Brady Drummond

Barbara and Brady Drummond

My first Sunday school teacher at Trinity has died. 

Brady Drummond was such a welcoming and friendly 30-something young man when the Shaw family moved to Rome in February of 1962 and my dad became pastor at Trinity. As an almost 15-year-old I was assigned to the youth Sunday School class which met in the old frame parsonage building on the corner of Avenue A and Turner-McCall Boulevard. Mobley Hall and its parking area occupy that space now. “Buster” (as we called him at the time) was our Sunday school teacher.

When a decade later Sheila and I married and moved back to Rome and rejoined Trinity, we found Brady and Barbara still pillars of our church. 

Once a year there were flowers placed in memory of Billy Walden. Billy was one of four Rome teens who were killed in the horrible Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta. Buster grew up in Rome and had been a friend of Billy. Buster made sure his friend was remembered even many decades later.

We also got to deal with him after he began working at Davis Core and Pad when we had an occasion to need some styrofoam. I was having some back issues, and we had read that you could replace a standard box springs with a thick slab of styrofoam for firmer support under the mattress. We decided to try it and Davis C&P had what we needed. Thirty or more years later we still sleep on it.

When Sheila and I bought our 1969 house on Avenue A, Brady and I commiserated sometimes about the challenges and joys of owning an old house.  And when Mother retired to Rome in 1997, she reconnected with the Drummonds again and enjoyed their friendship. 

Brady always had a smile and kind words. And he was a great supporter of the choir giving many nice compliments over the years. It has felt wrong during these last months that he and Barbara have not been smiling from their regular seats there to the right as we look our from the choir.

 

Brady was a fine man whose legacy will live on . We will miss him.

Visitation is at Daniel’s today from 5- 7. The funeral is tomorrow at one. The choir will sing.