Moving Back to Georgia - June 30, 1954

Daddy (Charles Columbus Shaw) wrote this note in a book of sermons.

Having graduated from Asbury College and enrolled in Candler School of Theology at Emory University, Daddy was assigned by the North Georgia Conference of The Methodist Church to a charge of three churches near Griffin, Georgia -- Midway, Sunnyside and Vaughan. The parsonage was at 333 South Ninth Street at its intersection with Church Street. For some reason Daddy recorded this information on the flyleaf of a book of funeral sermons. Other earlier addresses are recorded on the next page.

Rummaging through Mother's estate I found the book with Daddy's notes about arriving at Griffin (June 30, 1954) and his first Sunday (Independence Day 1954) as a North Georgia Conference full-time pastor in Griffin, Georgia. Figured I'd hop aboard my Blogger Time Machine and deposit those notes here in 1954. We would live at on South Ninth Street where it crossed College Street in Griffin for four years while Daddy completed seminary at Candler (Emory) and became fully ordained in 1958 as an elder in the Methodist Church. During those years I attended Fourth Ward Elementary School in second, third, fourth, and fifth grades. Our family grew from five kids to six (Sharlyn Beth Shaw December 19, 1954) and then to seven (David Baird Shaw May 9, 1958).

On today we learned that our "new" home was anything but and not nearly as nice as the parsonage at Mackville, KY that we had just left after two years. This old house had grungy furniture, a kudzu covered field and railroad tracks behind it, and we were in for a war with mice and roaches.

Still I had a ball creating a maze of tunnels in the kudzu and climbing the white mulberries that lined the driveway between our house and the Butts (I though their name was hilarious) next door. I imagined a daughter named "Ima". And a slightly older boy, Herbert Leach, lived directly across College Street from our backyard. Herbert and I went into business together, first as bottle redeemers and then as lawnmowers.

Anyway, here is documentation of these dates

Another flyleaf-noted point in Daddy's life

333 South Ninth Street as it will appear in 2011.