Bobby and Brenda Cagle

I had assumed this 1961 picture of Mother was taken on the steps of Jan & Gil's trailer in Wilmore. This morning I noticed there are names painted on the steps to the trailer "Mr. and Mrs. Robert Cagle". 

In searching on the internet for information on Bobby Cagle to include with the picture I discovered Brenda's obituary. She died just last month at 78. 

Since Bobby graduated from Asbury I suspect the trailer actually WAS in Wilmore. Mother do you remember where this was?

Y'all will remember this young couple from Watkins Memorial Methodist in Ellijay. Daddy performed their wedding ceremony I think. And Bobby was called to the Methodist ministry. 

Bobby, like all Ellijay boys I guess, was a trout fisherman. He was also a taxidermist. When Daddy took me fishing with them as a 12 year old or so, Bobby promised to use his taxidermy skills to preserve my first rainbow trout. I caught a tiny trout that day and Bobby made good on his promise. I treasured that silly mount for several years, but did take care of it as I should. It eventually had broken fins and tail and was a mess. I assume at some point my parents discarded it. 

Daddy was very proud of Bobby and his ministry. Bobby became a national leader among church camp leaders and was director of Camp Glisson for several years. We introduced our kids to him when Brannon first attended Glisson. Bobby was killed in a gun accident at Glisson in 1997. 

Mrs. Brenda Willis Cagle, 78, of Columbus, N.C., passed away Saturday, April 10, 2021.

TIMESCOURIER.COM

Mrs. Brenda Sue Willis Cagle | Times-Courier, Ellijay, Georgia

Mrs. Brenda Willis Cagle, 78, of Columbus, N.C., passed away Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Mrs. Brenda Willis Cagle, 78, of Columbus, N.C., passed away Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Gleaning Facebook: Fathers Day

In honor of 2016 Fathers Day, almost 30 years after Daddy left us, I'll repost this as my profile to include three of my favorite fathers: me, my Dad, and my baby bro.

I don't want anyone to miss my mother's comment on the creation of these robes below, so I'll copy it here:

"We were living in the beautiful parsonage in Ellijay at the time. I bought the blue material for the boys robes and red fabric for robes for all five girls and for the dolls of the three little girls. (I had a great time sewing them...even made footies for all the girls and the three dolls) I took the material down to a basement room in the church and cut the material...n the long tables there...then sewed them at night after the children had gone to sleep. So no one saw the robes until Christmas morning." Ruth Baird Shaw)

---

This was the Christmas that Mother made matching blue robes for the guys and matching red robes for the dolls, literal and figurative.

Terrell Shaw For Father's Day here's me, my Daddy, & li'l' brother David. Charles Shaw delighted in fatherhood. Is that a fine hat or what?

David Marlin Rains Gangsta [er, for a Methodist]

David Marlin Rains On the other hand, Pops may have been Gangsta for a Methodist.

Ruth Baird Shaw I made these robes for Christmas gifts.

Roger Wade Cool pic Terrell

Terrell Shaw I just noticed I used this same pic last year. I woulda picked a different one if I'd realized that.

Sandy Doughty Ruth, the minute i saw these guys housecoats, I knew that you HAD to have made them...You would have never found these 3 sizes in the same fabric!! BUT, how did you ever find the time?!?!?

Rita Lawler Has the tradition of matching robes gone away. My grand mother made us "twin" ones every year for Christmas

Ruth Baird Shaw We were living in the beautiful parsonage in Ellijay at the time. I bought the blue material for the boys robes and red fabric for robes for all five girls and for the dolls of the three little girls. (I had a great time sewing them...even made footies for all the girls and the three dolls) I took the material down to a basement room in the church and cut the material...n the long tables there...then sewed them at night after the children had gone to sleep. So no one saw the robes until Christmas. morning.

Brenda Ron Carroll Dad really loved his Shaw cuzzs 

Terrell Shaw And vice versa, Brenda!

Terrell Shaw Ruth Baird Shaw, did you know that Sandy Doughty & Sandra Cole are one and the same? She is one of my Ellijay friends.

Michael J. Burton Nice times

The Rev. Mr. Young Allen Bailey

Preacher Bailey

I suppose it may have been on my Dad’s first Sunday as pastor at Watkin’s Memorial Methodist Church in Ellijay Georgia that I met Preacher Bailey. You don’t forget meeting the Rev. Mr. Young Allen (Y.A.) Bailey for many reasons but most obviously because of his strange speech. 

I can perfectly mimic his speech  -- for short sentences. That’s about it. He spoke on inhalation rather than exhalation of air. It was a disorder he had developed long before, while serving that church in the forties, and I understood it had caused his early retirement. 

A short jolly man in his fifties, Preacher Bailey was married to a lovely and kind woman, Mary, a teacher, I think. They had lost a teenage son to appendicitis in the forties. Their home, if I remember correctly, was toward the end of a street that ran parallel with Dalton St. Just toward town from the Logan Funeral Home.

Preacher Bailey became a great friend of my father’s. I remember on one occasion driving with Daddy, Preacher Bailey, Al Bruce, and, I think, James Sanders?, to Kentucky for a pastors’ conference. I was a teen at the time and was appalled to have to share a hotel room in Somerset KY with a cacophony of snores emanating from four Methodist preachers.

Occasionally, Rev. Bailey would preach for my Dad at Watkins Memorial. His strange speech somehow enhanced his ability to maintain my attention.

As a member of the congregation he often, according to my memory anyway, would “rest his eyes” while listening to the sermon. I always suspected his brain was resting as well.

I believe I accompanied my Dad to a hospital in Atlanta when Rev. Bailey was sick in the late sixties after we had moved to Rome. 

I don’t know what brought this gentle and kind man to my mind last night, but being me, I typed his name into a search engine - Young Allen Bailey - and up popped his very familiar face, 45 years after his death. 

Do you have memories of Rev. Bailey or Mrs. Bailey you’d share in the comments?

Sunday Seven: Blessed Teachers

I have been blessed by my first seven school teachers.

Mrs. Overstreet, First Grade.

She spanked me on the first day of first grade! I had walked to school, hand in hand with my wonderful mother down Mackville, Kentucky's main street. The Methodist parsonage, the school, and the church were all on that street as I remember the early fifties. The two first grades had met together the very first day, for registration, I guess. But the first real day I had the good fortune of sitting right behind my little friend (a girl) from church. Pestering girls was already a favorite pastime of mine, so several times I playfully pulled her hair that was so temptingly gracing the front of my desk. She complained to Mrs. Overstreet, who after numerous warning, hoisted me by one arm from my desk and applied her open hand to my backside. I guess that did the trick, I don't remember another paddling till fourth grade.

I do remember Alice and Jerry and Jip and the joy of reading that first primer to my family. I also remember coming home and using some of the blue vocabulary I learned at school on my sisters, much to the consternation of my pastor father.

Miss Florence (I don't suppose she had a last name), Second Grade.

I remember her as very kind and supportive, despite the fact that I waited too long to request a restroom break and (Oh! Mortification!!!!) had an "accident". Fourth Ward School was a long walk from 333 South Ninth Street, Griffin, Georgia, and the definitely-not-Main-Street parsonage for the Midway/Sunnyside/Vaughn Methodist Circuit. The principal was known to us boys as "Wild Bill" Cody. But Miss Florence was sweet and ancient. Fourth Ward did not use Alice and Jerry and Jip. They had Dick and Jane and Spot.

Mrs. Giles, Third Grade.

Mrs. Giles was very efficient, very stylish, very popular with her students, and very unready to put up with nonsense. I have a vague glimmer of a memory of a note that got passed that went directly to my parents when Mrs. Giles got hold of it. I think this was the year I got a taste of the stage. I got to sing a duet, "Side by Side", dressed as a hobo, in the big (as I remember it) auditorium. I've been hooked on applause ever since.

Side by Side
Written by Harry MacGregor Woods
(Patsy Cline radio transcription)

Oh! We ain't got a barrel of money
Maybe we're ragged and funny
But we'll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side

I don't know what's a-comin' tomorrow
Maybe it's trouble and sorrow
But we'll travel the road
Sharing our load
Side by side

Thru all kinds of weather
What if the sky should fall
Just as long as we're together
It really doesn't matter at all

When they've all had their quarrels and parted
We'll be the same as we started
Just travelin' along
Singing a song
Side by side

Instrumental

Yeah, Thru all kinds of weather
What if the sky should fall
Just as long as we're together
It really doesn't matter at all

Now, When they've all had their quarrels and parted
We'll be the same as we started
Just traveling along
Singing a song
Side by side...

Miss Matilda Brown, Fourth Grade.

She gave me (I know, I know -- I earned) a D. In math, a D! You better believe Charles and Ruth Shaw's son made an A in math the next grading period -- they were six weeks long back then. That six weeks was definitely long.

Fourth Grade was the year of the fire. Our janitor, whose name I used to know, was seriously injured when the boiler exploded. We all cleared the building as we had practiced so many times, but it was real and scary this time. Firetrucks parked at crazy angles at the back of the school, the firemen scurrying in and out, and ambulance screaming to a halt, more scurrying, and then the ambulance screaming away. Miss Brown managed to get us out and keep us out of the way and under control. She was cool under pressure in that case.

I remember being extremely frustrated when we were given a writing assignment and I just could not come up with a beginning sentence. Nothing. That's what I had on my paper when Miss Brown dropped by my desk. She was not happy. I didn't know about the trial and error and rubbing out and rewriting and revising and crumpling of paper that was supposed to go into the writing process. I wanted a perfect beginning sentence to put down and it wouldn't come. Did I mention that Miss Brown was not happy.

Miss Brown was, if possible, even more ancient than Miss Florence. We were bigger and her classroom management was not subtle. One day while Miss Brown was out of the room briefly there was some commotion among her charges. Since she couldn't ascertain the culprits, she decided the best course to avoid a miscreant going unpunished, was to line all the BOYS up in the hall and paddle them. This was before rotator cuff surgery, I suppose, and her arm was gone. As she walked down the line applying weak taps to our posteriors, we began to giggle. This infuriated her to the extent that she started all over again when she got to end of the line.

At least once during fourth grade I was sent to "Wild Bill's" office for a paddling. I got to see him administer his paddle to the backside of an older boy. The boy gripped Mr. Cody's desk. The paddle flew in a graceful arc. I swear, the desk moved several inches. He did not paddle my buddy or me that day. I suspect he could see in our eyes that we would toe the line, for a while at least.

Every day I walked past the big old house with the wrap around porch where Miss Brown lived. There were hanging baskets all over it. I enjoyed stopping by to see Miss Brown. She gave me cuttings from what she called her "airplane" plant. I was thrilled to take those strange offshoots home and pot them.

Herbert Leach and I decided during my fourth grade year to expand our business enterprises to include yard work. Previously we just collected Coke bottles along the streets and hauled them in my wagon clear across town to redeem them for a penny apiece at the Coke plant. Now we would rake leaves or mow lawns. Miss Brown was one of our first customers. She wanted us to weed her garden. We had a hard time differentiating weeds and non-weeds. We also had a hard time meeting her weeding standards. We did not long continue in her employ.

Miss Brown helped me learn to use and appreciate a dictionary. She called me "impudent" one day. I was taken aback. I was hugely offended, but was unsure why. I rushed home and looked it up in the dictionary and was, thereby, greatly relieved. I've been fond of dictionaries ever since.

Despite all that, you know what? I loved that old lady.

Mrs. ???, Fifth Grade.

I am drawing a blank!! I can see her face before my mind's eye right now. I know her name!! What is it? It just came: Mrs Anderson! How could I forget? Mrs. Anderson, I am so sorry!!

Her class was in a lower room. Sort of a basement. It had high windows as I recall. We were great warriors that year. I spent a major portion of my time perfecting my drawings of battleships complete with fiery blasts from the cannons and Zeros or Luftwaffers plunging in fire and smoke into the sea.

At recess we invented a great game. Boys would pair up. One boy would climb onto the shoulders of another and go to battle against another pair. The team left standing was the winner. This game was short-lived, as you might guess. It came to Mrs. Anderson's attention when some kid took offense at being flung to the dirt and threw a punch. I happened to have managed to roll on top for a moment and was pounding away when Mrs. Anderson stepped in (thank goodness!). It was the most glorious moment of my elementary education and worth ten times the licks I got for it.

Mrs. Anderson was convinced of the need for good nutrition and insisted that each student eat at least three bites of each item on their school lunch plate. I did not eat potato salad. I still do not eat potato salad. If God had intended folks to eat cold potatoes he would not have provided us with fire. I tried to explain to Mrs. Anderson, but she could not understand. She seemed to take my calm explanations as impudence! I promise you: I was paddled for not eating my potato salad. Note: I did not eat it. She could have paddled till Sunday: I would not have eaten it. Ask my mama.

Mrs. Knight, Sixth Grade.

Mrs. Knight at Ellijay Elementary was also my Sunday School teacher. That just doesn't seem quite right. does it? There ought to be a law. Daddy was back in a more exalted position as pastor at First Church. (Actually Watkins' Memorial at that time.) I suppose some testosterone was starting to kick in by this time cause, as the new preacher's son, I was the center of a good bit of attention from sixth grade girls that summer before sixth grade and I was pleased. I immediately fell for (I'll change the names to protect ... whoever.) "Audrey Hepburn". The only problem was I had misunderstood the introductions and thought she was "Grace Kelly". Now as I look at the pictures of "Grace" and "Audrey" from that period I realize they were both pretty girls, but the mixup caused my first few months in my new home to be very uncomfortable. I confided to a friend that I found "Grace" very attractive. The real "Grace" accepted advances that I did not know I had made and the real "Audrey" wrote me off.

Mrs. Knight's class was a combination Fifth/Sixth. Therefore we sixth graders had to listen to fifth grade lessons too. It probably didn't hurt a bit.

Our elementary was in the former high school building. An advantage to that was the huge auditorium. Our music teacher, Miss Mable Hensley of the big earrings and showy scarves led singing there and Roy Smith the County Agent led 4-H meetings there. And when the World's Strongest Man (Paul Anderson) came it was the stage of that Auditorium where he picked up the apparatus that held fifteen or so little boys, including yours truly. And when Officer Don of the Popeye Club came to town we got to play Ooey Gooey on that stage.

One day Mrs Knight sent me to the office to take some sort of something to the principal. Or maybe it was a discipline trip, I'm not sure. Anyway, we had just gotten our brand new "educational television" sets. I was shocked to find our school's leader, in his office, watching Debbie Drake, the exercise guru, in her tights, doing s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s. Right there on educational TV. Oh, my!

Mr. Weeks, Seventh & Eighth Grades

Mr. Weeks was young and everyone thought he was a great teacher. We changed classes in seventh and eighth grade and our classes were in an adjoining, newer building. We thought it was almost high school. Those two grades are horribly jumbled in my mind, partly because we had the same teachers.

In 4-H we put together a program for The 4-H Hour on channel five in Atlanta and I traveled squshed into a back seat with several other kids to the big city for the taping. One kid demostrated how we graft apple varieties onto existing trees in Gilmer County. Another kid demostrated how to cook an apple upside-down cake. Charlese Poindexter and I sang a duet of "Around The World" -- the only thing on the program not associated with Gilmer County's famous apples.

A highlight of those two years was the day Mr. Weeks crowded all the classes into one room so we could watch the broadcast of America's first little fifteen minute journey into space. What an inspiration was Alan Shepherd!

Then there was the class trip to Stone Mountain. This time I screwed my courage to the sticking place and asked "Doris Day" to be my companion for the day. She stuck with me on the bus down, but found other friends to her liking on the climb up the mountain and I was destroyed. I promise, I didn't get fresh.

Maybe I should have.

This little exercise is very humbling to this elementary school teacher of twenty-seven years. I have very warm feelings toward the seven teachers I have listed. They must have taught me something. But almost all of my memories of those years are of my classmates, my extracurricular activities, the fire, the spankings. I don't remember much at all about the math, science, history, reading, we did.

Still, all in all, I think these seven folks cared about me and must have worked hard to teach me a little something. Lord knows I tested them at times. Bless their hearts.

Online Time Travel: Ellijay Scoutmaster

 My Daddy was my scoutmaster when I was a Boy Scout in Ellijay, GA just before we moved to Rome, GA, in February 1962. I do not know the exact date of this certificate but it would likely have been shortly before we moved.

Mrs. Parks Seventh Grade

Mrs. Parks Seventh Grade Class

Ellijay Elementary School

Ellijay, Georgia

1959-60

Comments from 2010

Tony Pope
Wish they still did class photos like this! Seeing the classrooms like this gives you an idea on the innerworkings of the classroom. My oldes bro has one from Johnson in the 1960s. Need to scan it and post.

Terrell Shaw
Tagged Ray because he has an interest in Gilmer Co pics

Martin Penland Teem
I still have my copy of this one. Good group.

Martin Penland Teem
The teacher is Mrs. Bryan Parks, not Janelle Knight--Knight was sixth grade, this is seventh.

Terrell Shaw
Where was my head, Marty! I know better than that. I fixed Mrs. Parks' tag. Why don't you tag some more of these folks. I'll probably screw up the names if I continue trying. There are several whose first names I think I know but the last name are fuzzy.

Wanda Mulkey Dagraedt
OK Guys....I tagged some more folks...and I still have my pic as well.

Terrell Shaw
Thanks Wanda!

Larry Ray
Second row from left, behind Lorraine is Douglas Montgomery, behind him is Janet Beaver, in front of Mrs Parkks is Kay Millsap. In that same row, in the stripped shirt I think is Calvin Sharpe. in front of Lorraine I'm not sure, maybe Barbara Parks???.

Wanda Mulkey Dagraedt
Hey Larry...the gal is front of Lorraine is Patricia (Nelson??)..does that ring a bell?

Terrell Shaw
Were there class pictures from 1958-59, or 1960-61? This is the only Ellijay Elem. class pic I have.
Do y'all remember --
- Paul Anderson lifting a bunch of us (15 kids or more) on an apparatus in the auditorium?
- Officer Don coming there?
- Crowding into one room to watch on TV Alan Shepard's 15 minute sub-orbital flight?

Wanda Mulkey Dagraedt
Funny you should mention Officer Don...Don Kennedy did a lot of voice work for us after we moved our Company to Marietta. A great guy and huge Big Band fan.....he was doing a Big Band show on Sirius. When I mentioned Officer Don, he brushed it aside...that was THEN....this is NOW! I'll have to think about other pics from that era.

Terrell Shaw
My cousin Don Baird was a news man for WSB radio for a long time and later for NBC and CNN. Don Kennedy was one of the radio guys that spoke at my cousin's funeral almost two years ago now. That voice was unmistakable. We still hear him occasionally on GPB's "Big Band Jump".
What kind of company do you have?

Wanda Mulkey Dagraedt
We do HD Video and Film, DVD/CD Duplication, Broadcast/Cable
Advertising, Scriptwriting, Interactive Training CD, just about anything to do with Video and Film and Audio Recording/Editing.
Digital Billboards....I think I left out the kitchen sink..my husband Dave and I have worked in Atlanta for 26 years with Fortune 500 Companies, Broadcast Commercials and Mom and Pop around the corner. We're both Creative People and have loved every project (just about) we've worked on. That's it in a nutshell.

Terrell Shaw
Great! Now I've got to ask a business question... I'll message you.

Martin Penland Teem
Take a look at the new tags and see if you disagree with any of them.

Terrell Shaw
Great job, Marty. Thanks!

Wanda Mulkey Dagraedt
Hey Guys, isn't that Wayne Parks behind Hilda Page?

Wanda Mulkey Dagraedt
Sorry...I meant Annette Stanley?

Wanda Mulkey Dagraedt
And I think the girl behind Wayne Parks is Brenda something...ring any bells?

Zelda Buford
31 in one class oh my!!!!

Terrell Shaw
And I complain about my 28 and 29 this year!

Carol's Birthday Party August 1959?

Judging from the ages of the kids I guessing this was 1959. It is Mary Carol Shaw (Johnston)'s birthday party in the back yard of the parsonage on Dalton Street in Ellijay, Georgia where we lived from June of 1958 till February of 1962 while Daddy served as pastor at Watkins Memorial Methodist Church.

Carol Shaw Johnston
This was my birthday party in Ellijay. Not sure how old I was - but I remember the dress I'm wearing in the photo. We have another photo of me at that same party. I don't recall seeing this one before.

Deborah Shaw Lewis
Oh! I remember that party was SO much fun! Thanks for sharing the photo.

Terrell Shaw
Y'all do some more tagging if you can. Is that Beth in the rocker in the background? Is that Patsy Jo with the bow in her hair? Which one, if any, is me? Must be some Westmoreland boys there.

Thom Holt
I do not know Richi Holt but he is a Holt "showoff"

Terrell Shaw
Richie was a great kid, my age, who lived with several siblings on a farm southwest of Ellijay. I think thta farm is under Carter's Lake now. Tragically Richie died, of cancer I think, in his late twenties.
Any of your Holts from Gilmer County, Thom?
Tag some more, Debi.
Is that Carol's back next to you? Is the next one me? I see the Patsy Jo Wimpee, I think. Is that name correct? Is Beth in the pic? Is that her standing up from the chair?

Deborah Shaw Lewis
Terrell, isn't that Carol, over by the tree, with the white collar on her dress? It looks like it could be Beth, back in the rocking chair. I remember NO names of children from Ellijay, other than Martha Weaver and the Westmoreland boys. Wasn't the one Beth's age, Hal Westmoreland?

Ruth Baird Shaw
Yes Terry..that is Patsy jo with the big bow in her hair. Her mother was the church pianist. Thom would be glad to claim that family of Holts. In fact we had two diffferent Holt families. All realy great people. Richie did die and Raymond...just a couple of years younger was killed in an accident...on the farm (thrown from a horse???...f i remeber correctl????) Carol they had a daughteryour age...Vivian...I beleive. 

Martin Penland Teem
I recognize the group and i recognize the parsonage. Those were good times. Richie's brother was killed in a tractor/mower accident.

Martin Penland Teem
PJ = Patsy Jane Wimpey

Terrell Shaw
Patsy Jane! PJ! Yes.

Terrell Shaw
Can you identify any of the others, Marty? That could be me on my knees in a white t-shirt? Or maybe I was snubbing Debi's party.

Ruth Baird Shaw
Martin...I have not been in Ellijay for a visit in about 12 years ago...so have lost touch...Do you still live there? How are your parents?

The tree, decorated with balloons here, is a Catalpa. Every year it was the host plant for many "Catalpa worm" caterpillars. Those made great trout bait.