Cook County Centennial

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Features

Contents

Cook County Centennial Magazine

6

A Tough Guy in the Community’s Early History

8

Remembering the Fellowship Children

9

A Mystic Solves a Murder

12

World War I Soldier’s Letter Reaches Grandson a Century Later

14

Heavy Casualties Aboard the Otranto

15

Remembering a Great Local Agribusinessman: J.T. “Buck” Daughtrey

16

‘We are the Champions!’

20

The Cross and the Canebrake: Leitha Ann’s Story

22

World War II Veteran Ira Powers Remembered

24

129 Years of Support for the U.S. Military and Counting

25

Cook County’s Namesake

26

Hero Doctors Battle the Red Death

29

The Melons from Adel that Helped Beat Hitler

Published 2019 by Cook Publishing Company, Inc. 131 S. Hutchinson Ave., Adel, GA 31620 229-896-2233 www.adelnewstribune.com Robert E. Tribble, President Maria Hardman, Gen. Mgr. Deborah Farmer, Advertising Mgr. Charles Shiver, Editor ____________________ Adel News Tribune: Charles Shiver, Deborah Farmer Graphic Design: Brandi Sellars, Carmen Statham Keep up with 2019 Cook County Centennial Events on Facebook

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A tough guy...

in the community’s

early history

By Charles Shiver

A local tough guy survived the violence of beasts and his fellow man in our community’s early history.

Now let’s return to those forgotten days when monsters prowled the unending forest scape that was South Georgia, and the ground was red and muddy from the blood shed by throngs of our ancestors who wanted to murder one other over state’s rights …

I wonder how many people realize that the Clinch County sports teams are called the panthers in respectful, fearful memory of the big cats that once filled the night airs with their cries and preyed upon livestock and even people at times if you believe the legends.

Back in the old days, folks called cougars or panthers in South Georgia “tigers.” On Jan. 22, 2018, the Eastern cougar subspecies was officially declared extinct in the U.S. and removed from the endangered species list by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Still, a wildlife expert says the panthers that still roam here are the Western and Florida subspecies.

It’s only that bloodline, if you will, that’s gone. I have heard there is a lake in Berrien County called Tiger Bay, near Alapaha, due to the many sightings there over the years, but don’t know if that is true.

6 | Cook County

Centennial

James Harris circa 1880s.

According to a family story shared by reader Lloyd Harris on the Ray City History Blog (an excellent resource for history buffs), a “tiger” encounter occurred in 1849 near Argyle, Ga., about 35 miles east of Ray City: “When I was young, my grandfather related a long ago memory of his grandfather’s encounter with a panther or panthers in the south Georgia wilderness.

Our family story coincides with the Berrien Tiger accounts as they happened at approximately the same time. My great-great-grandfather, James Harris, told this story of his own childhood to my granddad when he was young.

“The incident happened when James Harris was about 5 years old, and coincides with the 1849 date of the Berrien Tiger. …

“There is a family tale handed down through many generations relating to frontier life.

The event happened in 1849 during the time the Harris family was residing in Clinch County.

George Harris was away, leaving his wife Julia and the children home alone in a pioneer homestead. Speculation would be that he was away with his father building bridges or hunting.

“During one night, panthers roaming from the nearby Okefenokee Swamp menaced the home, ranging closer and closer to the cabin. To keep the predators from entering the home, the frantic family prayed through the night and burned their beds and chairs, keeping a large fire going. The tactic flushed the space with light and served to repel an attack by the curious cats.

“The Harris family story of a young pioneer family praying, hanging blankets over windows, and burning the bed, tables and chairs was passed down, serving to entertain several generations with a true historical drama of frontier Georgia living in the 19th century.”

During the Civil War, George Harris and his son James both served in the War Between the States. “[James Harris] participated in the Battle of Olustee, Florida, and in the battles around Atlanta,” Lloyd Harris related to Ray City History Blog. “Family tradition relates he contracted measles during the siege of Atlanta and was in the city when it fell to the Union armies under General William T. Sherman. His unit apparently left him outside of the city but in the line of the advancing enemy soldiers.

“James was convalescing on a farm (place unknown) when ‘Yankees’ were seen approaching. He

was hidden by the host family in the stump of a huge oak tree that had ‘bushed’ up. James remained concealed in the oak bush throughout the hot summer day until the Yankees left. Though suffering from sickness, and within a stone’s throw of the Union soldiers, he remained quiet and motionless, evading capture! Records also indicate he participated in battle at John’s Island, South Carolina. He surrendered at Thomasville, Georgia and was paroled at Tallahassee,

“During one night, panthers roaming from the nearby Okefenokee Swamp menaced the home, ranging closer and closer to the cabin.”

Florida, on May 15, 1865.”

“What does all that have to do with this community?” you may ask. Well, after the War of Northern Aggression, James Harris married Mary Alice Stone; they raised a family and engaged in farming near Adel, in present Cook County. Harris was a skilled blacksmith and wheelwright.

Harris had other close calls. A hailstorm hit his plantation three miles northeast of Cecil on June 12, 1897, according to an article in The Tifton Gazette.

“A terrific wind” destroyed a large amount of Harris’ fencing and part of his farmhouse’s roof.

Then, a fire possibly set by an arsonist gutted his gin near Cecil in November 1897. The cost of damage exceeded $1,000, a big sum in those days.

In 1919, Harris ended up selling his homeplace in the Cecil district to General Taylor for $15,000.

According to the Ray City History Blog, James Harris passed away on Dec. 12, 1928, in Adel. His wife Alice passed away only a couple of months earlier in Adel.

Mr. and Mrs. Harris are buried at Fellowship Baptist Church Cemetery near Cecil.

Remembering a person’s legacy in his or her hometown and with his family is one of the most important articles that a journalist can ever write. I can only hope to be half as strong and resilient as James Harris, a long ago resident of the community that was as different back then from ours as an alien world.

Cook County Centennial | 7

Remembering the Fellowship Children

By Charles Shiver the house but died during the night. Willie’s younger brother was also shot but he How did the Valdosta newspaper become a daily publication? The answer is lit- survived. erally buried in the earth of Cook County. It’s just one of those shadowy historical On the day of the shooting, Rawlins made a point of riding a train to Valdosta facts which so many people have forgotten. and going everywhere in town so people could see him and give him a good alibi, One who hadn’t was the late Albert Pendleton, archivist/historian of the Lown- according to Pendleton. des County Historical Society and Museum. Back in the late 1990s, he helped me It didn’t work. research the mysteries of the Rawlins-Carter murder case.

Rawlins was tried for the murders, found guilty, and hanged in Valdosta. He is In June 1905, the Carter children - Willie, 15, and Carrie, 13 - were shot and buried near Jacksonville, Fla. killed just before dusk outside their home near the Clubhouse District in the north Alf Moore, a black man who worked for Rawlins, was also hanged for the murpart of Lowndes County. The children are burders in Valdosta. Pendleton said he isn’t sure ied in the same grave in Fellowship Baptist where Moore is buried.

Church Cemetery near Cecil.

Based upon his research, Pendleton said, The killings resulted from a violent feud “(Moore) didn’t shoot anybody. I don’t believe between their father W.L. Carter and his neighhe shot a soul.” bor, J.G. (Joe) Rawlins. In fact, a headline of the Moore apparently was with Rawlins’ sons time in The Atlanta Constitution read, “Old Feud at the Carters’ house during the shootings Ends Children’s Lives.” although he didn’t join in the gunfire. In fact, The public’s appetite for information about according to Pendleton, when Carter began the murder trial was insatiable. “The people shooting back at the assassins, Moore became in this area wanted news daily of the trial,” frightened and ran away.

Pendleton said, adding that the Valdosta Times Pendleton described the trial as “a mess … changed from a weekly to a daily with coverage they would say anything in the courtroom.” about the case.

According to Pendleton, “Rawlins kept tryW.L. Carter and Rawlins became mortal ening to get Alf to ‘confess.’ But he said he didn’t emies while living near one another in Coffee have anything to confess. (At last) Alf told a reCounty. One moved to Lowndes County. The porter who went to the jail that he was willing other moved to Jacksonville, Fla., and then to go and be hanged.” moved to Lowndes, where he found himself W.L. Carter wasn’t a purely innocent victim. again a neighbor of his foe. What makes the “He was a very unlikeable person,” Pendleton hatred between them even sadder is that they said. “(After the trial) he was advised to leave were both Baptist ministers.

Lowndes County and never come back.”

Pendleton said his research shows that Albert Pendleton’s research showed that Alf Rawlins attempted to assassinate W.L. Carter Moore’s hanging might have been a historical prior to the attack on the children. “Rawlings miscarriage of justice. We probably will never shot Carter in the leg or foot while he was ridknow for certain whether or not he actually ing in a wagon and left him for dead,” Pendleshot at the children buried near Cecil. Like we ton said. “But Carter survived.” probably will never know the true identity of Rawlins had three sons he controlled.

Jack the Ripper, who really shot President John Pendleton said one or two of them shot the F. Kennedy, and what happened to the five children while the rest of the family was inside fighter-bombers that disappeared off the coast the Carter home. The children apparently had of Florida in 1945 as well as the search plane gone outside to doctor a sick calf. The girl was sent to look for them, creating the legend of The double grave of Willie Carter, 15, and his sister killed outright, while the boy made it back to the Bermuda Triangle.

Carrie, 13, in Fellowship Church Cemetery.

8 | Cook County Centennial

A mystic solves a

murder

By Charles Shiver

Seeress Stella Wright (shown in photo)

Do you believe God may bless certain people with special abilities that others do not have?

Folks who accept the old traditions of South Georgia say, “Yes.” Case in point - Molly Reddick Hall and her younger sister Stella Wright.

According to the Ray City History Blog, Ms. Hall was a famous psychic who lived in Ray City in the early 1900s. She raised Stella after their mother passed away.

“In early 1920, Molly Hall gained attention for her role in solving the murder of Mrs. Susan Hinson Moon near Adel,” the blog states.

“She gave a reading which broke the case and led to a confession.

“When Susan Moon disappeared from her LaConte, Ga. home [a community in Cook County] in the first few days of January 1920, her nephew Jim Johnson sought the help of the Ray City seeress in locating her whereabouts. After consulting the cards, Molly Hall told Johnson where to look for Susan Moon.

According to the Jan. 15, 1920, issue of the Bainbridge Post-Searchlight, Mollie Hall, “an aged … fortuneteller … shuffled the cards and told him where the body would be found.”

The police made Johnson another suspect after he brought them the news.

The authorities arrested Jim Johnson, his cousin Lacy Spires, Sam T. Cooper, and Melton Moon [Hinson], the son of Susan Moon, for the

murder.

According to the Jan. 6, 1920, issue of the Thomasville Times-Enterprise, the corpse was found hidden in a swamp near Sparks. Mrs. Moon had been “stabbed above the heart.”

A few days later, “Melt Moon,” described by the newspapers of the time as a mentally unstable young man, confessed to getting into a quarrel with his mother over $10 that he wanted so he could go to town, striking her in the pit of the stomach, and knocking her unconscious.

Thinking that he had killed her, he began dragging her towards the nearby woods to hide her. She began to regain consciousness, and he then hit her several times on the head with a lightwood knot. After reaching the woods, he stabbed her several times in the heart with his knife.

Moon’s confession to be the lone killer resulted in poor Jim Johnson, who had just been trying to help, and the other suspects being released from the Valdosta Jail.

The murder case was heard in Cook County Superior Court before Judge Dickerson on March 12, 1921. Moon tried an insanity defense, but the judge overruled the defense’s motion. The jury convicted him of murder and recommended a life sentence in prison.

His motion for a new trial also was overruled.

Moon appealed the case to the Georgia Supreme Court, but the Justices affirmed the guilty verdict.

Moon was finally sent to the Georgia State Prison in Baldwin County, where he was held until being released circa 1940. He then moved to Florida.

I recall that the late Dillard Ensley, one of

Cook County’s greatest historians, was urging me to write about the Moon case. I would like to learn more specifics about the interaction between Jim Johnson and Ms. Molly over the cards, her process of tapping into the hidden energies of the cosmos, but I realize certain secrets are kept buried deep forever, especially the ancient mysteries.

The Ray City History Blog also relates that Stella Wright, Ms. Molly’s sister, was known around the area in the 1930s as a seeress and a healer. She lived in a place on Cat Creek called “Rock Bottom.”

The Ray City History Blog relates that a family one Sunday afternoon in the late 1930s visited Ms. Wright in hopes of getting help for a sick woman.

Ms. Wright’s neighbors, the Guthries, showed the family in need where to find Ms. Wright.

According to the blog, “at the far end of the dirt road, they took a little trail down to Cat’s Creek to a cabin where Stella was found.

“They all entered the cabin, which was devoid of furniture except for a single chair in the center of the room. Stella sat the sick woman in the chair and began massaging her shoulders and back. Shortly, the woman emitted a series of enormously loud belches and that was how Stella ‘healed’ her.”

One of the best rules of healing is that there is always more room on the outside than on the inside. …

Ricky Gandy remarked about his daddy going to Ms. Wright for help in finding a wallet that he had lost in a field. Gandy’s father also remembered the Sue Moon incident. She was killed on some land that the Gandy family used to own. Her body was found around near where the Micro Flo (BASF) plant is located now, under a pile of leaves.

Cook County Centennial | 9

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10 | Cook County Centennial

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Cook County Centennial | 11

World War I soldier’s

letter reaches grandson a century later

A letter written in 1918 by a World War I soldier from Lenox has now been delivered to his grandson 100 years later.

Charles Angus Wetherington, then a 25-year-old infantryman, wrote the letter while he was recovering from a horrible leg injury in a Belfast, Ireland, hospital bed. He mailed the note to his father W.C. (William Calvin) Wetherington, back home in Lenox.

Charles suffered the injury when he escaped the sinking of HMS Otranto during the early morning hours of Oct. 6, 1918, in stormy seas with 40- to 60-foot waves off the coast of Ireland. He jumped from the Otranto’s deck and landed on the deck of the rescue ship. About a half hour after the HMS Kashmir’s collision with the Otranto, the British destroyer Mounsey appeared after searching for the convoy during the night. Despite an order to stand clear, Mounsey's captain, Lieutenant Francis Craven, positioned his ship on Otranto's lee side to allow the men aboard the liner to jump aboard.

Several times the two ships struck and the destroyer's hull was holed, her bridge smashed, two of three boiler rooms flooded, and many hull frames were broken by the force of the impacts. Nonetheless, Craven kept his small ship close and was able to rescue 300 American troops, 266 officers and crewmen from Otranto, one YMCA morale officer and 30 French fishermen, although many more men had been washed from the decks or crushed between the two ships. The landing broke one of Charles’s legs and

12 | Cook County Centennial

crushed an ankle.

Charles would still consider himself blessed. Over half of the men on board, a total of 470 passengers, mainly American soldiers, were killed. Berrien County, which at that time included Adel, Alapaha, Cecil, Enigma, Lenox, Milltown (now Lakeland), Nashville, Ray City and Sparks, lost 25 young men from every town. Only three Berrien County soldiers survived.

By the morning following the collision, the liner had been completely demolished by the heavy seas and the Isle of Islay’s coastline was strewn with wreckage and hundreds of bodies in piles up to 15 feet deep.

A total of 316 Americans were found and buried on Islay and the nearby island of Muck.

Apparently, to keep from upsetting his father and mother Elizabeth Valentine Wetherington, Charles wrote to his dad, “Dear father, I will drop you a few lines. I am in the hospital now. I think I’ll soon be alright, hope so anyway.

“There isn’t anything the matter with me, but a real bad cold.”

The envelope was postmarked “Belfast, October 15, 1918.”

Charles came back home to resume farming with his father on Albert Brady Road in Lenox and to marry Addie Bell Rentz. “(Grandfather) never was on disability,” Larry Wetherington said. “He continued to work and farm the rest of his life.”

The farm remains in the family after all those years, Larry said. Charles, who passed away in 1963, is buried in Lenox City Cemetery.

Flash forward to the 1980s - Julian

By Charles Shiver

Charles Angus Wetherington, World War I infantryman

Robert Vickers was driving a compactor at the Cook County Landfill when he spotted a box filled with old newspapers including the Adel News lying among the trash. Vickers, a history

lover, looked into the box and found the letter inside as well. Vickers said he didn’t know who had thrown out the box, but they must not have known about the letter’s historical importance.

Vickers kept the letter in his cedar chest for years until he recently asked his son Darryl, a genealogy enthusiast who lives in Glennville, Ga., to try to trace the WW I veteran’s family.

Darryl researched the Wetherington family tree and found Charles’ grandson Larry Wetherington on Facebook.

Darryl sent Larry a note on Facebook Messenger to ask if he wanted the letter. Larry, who resides in Crawfordville, Fla., says he was “very surprised, but excited” about the find.

Darryl then mailed the original letter to Larry. He and his wife opened the letter carefully because it and its envelope were so fragile.

Larry recalls that his grandfather had a lifetime injury left from his Otranto escape; he continued to walk with a slight limp.

A strange coincidence, based upon the random way that the 1918 letter was found at

the landfill decades ago, is that Larry and Darryl may be related.

Darryl’s great-grandmother on his mother’s side is a Wetherington, and the Wetheringtons in his mother’s family are from the same area as Larry’s family. Another strange coincidence is that Darryl, a retired Sgt. First Class in the U.S. Army, served in Iraq and had to recover from a crushed tibia bone of his own.

The U.S. Postal Service has publicized the Charles Wetherington story to bring attention to the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, which was the subject of a new stamp from USPS. Larry Wetherington expressed appreciation to the Vickers family for getting his grandfather’s letter to him.

“We’re hoping this can be a family treasure that will be handed down from generation to generation,” Larry said.

Larry Wetherington of Crawfordville, Fla., reads the letter that his grandfather Charles Angus Wetherington, survivor of the Otranto sinking on Oct. 6, 1918, wrote to Charles’ father W.C. (William Calvin) Wetherington in Lenox 100 years ago.

HMS Otranto

Cook County Centennial | 13

The men on front are Berrien County (Cook County) servicemen preparing to leave for World War I. Twenty-eight (28) of them were on the Otranto; only three survived. Last time family members (in background) saw them alive. - Lynn Bennett

Heavy Casualties Aboard the Otranto

This story was originally published by the Adel News Tribune, p 8A, Wed, 27 Jan 1999. It was written by Linda Ward Meadows and was republished in remembrance of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Troop ship Otranto, on 6 Oct 1918, near the end of World War I. After the War Between the States, Reconstruction came to the South, lasting until Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President in 1876. The subsequent years of the Nineteenth Century yielded massive changes in South Georgia. The railroad came through Adel and Sparks in 1888. No longer was Valdosta to Savannah the only rail route out of South Georgia.

There was much jubilation as this new transportation wonder came through our section of Berrien County. As citizens said, “Goodbye” to the 19th Century, they would soon be needing this modern transport system to move combat troops. The trials of war again placed heavy burdens on this community.

The history of any people can be defined by their reactions to the adversities encountered during war. War came to our united country as we joined our democratic European allies in the fight against the dreaded Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.

Berrien County’s young men were called upon to

14 | Cook County Centennial

fight in a united effort against this foreign enemy. The United States did not enter on the side of the Allies until 1917. To the tunes of Keep the Home Fires Burning, Over There, and You’re In the Army Now, our soldiers prepared for the conflict, while draft inductees and enlistees boarded trains all over the US. According to Miss Minnie Shaw, both the Army and Navy benefited from these new recruits, but local casualties were very heavy. One of Berrien County’s worst tragedies of the war came when troop ship, Otranto, sank near the coast of Scotland on 6 Oct 1918. It was loaded with young recruits from Georgia.

Otranto collided with another transport ship called the Kashmir. Aboard Otranto were men from Berrien County, which at the time included what is now Cook and Lanier Counties. The devastating casualty list on Otranto reflected the highest per capita losses of any county in the United States.

In her historical writings of the early 1930s, Miss Minnie Shaw told of the survivors of this naval catastrophe. Among them were: Early Stewart, Grady Knight, Aug Wetherington, James W. DeLoach, and Henry E. Delaney.

The local casualties list was much longer: Hiram M.

Bennett, Jim Boyett, John Guy Coppage, Rufus Davis, Mack Easters, G. Bruce Faircloth, Lafayette Gaskins, Bennie E. Griner. Arthur Harper, Robert J. Hancock, Lester A. Hancock, Thomas H. Holland, William P. Hayes, George H. Hutto, Ralph Knight, John F. Moore, James M. McMillan, William McMillan, Benjamin F. McCranie, Charlie S. Railey, William W. Robinson, Thomas J. Sirmans, Shellie. L. Webb, Joel Wheeler, and William Zeigler (Shaw, Vol 1, p. 131). Sadly, many casualties were from the same families. But, the true irony of this circumstance is that the end of the war was only about a month away, with the armistice signed at 11 AM, on 11 Nov 1918.

While the newly-formed Cook County had not officially started, citizens struggled to deal with this heavy loss of lives. The Great War ended and survivors returned home to reflect on their own individual feelings about having fought in the war intended to “end all wars.” Their sacrifices were many, but they were welcomed by a grateful community which applauded their efforts.

Sources consulted: The Berrien County Pioneer; History of Cook County, Georgia by Miss Minnie Shaw.

(Current superior sources to consult include the Ray City, GA History Blog, online).

Remembering a great local agribusinessman…

J.T. “Buck” Daughtrey J.T.

“Buck” Daughtrey owned Lindsey and Daughtrey Plant Company that was started in 1948.

In the late 1950s, he was farming 2,800 acres from Madison, Fla., to Lenox, Georgia.

The crops included 400 acres of tomato plants. He would sell 55 million tomato transplants to major canning companies in the North. He grew 600 acres of sweet potatoes and 300 acres of turnip, mustard and collards that were also sold to canning companies. He grew 180 acres of tobacco that was grown in three counties and would have over 100 barns cooking at one time.

Mr. Daughtrey grew 240 acres of staked tomatoes, which were some of the first grown commercially in our area. He also grew 200 acres of cabbage and 600

acres of sweet corn.

Mr. Daughtrey was the first or second person in the state of Georgia growing sweet corn.

He built the first hog slab with everything being automated from the feeders and watering tanks and a self-contained feed mill that would feed out 1,200 at a time.

Mr. Daughtrey farmed in Cuba in 1957 until Castro took over, and then he went to Haiti and later tried the Bahamas until 1964.

During harvest season, he would work 250 people in the fields and 100 at the packing house at one time, and he owned 5,000 acres of land.

Despite his large farming operations, Mr. Daughtrey still took the time to get involved with anything that involved youth. He came from pioneer families in Cook County and felt it was his civic responsibility to get involved in community affairs.

He was an ardent supporter of Cook High football, working closely within the Touchdown Club to ensure needs were met.

When it became apparent that Cook County needed a new high school to accommodate the growing number of students and replace dilapidating structures, including the gymnasium, he spearheaded a drive to pass a school bond issue to take care of the needs.

“We can’t keep putting Band-Aids over the structural problems,” he said. “It is cheaper to build now than it will be a few years hence.”

His prognostication became truth.

When Flicker Wilkes reached out for help in building a golf course, Mr. Daughtrey donated the equipment and labor to construct the initial nine-hole golf course at Circlestone Country Club.

In 2017, Cook County Probate Judge Chase Daughtrey accepted the Cook County Sports Hall of Fame Legacy Pacesetter Award on behalf of his grandfather J.T. “Buck” Daughtrey. The annual Sports Hall of Fame event is a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of the Greater Cook County Area.

Cook County Centennial | 15

‘WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!’

Group photo of 1949 state football champs from Cook High School.

This photo from the Sept.

1, 1999, issue of the Adel News Tribune shows members of the Cook High School Hornets football teams of 1947 and ’48 (Sparks-Adel High School) as well as the state championship team of ’49. They are shown at their 50th anniversary reunion at King Frog Restaurant in Adel with Charlotte (Cap) McCrary, widow of the champs’ head coach, “Knuck” McCrary.

This was Coach McCrary’s first coaching job!

the 10 regular season games, the Hornets scored 414 points and allowed

By Charles Shiver “Isn’t it great to be a Hornet and in Adel and Cook County tonight?” only 12.

During the reunion dinner, the state champs looked over photos William Emrich, a member of the Cook High School state champion football team of 1949, asked at the team’s 50th reunion dinner held at King and memorabilia displayed from that time, recognized their teachers and 1949 fans who could attend, and reminisced about the nearly miliFrog Restaurant in August 1999.

After crushing Newnan 19-7 in the “Class B” state title match-up (held tary-style coaching discipline - combined with caring - that made them in Albany), the Hornets went on to such pursuits as bank executive, min- so successful.

The champion Hornets included: Allen “Head” Parrish, End; Leroy ister, soldier, insurance salesman, and even a Superior Court judge and candidate for Governor of Georgia. The latter was Greeley Ellis, a Cov- Gray, Tackle; Harry Vanbrackle, Guard; Bobby Daughtrey, Center; Pat Milikin, Guard; Jimmy ington attorney. He escorted George, Tackle; Larry Mary Broadhurst, his and many “… Though much is taken, much abides; and though “Mitch” Flowers, End; of his teammates’ teacher back Billy Burt (Co-Captain), in 1949, to the 1999 anniversaWe are not now that strength which in old days Charles Maloney ry banquet. Some on the team Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; Back; (Co-Captain), Back; V.L. continued to reside in Cook One equal temper of heroic hearts, Daughtrey, Back; Faye County, but some ended up Carroll Hayes, Back; Jim moving to such distant places Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will as Connecticut and California.

Tom Lastinger, Back; To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Charles Cox, Back; Bobby The ’49 Hornets never for- “Ulysses,” Tennyson Allen, Back; Doug Carmigot their home community and chael, Fullback; Charles the coaches who helped put them on their life paths, “Knuck” McCrary, E.P. Burt, and Kemp Greene, “Brother” Shaw, Back; Billy Dean, Back; Gene Maddox, Guard; Calvin “Bruiser” Butler, Guard; Winston Sumner, Guard; Homer Nelson, Guard; the latter who joined the team’s effort as an unpaid volunteer.

The 1949 team finished the season with a 10-0 record. They defeat- Willard Butler, Tackle; Brinson “Smiles” Taylor, Tackle; Billy Ray NeSmith, ed Jesup in Valdosta, 26-13, for the South Georgia Championship. They Tackle; Dale Clark, Back; Billy J. Hancock, Tackle; and Billy Emrich, Team finally defeated Newnan 19-7 in Albany for the State Championship. In Statistician and Reporter.

70th Anniversary of State Football Championship in 2019!

16 | Cook County Centennial

1949 Football The men took time out from the 50th anni anniversary celebration for a moment of silence in honor of their teammates who had passed away.

The ’49 Hornets also paid tribute to their coaches and were proud to host the widow of Coach McCrary, Charlotte (better known as “Cap”) McCrary of Moultrie, at the reunion.

“I became very attached to all of the boys on the football teams,” Mrs. McCrary told the gathering of Hornets. “It was great fun. I loved every bit of it. I loved Adel and all of you.”

Local historian Dillard Ensley (now deceased) remarked about McCrary in a prior issue of the Adel News: “A tremendous player! A tremendous coach! A tremendous man!”

McCrary coached Sparks-Adel High School in 1948; that first year, the Hornets were 8-2.

The next year, the school changed names to Cook High School, and the team was 10-0, winning the state championship. He coached one more year at CHS, posting a record of 9-1.

McCrary went on to coach the Moultrie Packers after leaving Adel. His overall coaching record was 111-55-7, or 66 percent wins. He died after suffering a heart attack during a 1964 game in Colquitt County. He was only 41 years old. Coach McCrary was followed as Packer coach by his assistant, Virgil “Bud” Willis.

According to the local high school newspaper from ’49, “The Sparkler,” it was Billy Burt’s passing and Charles Maloney’s running that brought the biggest offensive gains of the championship night. (By the way, Cook High beat the dreaded Valdosta in a preseason game that year.)

Burt, son of Coach Burt, was quarterback for the Hornets. He went on to play football at the University of Georgia; served in the Air Force for three years, flying planes for the Strategic Air Command; and retired from NationsBank in 1994 as an executive vice president, after 37 years of work. He and his wife resided in Dawsonville.

Charles Maloney, who turned in a 82-yard run for the final Cook High touchdown of the championship game, went on to play football

at Clemson University. He planned to retire as a State Farm Insurance agent and resided in Greenwood, S.C. “We came from nothing and went to the top,” Maloney told the Adel News in 1999. “We had good parents and good fans, and the support of everybody. Because of this team, I got an education, and Billy got an education. … We were the team that just did it together.”

Burt recalled that Cook lost the first game of the 1947 season 64-0. “I saw that game flat on my back,” he said. The Hornets, reformed after sports activities ceased during World War II, won only one game in 1947. In 1948, they only lost two games, and they won every game the next year.

In a 2011 issue of the Adel News, Leroy Gray described the championship game versus Newnan. The Cook line averaged 150 pounds, and the Newnan line averaged 190 pounds. The Hornets still won by 13 points.

Allen “Head” Parrish, who played left end, was one of the ’49 Hornets who stayed in the community. He earned the nickname “Head” because he was a head taller than anybody else at the high school, and many people thought Head was actually his real first name because that was how it appeared in the football program books.

Parrish was a three-sport athlete, football, basketball, and baseball, at Cook High School.

After graduation, he lettered in baseball and basketball at the University of Georgia. Returning home, he served as mayor of the City of Adel and as a Cook County Commissioner (including County Commission Chairman). He served for years as president of Adel Banking Company.

“We didn’t just win the championship,” Parrish told the Adel News in 1999. “We only had 12 points scored against us the whole season.”

He noted that he was especially pleased to see one of his teammates there who had never before been to a class reunion or football team reunion, but perhaps recognized the significance of the 50th anniversary.

Parrish remarked following the Hornet foot-

ball alumni reunion in 2011: “What I remember most is that Coach McCrary had us run 100 yard dashes after our practices.

No matter if you came in first or last, he was not satisfied. If you came in first, he thought you were loafing during practice, and if last, you weren’t trying hard enough.”

The late Dillard Ensley remarked about Parrish in a prior Adel News issue: “He has supported youth programs, high school programs, and worthy charities, never seeking to be seen of men. He has been and is still a great role model.”

The Hornets earned their share of scars while pushing forward to their greatest season. V.L. Daughtrey broke an arm during the final game.

Faye Carol Hayes earned the nickname “Lightnin’” not because of his speed, but because he narrowly survived a bolt from a thunderstorm at football camp during the summer of ’49 in Twin Lakes.

On a certain day, lightning came up. A stroke hit Hayes and left him lying on the ground.

Teammate Leroy Gray put Hayes on his shoulders and took off for help. They say that the motion of carrying the player on his shoulders resuscitated him and he recovered. Hayes spent one night in the hospital, and only missed one practice.

“We were crazy, but we were like brothers,” said Eugene Maddox, who owned a car lot in Adel. He recalled the contributions of W.E. “Bull” Summerlin to the team’s success. Summerlin, high school principal at the time, would scout out the opposing teams to see what the Hornets would be up against.

The hardest training for the Hornets was called “skull practice” because the players would knock their skulls together while blocking and tackling each other, Maddox said.

The Hornet champs remembered Coach McCrary correcting them by tapping them on the heads with biggest college ring that they had ever seen, as well as a 100-vehicle motorcade going to the Albany field for the showdown with Newnan and a deserted town of Adel on the night of the championship game.

On Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, the state champion Hornets, Coach McCrary, and Allen Parrish were inducted into the Cook County Sports Hall of Fame at the first annual banquet.

The ’49 Hornets should be an example for the 2019 Hornets as they get a new head coach soon. Also, the champion Hornets’ highly supportive fans should be example for Cook fans this fall seven decades later.

As the old saying goes, “What has been may come again.”

Cook County Centennial | 17

18 | Cook County Centennial

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Cook County Centennial | 19

R

eligion in most cases is a great balm for the soul in a world that may seem cruel, dark, and irrational at times. Still, people may take faith to terrible extremes that only result in bringing more pain and grief into the world.

Snake-handling is one of the more bizarre mutations of Southern churchgoing and one of the frightening local legends I would like to learn more about.

Some say the practice continues to thrive in certain rural areas. Followers of the movement believe literally in Mark 16: 17 - 18: “And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

Not long ago, an area man died after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a backwoods church service. He refused modern medical treatment because he believed he would be saved miraculously. I can only recall what Jesus was quoted as saying in Luke 4:12: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” In case anyone doubts the deadliness of our native venomous snakes, especially in the old days when treatment was much harder to reach, consider this article from a May 1928 issue of The Adel News: “Mrs. Frank Galligar Victim of Ugly Reptile Saturday.

“Nashville, Ga., May 28.—Mrs. Frank Galligar died this morning after being bitten yesterday by a huge rattlesnake which measured five and one-half feet in length, and had sixteen rattles.

“Mrs. Galligar, who lives a few miles from Nashville, was out near her home cutting poles with which to stick beans when the snake bit her twice.

“Rattlesnake serum was administered and physicians worked faithfully trying to save her life. The snake was killed and brought to Nashville where crowds viewed it throughout the day.”

In the early 1970s, former Berrien County Sheriff Walter Gaskins told a local newspaper about an incident in the mid-1960s when a pastor had been tried for murder after a snake bit a congregation member.

According to Gaskins, the snake-handling sect had a “wide number of followers” across the area.

“The sheriff grimly told of other instances where ‘ignorant people’ had been fatally struck while handling snakes at rituals,” according to former

The Cross and The Canebrake Leitha Ann’s Story

20 | Cook County Centennial

By Charles Shiver

James Miller’s movement spread into Berrien and Cook Counties by 1920, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Beginning in the 1940s, several Southern states including Georgia passed laws prohibiting snake handling in religious services.

Valdosta newsman E. Randall Floyd’s book Great Southern Mysteries.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia states that snake handlers in Alabama and Georgia trace their heritage to James Miller, a preacher who independently began the practice in 1912 in Sand Mountain, Alabama. The section of snake-handling churches that Miller founded is non-Trinitarian. The church members do not believe in the traditional Triune God (that is, "one God in three co-equal Persons,” the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit).

Those churches are broadly known as the Church of Lord Jesus with Signs Following. They handle rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, copperheads, and even cobras (imported from overseas) at the front of the church; speak in new tongues; handle fire (lighted torches); and/or engage in drinking poisons like strychnine, battery acid, or lye. They also believe the Holy Ghost grants them the power to heal the sick by laying on hands, perform exorcisms on demonically possessed persons, and even raise the dead.

James Miller’s movement spread into Berrien and Cook Counties by 1920, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Beginning in the 1940s, several Southern states including Georgia passed

laws prohibiting snake handling in religious services.

Did you know a horrible incident involving a little girl in Adel played a big part in the outlawing of snake handling?

A front page article that appeared in The Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper was titled, “Snake-Bitten Six-Year-Old Girl Object of South Georgia Hunt.”

According to the article, on Aug. 2, 1940, police in Adel began to investigate what they believed to be a “local snake-handling religious cult.” The police search was sparked by unconfirmed reports that a young girl named Leitha or Letha Ann Rowan had nearly died from a copperhead bite while handling the snake during a church service. The “religious cult” was identified as the Free Holiness Church, the article states.

According to Taking Up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky (2002) by David L. Kimbrough, “The final source of power for handling serpents is innocence. Some church members believe that children can handle serpents because they are young and do not commit sin willfully. I have watched children freely handle rattlesnakes without being bitten.

“However, it is very rare for children to handle snakes; most preachers will not allow children to go near the snake-handling activity.

“Children have not always escaped injury, either. The New York Times reported on Aug. 1, 1940, that a copperhead struck 5-year-old Leitha Ann Rowan of Adel, Georgia, along with six to eight other believers. The bites occurred at an outside meeting in the family’s yard. The others were not harmed by the bites, but Leitha became ill.”

Until the whereabouts of the little girl could be confirmed, police took her father Albert Rowan, described as a “mild-mannered tenant farmer,” and the group’s leader “farmer-preacher” W.T. Lipham into custody. Albert Rowan was held in jail on a misdemeanor charge, while the Rev. Lipham was booked for “malicious mischief.”

According to Taking Up Serpents, “Lipham was reported to have handled serpents for 30 years.

When the men were jailed, they fasted for divine deliverance.”

The girl’s mother, also a member of the Free Holiness Church, told authorities she sought medical attention after her daughter was bitten. However, the town sheriff did not trust her account and expressed a continued concern. The book Taking Up Serpents states: “Sheriff W.I. Daughtrey had no tolerance for the snake handlers and told reporters, ‘These people handle snakes promiscuously, and it is against their religion to accept medical treatment.’ Superior Court Judge Smith also had little patience for the believers and issued a temporary countywide injunction against such rights, pending a hearing on a permanent order.”

According to an article written at the time by Associated Press news staff man Don Whitehead, “Officers heard of the case and sought the child for medical aid … but the mother hid Letha Mae, stoutly maintaining that divine faith would make her well again.

“Judge W.R. Smith of Cook County issued a temporary injunction restraining the cult from conducting any services in which the snakes were handled, and the child’s father, Albert Rowan, a tenant farmer, and preacher W.T. Lipham were jailed until it was apparent the child would recover. …

“Rowan and Lipham paced the cells of the dusty, little Georgia jail, clutching Bibles and praying for divine deliverance. From the sunbaked courthouse square, their overalled followers shouted encouragement to them.

“The cult has no central organization and the various groups are knit together only by their belief.

The leaders receive no salaries except free-will offerings and most of them hold regular jobs, preaching on the weekends.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch article states

that after being hidden for three days, authorities located little Leitha Ann, “ ‘discolored…in a stupor and barely able to walk.’ Her relatives finally brought the child to a doctor for observation, but denied any medical treatment. The doctor reported that her condition was serious.”

According to Taking Up Serpents, “Leitha’s mother hid her for over 72 hours to prevent medical treatment, believing the Lord would heal her. Relatives then turned the child over to authorities and permitted a medical examination, because Judge Smith had ‘ruled that Lipham and Rowan would face murder charges if the child died.’

“The relatives claimed that the girl had already practically recovered. Dr. H.W. Clements disagreed, announcing that the bite was serious. “[During Dr. Clements’ examination of Leitha, she] sat upright on the physician’s examination table, but did not talk as Dr. Clements examined her.

The child’s arm was still swollen from the effects of the bite, [and] her palm and her body were discolored.”

“Further investigation uncovered that eight other individuals, including the girl’s father, were bitten as the snake was passed around during a ritual,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. “In protest to their arrest, the girl’s father and W.T. Lipham went on a hunger strike, denying their connection to the poisoning of 6-year-old Leitha Ann. While devout followers of Free Holiness yelled praises outside, Lipham and Rowan paced in their cells, holding their Bibles and praying aloud for divine deliverance. Legal action against the men depended on the outcome of Leitha’s condition - would she live or die?

“The good news - little Leitha Ann recovered. As a result, her father and Lipham were released from jail, and continued believing that faith could cure

the devoted follower of a venomous snake bite.”

Eleven days after the bite, Dr. Clements determined that Leitha was out of danger, and her father was released from jail on a $3,000 bond. Leitha was reported to have recovered fully from the bite.

The same pastor later stood trial but was not convicted for the earlier death of a worshipper during a snake-handling ritual in 1938.

In response to the incident involving the little girl, and other incidents in which people became seriously ill (even a nurse) or died from snake bites during the cult rituals roiling across Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, legislators introduced an act in the Georgia General Assembly to limit the practice.

On March 27, 1941, Gov. Eugene Talmadge signed the act making it a felony punishable by 20 years in prison for any person - including a minister - to handle or possess a venomous snake in a manner that would endanger any other person.

The death penalty could be imposed in the case of a fatality as in other forms of premeditated murder.

The act also made it illegal to advise or encourage any other person to handle a venomous snake in a manner that would endanger the life or safety of such person. The law was repealed in the 1960s.

You may now only legally handle venomous snakes in Georgia by permit.

Snake handling and other distortions of the Christian faith persist to this day in the South. In the late 1970s, a man with ties to Adel died after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a Sunday night religious ritual in Bartow County. There are many more recent cases in which such area cults have caused both deep psychological and deadly physical harm to followers.

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:20, King James Version (KJV)

Cook County Centennial | 21

World War II veteran Ira Powers remembered Narrow escapes, tank battles, Italian prison camp

Interviewed by the Adel News Tribune for the newspaper’s Wednesday, Nov. 15, 1995 issue, Ira Powers Sr., a World War II veteran and POW, is shown reminiscing with a photograph taken of his wife Ella Mae and him 51 years earlier. Mr. Powers passed away three years later, after the final interview.

22 | Cook County

Centennial

By Charles Shiver In the early 1940s, Ira Powers Sr. learned the truth of the old saying, “War is hell.”

More than 51 years later, the Adel News Tribune carried an interview of Mr. Powers in its Wednesday, Nov. 15, 1995, issue.

Of his three years overseas during the Second World War, Mr. Powers spent 19 months as a Prisoner of War and then as an escapee hiding out behind enemy lines.

He went off to war as a strapping young man who weighed 210 pounds, but when he returned home, he weighed just 129 pounds.

Interviewed by the Adel News the week before Veterans Day 1995 in his Adel home, Mr. Powers said his and other veterans’ wartime sacrifices were worth it.

Otherwise, “they (the enemy) would be over here now telling us what to do,” he said. He recalled a little European girl hiding behind his legs and shivering when she heard a German plane passing above: “I hope this never happens in America....Little girls and boys being afraid they are about to be bombed.”

Honorably discharged at the rank of Technical Sergeant, Mr. Powers had three major battle stars, a Purple Heart, and some other medals.

Mr. Powers was born on Monday, July 30, 1917, in Berrien County. The community in which he was born became a part of Cook County when it was created. He was the son of Tom Powers Sr. and his wife, the former Cora Lee Davis. His brother Tom Powers Jr. was a casualty of World War II. Mr. Powers left home when he was 15. Several years later, just before the U.S. entered World War II, he was working as a machinist at an Indiana rocket plant. He was drafted into the United States Army on Jan. 15, 1941, and went through basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He next went to a base near Cincinnati, Ohio, for special training and then returned to Fort Knox for tank combat training. He made tank commander with the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division.

Known as the “Old Ironsides” Division, the 1st Armored was the first such outfit developed by the U.S. Army. It was activated at Fort Knox on July 15, 1940, under the command of Major General Bruce R. Magruder.

Later, paired with the 2nd Armored Division, under the command of General George S. Patton, the two divisions formed the 1st Armored Corps.

When designated to participate in the invasion of North Africa, the 1st Armored Division was reassigned to the II Corps, a larger conglomerate unit which was later placed under the leadership of General Patton.

Mr. Powers went over to the war after being stationed briefly at Fort Dix, New Jersey. On May 10, 1942, he and hundreds of other young men were sent to Europe aboard the ocean liner Queen Mary. “We went right by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor,” he said. “I was feeling mighty bad. I didn’t know if I would come back.”

After reaching Glasgow, Scotland, the Americans were transported to Belfast, Ireland, where they conducted practice war maneuvers with the British and soldiers from other countries for months. At last the Americans departed from Liverpool, England, and joined a 700-ship convoy headed to North Africa.

Powers’ first war experience was at 4 one morning in the Mediterranean Sea. Anti-aircraft guns made short work of German fighter planes that attacked the convoy, but not before “a row of bullets hit the deck a foot away from me,” he said. “I got below real quick.”

Powers said his tank was the second one ashore on the North African coast. The tanks moved swiftly into enemy territory, advancing 1,000 miles and easily destroying the small tanks of the French Foreign Legion [fighting with the Axis Powers under direction of the pro-German Vichy-French government]. The 1st Armored Division was the first American Armored Division to ever enter combat. This engagement at Onan was an integral part of a larger offensive known as “Operation Torch.”

But then the Americans suffered a terrible defeat when they faced the German tanks at a pass near Tunis. In the sporadic tank engagements which preceded the full German assault on the pass on Jan. 30, 1943, Mr. Powers participated in fierce tank skirmishes.

Mr. Powers later said, “We had obsolete World War I equipment, but we fought them the best we could. I knocked out one or two of their tanks by hitting them in the side [with shells from his tank’s big gun]. One of their shells hit my tank. It passed through, cut the radio operator in half, and hit the engine. The driver got his eyes burned out.”

Mr. Powers escaped from the tank’s burning wreckage and “I saw death all around me” among the Americans’ decimated force. Mr. Powers and the few survivors were captured by the Germans, and a German captain brandished a Luger pistol and briefly questioned Mr. Powers.

The Germans marched the American POWs to Tunis, where the prisoners were held in some

mule stables. Some days later, a freighter plane took the POWs on a flight across the stormy Mediterranean, and the Americans were turned over to the Italians.

On Thursday, Jan. 28, 1943, a front page story in The Adel News reported that Mr. Powers was a prisoner of war. It stated:

Ira Powers Is Italian Prisoner Son of Mrs. Tom Powers Was Reported Missing In Action ________________________

Rev. H.S. Brooks received a letter a few days ago, from Mrs. Tom Powers, who is with her daughter in Virginia, which stated that her son, Tech. Sgt. Ira Powers, was an Italian prisoner. It had been stated that he was missing in action and of course the family has been anxious to hear if he had been wounded or killed or had been taken prisoner. Advices [sic] from the war department state that he is a prisoner. Many friends here will hope that the young man will get along all right. It was a great relief to Mr. Powers and family and all who know him that he was alive and well. It is altogether probable that Ira was in some heavy battles.

For 38 days, the POWs stayed in flimsy tents, with snow on the ground. The rations were very poor, next to nothing. Mr. Powers was given one very small loaf of bread a day and a ration of soup which was more or less pot water. Prisoners raided the garbage cans to salvage the cabbage leaves which were thrown away. One by one, the men got sick. Many suffered with the lingering effects of dysentery. In a concerted effort to combat the debilitating disease, the men would intentionally burn their little morsels of bread and eat the resulting charcoal.

Mr. Powers and the others were next shipped by train in boxcars to POW Camp 59 near the Bremer Pass in Italy. The men were held there nine months.

At last the Italians surrendered, and the Germans occupied that portion of Italy. Mr. Powers recalled, “With the Italians leaving, most of the 1,200 POWs rushed Camp 59’s front gates one night.” Mr. Powers and a few others went out a gate in the back. Mr. Powers said he heard machine-gun fire as he fled, and he believed that hundreds of POWs who went through the front gate were slaughtered by the Germans.

Forced to hide in ditches and suffering from the freezing weather, Mr. Powers was captured for the second time. He again escaped, only to be taken prisoner a third time. Aboard a boxcar, moving slowly but steadily north toward Germany, he saw a window at the top of the boxcar, stood on another prisoner’s shoulders, and broke out of the train through the window. He hurt his right knee when he fell from the train. He had

escaped for a fourth and final time from forced captivity.

Mr. Powers sought refuge with a band of guerrilla fighters. The partisan fighters were composed of 21 men. The men came from Yugoslavia, Great Britain, and Italy. Now, Mr. Powers, the lone American in the group, fought with them at night, ambushing German truck convoys that were carrying munitions on the mountain passes.

Mr. Powers recalled the trucks being shot up by the guerrillas, driving off the mountain sides, and rocks flying up as the trucks’ cargoes exploded far below.

But the Germans eventually caught up with the brave band of men and surrounded them. “My Momma didn’t raise a hero,” Mr. Powers said. “I knew when to run.” He found a ditch and covered himself with weeds and leaves. He heard the enemy soldiers walking by 20 feet away from his hideout and the firefight when they killed all but five members of the band.

Mr. Powers hid out in mountain caves and ate whatever he could find. He boiled grass, and he shot and killed a small wolf and roasted its hind legs.

Finally, Mr. Powers and another escapee “borrowed” a small boat from an Italian and made it down a river into Allied territory.

“We were happy,” Mr. Powers said. “I cried like a whipped baby. … I knew I wasn’t being hunted any more like a rabbit.” On the evening of Wednesday, June 21, 1944, Mr. Powers reached a British infantry division, which provided him medical treatment.

An American plane took Mr. Powers and other soldiers to Boston, Massachusetts. “I kneeled down and kissed the ground. I cried like a whipped baby again.”

Mr. Powers would not see further overseas duty. Instead, he returned to Fort Knox to assist in training officers for the operation and maintenance of American Army tanks. Mr. Powers met his future wife Ella Mae later in Tifton, Ga. Mr. Powers and his family moved to Adel in 1953 to open a Tri-County Gas plant here. When he retired in 1982, the local Tri-County branch line had built up 2,700 customers here and made over $1 million a year in gross sales.

Mr. and Mrs. Powers have two sons, Ira Powers Jr. and Roger Paul Powers; two daughters, Janice Powers and Shirley Buice; and several more descendants.

Mr. Powers passed away at the age of 80 on Saturday, July 25, 1998, at the Memorial Hospital of Adel. His body was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery Annex in Adel.

EDITOR’S NOTE - In addition to The Adel News, a major source of information for this article was Great Was Their Valor: Profiles of Sacrifice, researched and written by local historian Dillard D. Ensley.

Cook County

Centennial

| 23

The Adel News has covered

the outbreak of war and the brave military service of local veterans since the newspaper’s founding in fall 1889. Shown here are front pages from the start of World War I (reproduction), World War II, and the War on Terror.

129years of

support

for the

&

U.S. Military counting...

Cook County's Namesake

By Linda W. Meadows Cook County's formation in 1918 honored a deserving public servant. County officers were elected, to take office in January 1919. The man for whom Cook County was named had a rich heritage of military and political service behind his name.

Yet, for many local citizens, they don't even know his name. Some remember the distant years ago when his portrait hung in the Cook County courtroom. One looking for the likeness of General Philip Cook can now find him framed in a display all his own within the Cook County Historical Society Museum on Fourth Street (Old Adel Post Office building).

Brigadier General Philip Cook was born in Twiggs County, GA on July 31, 1817. His parents were Major Philip Cook and Anne Wooten Cook. The younger Philip grew up in the days following the War of 1812, in which his father had distinguished himself as an officer at Old Fort Hawkins, near Macon, from 18121813. Within his parents' household, Philip lived in an environment emphasizing scholarship, patriotism, and Christianity.

Philip learned these lessons well, completing law school at the University of VA by the age of twenty. He returned to practice law in Forsyth and later moved to Macon County, GA. At the onset of the War Between the States, Philip called Oglethorpe his home. It was while living there that he was mustered into the 4th Regiment GA Volunteers, organized by General Joseph E. Brown on Augusta 29, 1861.

Philip Cook served as Solicitor-General and GA Senator prior to the War Between the States. With the advent of war, the young lawyer from GA proved his worth on battlefields as Co. I, 4th GA Regiment fought with the Army of Northern VA to protect the capital at Richmond.

Cook's nobility and courage under fire quickly earned him promotions from Private to Brigadier General by Aug. 1, 1864.

Government records reveal that Philip Cook was wounded in the body during the Battle of Malvern Hill early in the war, while serving as 1st Lieutenant and Adjutant. His military records indicate the bravery of a Confederate Soldier as he faced terrible odds. Perhaps his days of service in the Seminole Indian Wars prepared him for some of the duties which fell to him early in the War Between the States.

He and his 4th GA Regiment saw action in decisive battles in 1862, such as Seven Pines, Seven Days, and Sharpsburg. It

Brigadier General Philip Cook (1817-1894)

was after the latter battle that Philip Cook was promoted to Colonel on Nov. 1, 1862.

The Atlanta History Museum of the Atlanta History Center acquired a sword presented to Philip Cook in 1862, by a member of the Winship family. The sword and portrait are reminders of the bravery of this Georgian, but bravery was not sufficient to keep Philip from harm's way during the War Between the States. A left leg broken during the Battle of Chancellorsville, VA in early May 1863, put Cook out of the heat of the contest for several months. His records indicate that Colonel Philip Cook was "mentioned for gallantry" as a result of his battle conduct in charging the Union artillery late in the evening on May 2nd.

Broken bones often caused permanent crippling for many soldiers as 58 caliber bullets shattered their bodies.

Philip Cook was shot in the right arm in January 1865 at the Battle of Petersburg, where he was taken prisoner and admitted to a Richmond hospital. His fighting days were over. The war ended in early April and he was paroled to return home to Georgia on June 18, 1865.

Though his arm was shattered, his civic responsibility held firm. Lee County, Ga., and a law practice in Americus awaited him. During the post-war days of Reconstruction, Philip Cook was the first Democrat sent to Congress from his Third District, but was not allowed to serve because of his past military activities with the Southern Army. By 1872, he again had full rights as a US citizen and was elected to serve in Congress for the next 10 years.

Cook's distinguished post-war political honors included his appointment

by Governor John B. Gordon in 1890, to serve in Georgia’s Cabinet as Secretary of State. This position was his last duty of honor for his state. He held this post until his death on May 21, 1894, at the age of 76. His body was laid to rest beside his parents and his wife, Sarah Lumpkin Cook, at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Ga. Sarah died in 1860, before Brigadier General Philip Cook's rise to state acclaim. She shares with her husband a large monument which includes the inscription, "A good name is better than great riches." And so it is. The name of this outstanding Georgian is one in which Cook County can take pride as we celebrate Cook County, Ga.’s Centennial.

Sources Consulted: Documents and portrait on file within the Cook County Historical Society Museum on Fourth Street (Old Adel Post Office building) Adel , GA; Volume II, Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends by Lucian Lamar Knight; C.S.A. Military Records Atlanta, GA Archives; History of Macon County; Atlanta History Museum.

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Cook County Centennial | 25

Hero doctors battle Sparks Collegiate Institute in better days, circa 1904. century ago, the Spanish flu pandemic killed 50 to 100 million people in two years - 3 to 5 percent of the world’s population - making it the deadliest phenomenon in human history, which includes the history of South Georgia.

The loss of life was much more than from the great wars of the 20th century combined. That fact should put the recent Ebola epidemic scare in perspective, as well as the “milder” flu strains burning through the 2018-19 population and causing so much misery and isolated deaths.

We cannot even begin to imagine how terrible the 1918 Spanish flu strain was, or what would happen if it re-emerged today. Symptoms were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, “One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages (small red or purple spots) in the skin also occurred.” This was truly Poe’s “Red Death,” very similar to fearsome hemorrhagic fever raging out of the African jungles.

Most flu outbreaks disproportionately kill juvenile, elderly, or already weakened patients. In contrast, the 1918 pandemic predominantly killed healthy young adults, apparently through a “cytokine storm”

The

A

(overreaction of the body’s immune system). The Spanish flu had an especially devastating effect on pregnant women and their unborn children.

Local resident Lois Williams Musselwhite was born Feb. 24, 1914, months prior to the start of World War I in Europe. Mrs. Musselwhite

“The ‘Red Death’ had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal - the redness and the horror of blood...”

- “The Masque of the Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe (1842) grew up in the small town of Porterdale, Ga., near Covington in Newton County. The most frightening memory she had of childhood was during the Spanish flu epidemic, when a “pest house” was set up in town where most of the flu patients ended up isolated and dying from the incurable strain of virus. She was terrified as a young girl that she would be locked up away from her family in that grim, dark structure, from which there was no return … at least on this side of life.

A young local doctor named Gordon DeVane was pitted against the overwhelming horror of this disease, which reached its peak during fall 1918 in this community.

Red Death

26 | Cook County Centennial

By Charles Shiver

According to the Ray City History Blog, Dr. DeVane might have been inspired to study medicine by “the kiss” of a red scorpion, or “Southern Devil,” in the Connell’s Mill district of Berrien County.

A news brief reprinted from the Tifton Gazette, Sept. 27, 1907, Page 7: “While at Pleasant church Sunday Mr. Gordon DeVane was bitten on the lip by a red scorpion.

His lip swelled considerably and he had to seek medical attention. Mr. DeVane was tying his horse to a tree when attacked by the scorpion. - Adel News.”

Born May 10, 1886, James Gordon DeVane was a son of Mary Elmina Morris (1866-1918) [I wonder if the Spanish flu killed his mother as well] and James Patrick DeVane (1863-1945). According to the Directory of Deceased American Physicians, 1804-1929, James Gordon DeVane was educated at the Sparks, Ga., Collegiate Institute before attending the Atlanta School of Medicine.

According to the Ray City History Blog: “Gordon DeVane graduated from the medical school in 1911 and was subsequently licensed to practice medicine in Georgia and Florida. But at the time of the Census of 1910, Gordon DeVane had returned to Connell’s Mill District where he was enumerated in the household of his parents, Patrick and Elmina DeVane. Perhaps in anticipation of his graduation, he gave his profession as ‘physician’ and his occupation as ‘general practice.’

“In 1911, Gordon DeVane married Lottie Bell Patilla or Patills, of Atlanta, and for a while the couple made their home in Winter Garden, Fla., where Dr. DeVane engaged in general practice. But about 1914, Dr. DeVane moved back to Berrien County to practice medicine in Nashville and Adel, Ga. “When James Gordon DeVane registered for the draft for World War I in 1918, he gave his permanent home address as Adel, Berrien County, Ga. He was 32 years old, medium height and build, with blue eyes and brown hair.”

Dr. DeVane’s registration card noted: “Has been commissioned and accepted as First Lieutenant, Medical Reserve Corps.”

The war ended before Dr. DeVane was deployed to Europe; however, back home, he ended up fighting an even deadlier, more insidious enemy than the German hordes… The Red Death.

Kissed by a scorpion, and on to war

A young doctor's sacrifice A better name for the hellish disease which I physicalled “The Red Death,” from which local physi cians worked tirelessly to save their patients a century ago, may be “The Blue Death.”

The Spanish flu’s worst month in the U.S. was October 1918, when nearly 200,000 Amer Americans died from the virus. October 1918 was also the month the flu epidemic hit Georgia.

An article in John Hopkins Public Health web magazine calls the hospitals where the The grave of Dr. James Gordon DeVane, Pleasant Cemetery, Berrien County.

Spanish flu was treated as “a nightmare of rasping blue death. … Many patients had the deadly hue of cyanosis, a blue so deep that many observers misjudged this for the return of ‘black death.’ ” … However, as the disease progressed and pneumonia set in, they began to bleed profusely - from the nose, the ears, and the mouth.”

According to ExploreSouthernHistory.com, children across the South wore masks to protect themselves as they continued to attend school.

Telephone operators also wore masks, but so many fell ill that some Southern phone companies had to limit calls to emergencies only. The City of Atlanta banned public gatherings, while “in Quitman, “Greater love hath no man than public officials went so far as to ban church services.” this, that a man lay down his life “The same papers that carried news of the October 1918 sinking of the HMS Otranto also reported for his friends.” - John 15:13 the flu epidemic at home,” according to the Ray City History Blog.

Dr. James Gordon DeVane responded selflessly to the epidemic as the disease spread rapidly through what was becoming Cook County.

The Adel News - Centennial Edition (April 22, 1973) states: “When Adel was hit by the ‘flu’ epidemic in [October] 1918, [Dr. DeVane] administered to and cared for his stricken patients - entire families in some cases. Nearing collapse, he brought prescriptions in to the drug store for his patients and went home for his first night’s rest in several days.

Within 24 hours, the young doctor died - a victim of the terrible epidemic.”

Dr. and Mrs. DeVane had two children, Mrs. Margaret (Jack) Parrish and James G. DeVane.

I haven’t done genealogical research on Dr. DeVane, but his descendants should be thanked for the ultimate sacrifice he made for his community. Who knows how many patients might have survived as a result of his aid and carried on their family lines to benefit Adel and Cook County?

Cook County Centennial | 27

Next, we turn to the tale of Capt. Frank Bird Sr., M.D., of Valdosta. He was the one American doctor successful in treating the Spanish flu.

According to the Lowndes County Historical Museum website, “Dr. Bird moved from Atlanta in July 1914 and established a medical practice in Valdosta with Dr. T.M. Talbots before volunteering for service in 1917. He was first based at Camp Gordon, northeast of Atlanta. There he served as the head of the surgical team and was promoted to Captain on Feb. 12, 1918. On July 5, 1918, he was attached to Base Hospital 52 for service overseas. While overseas, he served as commander of the Roosevelt Operating Unit in Encampment #15.”

Dr. Bird returned to the U.S. from Europe on a World War I troop ship in 1918.

Many of the troops got the flu, and Dr. Bird observed that most of the officers died and most of the enlisted men lived. The enlisted men got no cool fresh air, no cold compresses, and no cold drinks. Thus, their fever was not artificially reduced.

When Dr. Bird arrived home in Valdosta, he treated his civilian patients by keeping them covered with blankets and maintaining high fevers. Other Valdosta doctors said he was crazy and inhumane, but their patients, after receiving fresh air and cold compresses, died, and Dr. Bird’s patients lived.

The other doctors then copied Dr. Bird and said he was brilliant. What’s the old saying?… “Starve a cold, and feed a fever.”

Dr. Bird and J.F. Mixson established a hospital in 1927 located on the corner of Stevens Street, Briggs Street, and Central Avenue in Valdosta and was later known as the Bird Hospital. This building still stands in Valdosta, on the corner of Oak Street and Central Avenue, and is next to the current Lowndes County Historical Museum Building. Three of Dr. Bird’s sons served in World War II. Unfortunately, it seems the dark forces that fill so much of our reality eventually caught up with Dr. Bird. According to the South Georgia Medical Center website, “In 1932, Dr. Mixson and Dr. Bird dissolved their partnership. Dr. Bird continued to operate the Infirmary with the help of Dr. D. L. Burns. For a while, Dr. Bird’s son, Ashley was associated with the hospital. Dr. Bird suffered a terrible accident in 1943 and his injuries forced him to discontinue his medical practice.

The Infirmary closed permanently.” I haven’t been able to find out anything yet about the accident, but the Lowndes County Historical Society states that Dr. Bird didn’t pass away until 1973…so some mystery there.

Considering Dr. Bird’s example, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to scoff at people who offer alternative medicines to treat the incurable or near-unstoppable disease killers in today’s world, such as AIDS, Ebola, and cancer.

Dr. Bird's Radical Treatment

Dr. Frank Bird Sr. of Valdosta

28 | Cook County Centennial

Ruins of the Sparks Collegiate Institute, established by the South Georgia Methodist Conference and the citizens of Sparks, Ga., in 1902. Dr. Gordon DeVane, one of this story’s heroes, earned his undergraduate degree there.

The melons from Adel that helped beat Hitler...

a truck with 30 crates of Sowega’s finest left this city for Hyde Park, where the visiting sovereigns of Great Britain were week-end guests.

“The now famous Sunday picnic took place without the King having any watermelons - just hot dogs. Then His Majesty and the President slipped away from the picnic grounds and took a swim in the pool at the other end of the estate. It was after their dip that they got their vine-ripened watermelons, and both Miss Malvina Thompson, secretary, and the butler are authority for the

By Charles Shiver On June 11, 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered the most statement that the two rulers found the melons delicious. The press was not important watermelons in history, from Adel, Ga., to King George VI of England admitted to the grounds to report on the big doings, but Mr. Cannon had a phone call from Hyde Park Monday morning telling him of the success of this and Queen Elizabeth during a picnic at Hyde Park, New York.

According to a 2012 article in Hudson Valley magazine, this was the first treat. The New York Times and Herald Tribune announced Sowega’s treat in their Sunday editions. time a reigning British monarch had ever set foot on U.S soil.

“Mr. Cannon is much interested in the progress of the innovation shipping According to the article, “At that time, U.S. foreign policy was isolationist. Relations with our cousins across the pond were cold and distant at best. melons in crates. Some five or six years ago, the idea was first tried by his ‘There was still much anti-British sentiment and anger at dragging us into World organization, but that time each melon was placed in a cardboard container War I,’ says Dr. David B. Woolner, associate professor of history at Marist Col- to prevent bruising. The new idea of using a wire bound crate containing two, lege and a senior fellow and resident historian at the Roosevelt Institute. But three, and four melons packed in excelsior is working much better, and about Britain needed our help. FDR wanted to provide that assistance, but first had to 700 crates are selling in New York each day. The protection those crates afford persuade the public that it was both a good idea and that the Brits were worthy. permits shipping melons that have been left on the vine until they are ripe.

“Mr. Cannon is now on a trip through various large markets. He spent the ‘With this new war, the debate over U.S. intervention was intense. It was a very last few days in Detroit, and from there will go to middle-western markets, becritical time in relations between Britain and the U.S.,’ Woolner says.

“Political genius that he was, FDR invited the royal couple to a picnic at his fore returning to Georgia. Regarding this year’s crop, he declared it is really short, and indications are it will be 25% to 40% higher than last year.” place.”

The importance of the Hyde Park picnic and melons to Western history FDR served hot dogs (the first they had ever eaten) and beer to the Royal Couple, but also shared melons shipped from Adel, Ga., with His Majesty. can’t be overstated. As the Hudson Valley article states, “Historians have come Charles H. Cannon, president of the SOWEGA Melon Growers Association of to realize this event was a very big deal indeed. Three months after the picnic, England declared war on Germany. Roosevelt was able to convince Congress, Adel, helped bring that about.

A 1939 article in The New York Times is headlined “King and President and the American people, to take steps to aid the British while still maintainTreated to Finest of Sowega Melons: 30 Crates Sent to Hyde Park For Sover- ing American neutrality. ‘There has been greater recognition over the past 20 years about the importance of this visit,’ Woolner says. ‘It was an enormous eigns - Cannon on Eastern Trip.”

According to the article, “New York, June 16 - King George VI and his host PR success for both governments. I think a genuine warmth emerged between at Hyde Park, President Roosevelt, had Sowega watermelons Saturday after- FDR and the king, and it marks a significant turning point in Anglo-American noon as a special treat from grower members of that largest of all watermelon relations.’ ” The most famous picnic in history became the subject of a 2012 movie cooperatives.

“Charles H. Cannon, head of the Sowega Melon Growers Ass’n, Adel, Ga., starring comedy icon Bill Murray as President Roosevelt and Laura Linney as flew to this city Saturday morning, got in touch with Mrs. Roosevelt upstate and Margaret “Daisy” Suckley, a cousin and childhood friend of the President.

Chas Cannon, great-great-grandson of Charles Cannon, brought this story asked her if she and her royal guests would like some vine-ripened melons, the kind that are at full maturity at table because they have been shipped to market to The Adel News’ attention. Chas is the County Manager of Colquitt County and in crates. The First Lady said she would be delighted, and Saturday afternoon live in the Ellenton area. He describes the story about his great-great-grandfather and SOWEGA melons being given to the King and Queen, and the President and First Lady, as “pretty neat.”

“When you walk into the SOWEGA building in Adel (currently used by the Adel-Cook County Chamber of Commerce), and look at the black plaque near the entrance, you will see Charles H. Cannon as the president of SOWEGA when the building was constructed,” Chas Cannon says.

According to The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, a prominent building in downtown Adel, which Life magazine named the Watermelon Capital of the World in a 1930s article, the SOWEGA Building has acted as a landmark to locals for generations. It was built in 1929 for the SOWEGA Melon Growers and utilizes watermelons as a design motif. Designed by the Atlanta architectural firm of Daniell & Butell, this landmark is generally referred to as the Watermelon Building, due to the small watermelon ornaments between the second and third floors. The structure features the unique green terra-cotta watermelons in terra-cotta lozenges in a broad diamond, which represent the SOWEGA trademark.

In recent years, the SOWEGA building was home to Del-Cook Lumber Co., the largest producer of lumber from Left to Right: Eleanor Roosevelt; King George VI of England; President Roosevelt’s mother Sara; Queen longleaf pine in the world. The building was listed on the Elizabeth (the “Queen Mother”); and President Roosevelt.

National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

Cook County Centennial | 29

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