and other crops grew, so did my grandfather’s yearnings to expand his horizons.
In 1956, President Eisenhower had established the Interstate and Defense Highway Act, creating super highways and a nation on wheels, traveling on good roads and looking for comfortable places to stay. For my grandfather and his graduate school roommate, Earle Jones, this was an opportunity for the entrepreneurial-minded. The visionary duo began opening Holiday Inns across Mississippi, and by the mid-1970s their company, Mississippi Management Inc., was operating more than 2,000 hotel rooms. Renamed the MMI Hotel Group, the company’s portfolio of owned and managed properties grew over the years, including the 1980 purchase of the King and Prince Hotel here on St. Simons and the transformation of the property into The King and Prince Beach & Golf Resort and its recognition in the world of hospitality today.
Former Mississippi Governor William Winter called my grandfather “one of Mississippi’s most valuable and effective citizen leaders, who was totally dedicated to improving life for everyone in Mississippi. He had a compassion for the less fortunate and did everything he could to improve their lives.”
As a young boy, I was keenly aware of my Papa’s values of hard work, self-reliance and a servant’s heart that shaped his decisions in business and his love and devotion to our family. Our family gatherings for meals were memorable times brimming with an essential Mississippi sense of warmth and love. The entire family was always in attendance at the encouragement of my grandparents and that time spent together built the foundation for lasting bonds. There is not a holiday that I can remember where all of my cousins, aunts, and uncles weren’t together to share, debate, and encourage. Papa constantly stressed that family business opportunities awaited us when earned. This is the MMI and Sturdivant DNA that has drawn succeeding family members to follow in Papa’s footsteps in carrying on the company mission and values, including my uncle Gaines P. Sturdivant, now chairman of the MMI Hospitality Group.
After graduating from Harvard Business School in 2006, I joined MMI. Today, as President of the MMI Hotel Group overseeing management of the company’s hotel assets, I travel often to ensure the quality of the experiences of those who visit MMI properties, guided always by what my Papa faithfully believed and practiced: “The guest is our one true boss.”
I believe it was his abiding farmer’s faith that always guided him in planting seeds for a harvest that he might not ever see. When I meet new MMI team members, I oftentimes share the reality that we may not know how our investment in the experience of our guests shaped their stay. I am fortunate to know, though, that my grandfather took great pride in the people that make up the company I am charged with leading today. It is a wonderful honor to carry on his legacy of service and I am encouraged about MMI’s future because of the company culture my grandfather began to instill over sixty years ago.
Hospitality is a gift that traditionally comes without corresponding thanks. We will forever remain grounded in our Mississippi roots recognizing that Southern hospitality resonates throughout time and place. (continues)
Micajah Sturdivant, age three, with his Papa, Mike Sturdivant Sr.
A Good Man Who Believed in the Goodness of Others.
Trey Brunson Recalls His Grandfather, Roy Smith.
Trey Brunson, age 5, crabbing with his grandfather at his home in 1976.
or me, one simple story reveals the essence of my grandfather, Roy Smith. Early in his long business career here in Glynn County, he learned that an employee had stolen money from his company. Confronting the man, my grandfather chose human compassion over legal prosecution telling him that if he agreed to come to my grandfather’s church the next Sunday and sit in the front row, the man could keep his job and charges would not be pressed. five years as an Air Force pilot moved to Brunswick. In 1989, my grandfather retired and my father assumed command, moving H&H from Gloucester Street to Altama Avenue. My sister Laurie (now retired) and I later took over leadership of the company. Today I am president of H&H Lifestyles which relocated to St. Simons Island in 2011.
I believe “community steward” best describes my grandfather. These two words fail to fully reflect the volumes of good works he authored during his 91 years, many done in Christian anonymity. He built and rented out hundreds of houses, often on little more than the faith he had in a handshake. When his church needed new hymnals they appeared. He established the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in our local schools. He helped develop new local communities, including Riverside, where he built his home with brick rescued from the demolition of the Oglethorpe Hotel. He gave generously to community needs with no desire for recognition, was a friend to all, and a guiding mentor to many.
My grandfather died in August, 2006. But a permanent imprint of the gentle thumbprint of Roy Smith, in how he operated his businesses and lived his life, remains. Not unlike that man so many years ago who erred, yet received the gifts of redemption and forgiveness from my grandfather, I live each day in thankfulness for his place in my life. (continues)
After faithfully honoring the agreement, the matter was closed and the employee’s eyes were opened to the rare character of Roy Smith.
My grandfather was born in McIntyre, Georgia and aspired to attend the University of Georgia. Coming from a poor family, he was unable to afford the tuition so instead discovered Perry Business School in Brunswick. In his early twenties, he took a train to Brunswick and studied business principles. He went to work as a bookkeeper for H&H, at the time a gas station named after its two owners, Misters Hood and Harrington. There he met fellow employee Ernest Nutt, and the two of them eventually bought the business, which they quickly enlarged to include tires, appliances, and TVs.
When the war began, my grandfather entered the Navy and served in the South Pacific as a medic. After his return, he married my grandmother, who was from Brunswick, and the two of them settled at the Willetta Hotel which he and Ernest Nutt had bought. My grandparents lived there until my mother was five years old and, after they sold it, it was eventually demolished. Mr. Nutt, who had no children, deeded his ownership of all H&H company assets to my grandfather so that it could continue as a family business.
The family foundations of H&H deepened over the years. My father, who was from Albany, Georgia, married my mother in 1969 and after
J.C. Strother, Sr.: The Heart and Hands of a Builder.
Memories From His Grandson, Bill Strother
t. Simons Island is a place of landmark structures. I am understandably most proud of the two-story, white brick building bearing my family’s name, J.C. Strother Company that has stood overlooking Mallory Street in the island’s pier village for over half a century.
My grandfather, John Carl Strother, was born in Stillmore, Georgia and came to the Island as a World War I veteran in 1928 soon after the causeway first opened. He arrived as a builder, yet building materials were scarce. Undaunted by the depression years that would follow (during which his wealthy family would lose virtually everything), he believed that better times lay ahead here on the Georgia coast and established the J.C. Strother Company in 1930. The young company’s first location was also on Mallory Street, accompanied by a small lumber yard located a short distance away near today’s baseball fields. His brother-in-law and partner Ike Roundtree handled the storefront hardware operations while he set out to build houses.
And build he did, constructing over 300 affordable homes on St. Simons, in Brunswick and in St. Marys. Among his earliest projects was building homes just off Frederica Road, shaping the historic subdivision that would become Oglethorpe Park. Many of these homes would later be occupied by workers at the J.A. Jones Shipyard in Brunswick, who were building Liberty Ships for our nation’s World War II homefront effort.
My grandfather’s attraction to this parcel of land continued. In 1950, he extended its high
Bill Strother and his sister Carla as infants being held by their grandparents outside the home J.C. Strother built in Oglethorpe Park.
ground acreage eastward to create a peninsula welcoming more new homes – one of which my parents occupied and where I proudly live today as the third generation of the Strother family. My grandfather died in 1966, when my father was 14 years old. My grandfather’s eldest son and my uncle, Felix Strother (who I am named after) died in service to our nation on the beaches of Normandy in 1944.
Yet my grandfather’s footprints would lead the way for the next generation. My father, William Felix (Billy) Strother, married my mother, Clarise Sutton in 1947, learned the building supply and allied businesses and became a second generation owner of J.C. Strother Company. He eagerly adopted his father’s strong belief that decisions and actions that benefit the community were the foundations good business. My grandfather’s life and community spirit remains today in so much of our island’s history. He was the building contractor in constructing St. Simons Baptist Church and was the church’s first treasurer in 1938. He and other Village merchants founded St. Simons State Bank (he once said he had cashed so many checks for local residents that we might as well just start a bank). The institution would later become the Coastal Bank of Georgia. And he was also elected a Glynn County Commissioner (which we jokingly said was his worst business decision).
Following the death of our father in 2005, my brother Gordon and I now own J.C. Strother Company which has grown, like the island and coastal region we serve, beyond anything my grandfather could have ever imagined. We are proud to continue his legacy. (continues)
Pine Sap in His Veins. Love in His Heart.
Felicia Harris Recalls the Man She Knew as Grandfather.
emembrances of my grandfather, Lester Morris, awaken so many of my senses, from the sweet aroma of pine wood to the sweeter-still way he touched so many during his life. Born in Kingsland, Georgia in 1918, my grandfather became a successful pulp woodsman by trade, owning a business that harvested pine trees for sale to companies locally and across the southeast. My father, Malachi Morris, was born in Camden County and later moved to be with my mother in Brunswick before I was born.
Though my grandfather toiled in sweat-stained work clothes by day, when he stepped out, he stepped out in style. Tailor-made suits and Stetson hats were his trademark, with the light scent of pines as his cologne. Family dinners and gatherings were essential bonding time that I so looked forward to. No family meal began without him being seated first to offer prayerful thanks. And no meal at any time of day or night was ever served in his home without including his beloved rice and gravy, a dish faithfully prepared for him my grandmother, Ruth Waye-Morris. Those who knew my grandfather always called him “Head,” a term of endearment that suggested his wisdom and intelligence. He was a natural mechanic and problem solver who could fix anything. Yet I have always believed the nickname “Heart” would have been just as appropriate and descriptive, given the kindness and love he showed for his family, friends and fellow citizens throughout his life.
In those early days in Kingsland most roads were unpaved and as the first person in town to have a vehicle – his large pulpwood trucks – my grandfather grew to be relied upon by fellow citizens for a tow out of the mud. In fact, he became a sort of a taxicab service (provided without charge) for those in need of transportation. And as a prosperous businessman, he also became something of an unofficial finance company, loaning small amounts of money to others when banks would not do so.
These giving, Christian-minded traits of my grandfather left a lasting impression on me. As a Brunswick City Commissioner, I find myself guided in my actions by remembrances of him always doing the right thing, his desire to help all in need, his commitment to giving back to the community, and his belief in the joys that come with service to others. (continues)
Memories and a Mustang:
A Sweet Ride of Recollections with Anna Martin
ith our family gathered in a circle, hands held ready to bless the meal, my Grandpa always says, “If it weren’t for me, none of y’all would be here.” Then the entire family – two grandparents, five children, twelve grandchildren, and sixteen great-grandchildren, plus spouses, friends, boyfriends, and girlfriends present – would look around the room and realize
he’s right. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here to tell the story of Carroll Harris Martin, Jr., my hero and my grandfather.
My memories of Grandpa and my family began during my early childhood at our annual gathering for July Fourth at his house on Bartow Street. After a big meal and family photo, in which we’d all be wearing the same Old Navy American flag t-shirts, the entire crew would pile the kids in wagons and head to the pier for fireworks. One of my favorite memories about Sandcastle, the neighborhood where I grew up, was a small, secret passageway through which my dad, sister and I could ride our bikes to a street near Bartow that granted us easy access to Grandpa’s home.
While I had a happy childhood brimming with wonderful memories, I’ll always cherish one in particular. I can recall each detail as if it were yesterday. I was finally old enough to ride in Grandpa’s beloved Ford Mustang: a classic 1966 brick-red convertible with no seatbelts. This was a huge deal for me and my younger sister, since at the ages of seven and nine, despite our incessant begging, we were not allowed to ride in the Mustang for safety reasons.
But happily, the big day came and we could scarcely contain our excitement as we arrived at Grandpa’s by bike and gleefully took our places in the backseat of the Mustang, with the top down to excite us, and entirely lacking seat belts to restrain us. I can still recall the rich smell of the stiff, well-maintained leather seats and running my fingers over the tight stitching as we patiently waited on my dad and Grandpa to climb in and whisk us away. I remember studying the beautiful and bygone era styling of the front seat compartment with its vintage steering wheel, floor gearshift, period radio knobs and assorted dashboard array. These were surely simpler times, yet the ride was never sweeter nor more memorable.
Grandpa noticed we were exploring every crevice of the mustang and quickly warned us, “Don’t mess with my quarters!” We discovered these coins in the vehicle’s center console, stacked to the brim and readied for the use for the toll once required to cross the causeway. With three generations of the Martin family in their seats, we took off for a joyful, seatbeltfree parade through St. Simons Island.
Other than the fact that I’m on God’s green Earth, of which I’m reminded at each family prayer, I owe so much to my Grandpa. I’ve always had a great love for the University of Georgia, which led me to follow a family legacy of UGA graduates. My Grandpa instilled in me a strong work ethic and the conviction that I can do and be anything by following my dreams and working hard. He has taught me to get my back up off the wall and dance. (The two of us have perfected “The Grandpa Dance.”) And I’ll never forget the many songs he sings out at random: “The Martin Family Anthem,” “Paddy Murphy,” his own version of “Humoresque,” and the one that starts, “Oh she shimmied and she shimmied…” which would land us in trouble if we sang any more of the racy lyrics back in the day.
There are many things about Grandpa that we can count on. He has shot his age or better over 200 times on the golf course. The walls of his home are covered with family photos because, he says, “You never see them if you stick them in an album.” (There happens to be an “Anna and Lizzie” wall, but of course there are no favorites in our family.) At 6:30 p.m. sharp, you can expect to see a Beefeater Gin and Schweppes Tonic in his hand. Grandpa never missed one of my dance recitals, even though he hypothesized that they got longer each year. He practices faith in everyday life. He has love for his fellow man. He lives simply. If truth is to be told, to know him is to love him. And if it weren’t for him, “none of y’all would be here” reading this story. (continues)
OPPOSITE PAGE: Anna Martin and her grandfather with his beloved Mustang. THIS PAGE: An illustration of Anna drawn by her grandpa that appears in various forms on every birthday, graduation, or note he’s written me through the years.
The stories featured in A Grand Collection of Memories, from “Remembering a Gentle Roughneck” through “Memories and a Mustang” were written by Lawrence Certain. Lawrence is co-owner of Faulkenberry Certain Advertising, a full-service advertising agency that has been an island mainstay for the past 26 years. FCA has created award-winning campaigns for local, regional, and national companies and organizations. They are located at 1331 Ocean Boulevard, and can be reached by phone at 912.638.7770.
Boys’ Life and the Blue Jay
by Kelly Galland
hat young boy doesn’t dream of freedom and adventure, especially sailing the open seas in pursuit of pirates, treasure, and uncharted lands? For the Galland brothers, that dream came true during a magical summer in the 60s when 12-year-old Bob Galland convinced his father, Bob Galland, Sr., to build a “sailing surfboard” with purchased plans from Boy’s Life magazine. dreams of adventure would not be quenched with anything but a full-sized boat. The obvious answer was the Blue Jay, a racing class boat that was popular in the Northeast, and which continues to be one of the leading one-design, sloop-rigged sailboats in existence today. They purchased a kit from a nearby boat yard and spent six months lovingly building and crafting their vessel, while Bob’s younger brothers, Steve, John (Ben’s father), and Bud watched in eager anticipation of what was to come that summer when they could take the Blue Jay to
After the initial test sail on a friend’s lake in Highland Lakes, New Jersey, the 1957 Plymouth family cruiser trailered the Blue Jay to Point O’Woods, where it spent the next ten years fulfilling the Galland brothers’ greatest dreams of adventure. Bob would spend hours and hours every day sailing, honing his skills and testing his limits. Finally, he set out for his longest sail thus far – beginning at Point O’Woods and sailing across the Long Island
Sound to the tip of Long Island. He began in the morning and returned that evening, averaging roughly 26 miles round trip.
The younger Galland brothers enjoyed sailing with their father, and they would climb into the bow of the boat below deck and nap as the waves and ocean breeze lulled them to sleep. The 14-foot sailboat seemed like a yacht to the young boys. In addition to the adventures in Point O’Woods, the Blue Jay made its way to Great Moose Pond in Hartland and Harmony, Maine, and even spent one summer at Wild Goose Camp for Boys, where it was used in their sailing program.
As the years passed and Bob grew up, he married a Georgia girl, taking the Blue Jay south with him, eventually sailing it on Lake Lanier and Lake Burton. However, thousands of miles of travel on I-95 eventually took their toll and the boat bottom was in total disrepair. The Blue Jay spent the next 25 years in the basement of Bud Galland’s home in Cumming, Georgia,
until Bud and his son, Davis, replaced the bottom of the boat and all the sails.
The Blue Jay made her 21st century debut in the 2015 Sea Palms Fourth of July parade, where she proudly won second place with the third generation of Galland children riding in her hull as she was pulled on a trailer.
Her maiden voyage on St. Simons Island waters came two years later, also on a Fourth of July weekend, when most of Galland family was visiting. The Galland brothers launched her from the McKay River ramp and prayed their repairs would hold tight as Bob and Bud sailed through the St. Andrews Sound to Jekyll Island. The childhood days of adventure may have been long gone, but Bob couldn’t help but to be filled with tremendous joy as he now sailed with his son, Max, and granddaughter, Sara; three generations in his beloved boat.
All four Galland brothers attribute their love of the water and sailing to their father’s passion for it and those fine summer days chasing boyhood dreams on the water in the Blue Jay. While most of their sailing nowadays is done in the Virgin Islands among large catamarans, those precious memories in the boat that seemed larger than life will always be a part of each of them. And who knows, perhaps the third generation of Galland children, Sara, Anson, Will and Brogen, will have new and wonderful adventures discovering pirates, treasure, and uncharted land upon the Blue Jay in the Golden Isles.
Happy Grandparents Day to all the Golden Isles grandparents!
OPPOSITE PAGE: Anson (4th generation on boat), Bob, Jr., Sara and Bud Galland
