>> Rolling.
>> This is Kristen McGann and Don Little
interviewing Norman Penfield on Wednesday, October 5th,
2016, at his office located at
103 P Rickman Industrial Drive
in Holly Springs, Georgia. Hi, Norman.
>> Hello there.
>> Please state your full name.
>> I'm Norman Allen Penfield.
>> And when and where were you born?
I was born in Davidsville,
Georgia, but really, I was born in Rome,
Georgia, but lived in Davidsville my entire life.
>> When did your family originally move to Davidsville?
>> I understand they moved in
1916 from Bessemer, Alabama.
My grandfather where he was in the ice business,
but heard of this farm that was for sale in Davidsville.
[NOISE] Excuse me. Was right on
the South side of Davidsville and had a lot
of orchard trees there, so good deal.
Came to Davidsville and bought that farm.
And then having an ice background,
started the ice service delivering ice refrigeration,
little ice boxes from door-to-door,
as well as had an ice house
next to a little rock cafe there on the old 41 highway.
So [NOISE] if he was outside of his delivery service,
he could come pick you up ice at the ice house.
And in fact that ice house,
I can't really remember the door-to-door service because
refrigeration pretty come around
by the time I can remember.
But I do remember a lot of people come getting
ice still from the little ice house,
I don't know how much they weighed,
at least 100 pounds,
big slabs of ice and I remember
the ice pick fascinated me to be a kid.
The kid to go take an ice pick,
break the ice into different sections.
And they had a pattern to how much
each little block would weigh.
So they charged by the pound,
but they didn't have the scales there.
But they could tell by how they divided
that big chunk of ice up into either quarters or halves,
whatever or how much it weighed and charge for it.
>> So what reasons did your family
have for choosing Davidsville?
>> I wasn't around, so I had no idea.
But really, I do in ways because of the peaches,
but Davidsville had big roots of farming peaches,
and I understand back to turn of last century,
that it was one of the biggest
peach producers in the country.
So this farm had quite a bit of peach trees on it.
So I assume that's the reason he picked Davidsville.
It might just been a good deal on a farm.
[LAUGHTER]
I really don't know. I never heard.
>> Can you tell us about your childhood home
and its previous resident?
>> Lord of Mercy. I talked
to my sister on this last night.
She's eight years my senior here.
In fact, I volunteered her for this too,
but she spends most of her time in South Florida,
she has a home down there, Naples.
But anyway, the house was
actually built before the Civil War.
And you asked about Miss Topsy, Alice Howard here.
She grew up there,
but it was her uncle's house, Mr. Whitworth.
I do not know his initials or whatever.
I'm sorry. I got that.
But Miss Topsy was quite a person, historian,
and I'm sure this is not the first time you've heard
her name in talking with old people here,
but she grew up there in our house.
And there there was
a Yankee soldier in Civil War killed there.
There's bloodstains up the steps
and then my old bedroom before they
covered [inaudible] a little kid that point out there is
where the Yankee soldier died in the Civil War.
So you want to get off on the ghost now? [LAUGHTER].
>> Yeah, you can talk about the ghost.
>> Miss Topsy, she believed in ghosts,
let's put it that way,
and communicate with them on top of that.
I'll get that talking about the seances.
But she claimed that Godfrey from Barnsley's Garden,
his ghost lived in our house.
So anytime a door shut unexpectedly or sound,
we always said, "That's just
Godfrey," [LAUGHTER] growing up.
So I grew up with a ghost
in my house or thinking I had one.
It was so fun because
he was a friendly ghost. He wasn't a bad ghost.
>> This was the story Miss Topsy would tell you?
>> Yeah. Miss Topsy tell stories
could [inaudible] kids would
love to get around Miss Topsy when she's telling old
the ghost stories and she had
some goodies too immersed there.
They were all supposed to be true.
But I don't know if this is the right place,
but as I said, I don't know what the term is,
but felt she could communicate with them as well.
And I never attended them,
but they had what was known as
seances where they'd make tables walk.
Put your hands on the tables like the Ouija board,
but they did the Ouija board,
let me take this one step forward.
Across the railroad tracks from my home
is the grave of two unknown soldiers from the Civil War.
And one of her Ouija boards seances
asked the Ouija board what their names were.
And it spelled out their names.
And she did, supposedly,
the follow up on the thing and
that was the names of those two soldiers.
>> What was the address of that house?
>> We never had numbers. I had to look it up.
[LAUGHTER]
Growing up, there wasn't such thing.
311 South Main Street.
It's funny how you remember
certain things and I can't remember yesterday.
I remember our first telephone number.
It was 97J.
Of course, it was no dial.
It was all [NOISE] and we have party line.
You knew what ring you had to pick up phone.
And I also remember as kids figuring out how we snoop on
other people's conversation by unscrewing
the microphone then listen. [LAUGHTER]
>> More question. I don't mean to derail you.
>> No, go ahead.
>> You mentioned Godfrey the ghost,
which garden did you say he was burried?
>> Barnsley's Garden.
>> Barnsley's Garden?
>> The castle down [inaudible] station.
Seven miles away.
>> But then you had, I guess,
communicating with the unknown soldiers
or was it like a big ghost party for you?
>> No, but she had these,
her and several of the people in town.
They would meet socially.
Instead of playing bridge or whatever, they had seance.
They'd ask either the Ouija board or the table.
They had the table which it would make sounds.
Everybody put their hands on it,
just like the Ouija board type of thing.
And they would supposedly communicate with a spirit.
>> What is the status of that home currently?
>> Pitiful. When mother and dad passed away,
my sister and I divided
the inheritance and I gave Patty the house
because I would never move back to
it and I took the farm out on [inaudible]
So she toyed with
the idea and decided
not to move into it and then sold it.
And the house has been butchered.
It was a three-bedroom house when my mother passed away.
And I just looked the listing on it.
It's a six-bedroom because they take
the carport and cut it into
two little rooms for two more bedrooms,
the old den into another bedroom.
I do not know the story on the [inaudible] but there's
somebody that supposedly had a big family.
Let's put it that way.
Whether they were blood family or not, I don't know.
[inaudible] But it's gone down.
>> What was it like to grow up in Davidsville?
>> Wonderful, but I didn't know it at the time.
[LAUGHTER]
What was it like going up in Adairsville?
Well, maybe, as close as I can
come to tell you about Adairsville.
It was just carefree.
There was no locks on the doors.
Everybody have good time.
And unless you did wrong.
[LAUGHTER].
Went over, got outside of mother's calling,
went to the lumber yard which is a no-no for me.
That's across the hill in my back house
there was a lumber yard
which I wasn't supposed
to be because lumber could fall off and we would liked,
as kids love to
dig in the sawdust pile over there, and make tunnels.
And I was always afraid the tunnels would fall in
and suffocate us.
They didn't.
We did fine. I went
through and made some notes here and there.
But let's see.
Some of the favorite memories there.
>> What are some of your favorite memories
from your childhood?
>> There was the first swimming pool in a bears hole.
And I don't know, I tried to go back and
find somebody that knows the dates on it,
but it was miss Terrell that
had lived in the house next door to us,
up on the hill behind and it's now apartments.
But there was a nice-sized public swimming pool.
She charged to swim,
so I understand that it was a public swimming pool.
That's where I learned to swim.
Now, it closed around 1950.
And I have a video
of it on my Adairsville photos and memories.
My Jack Brock,
which was one of the men that lived on our street,
when he came back from World War II,
I guess eight millimeter video camera were a big thing.
He was in the Pacific.
He brought one home and did videos and he videoed
that swimming pool and I remember as
a kid watching that video with his son,
which is my age.
And so I contacted Randy down and I got
him to digitize that video and I posted it.
And it was really something to see the old man take
T-model cars there and the bath,
especially the women's bathin suits that was sharp.
But I fairly remember that
because I was five years old when it closed.
But that swimming was a big thing to me.
And the reason I know it was '50 that it closed is
the PTA built a public swimming pool
over on the west side of town,
what we call the Tetriage Park Street,
that big Terra Looking column house.
This way down this ppassed it down on the bottom.
That's where the teachers stayed.
They rented rooms at
that big old house back
when I was a kid. For the teachers.
And that's reason they called it the teachers
and PTA owned it and they built
that swimming pool at the bottom of the hill there.
Right in the swamps to all the skaters.
[LAUGHTER]
But the town where spring fed,
we've got great water, always have.
And this was before they had filtering systems.
So that swimming pool, they
would clean and fill up every week.
The first two days after they filled it up, Eddie,
you jump in and you came out blue and so cold.
[LAUGHTER]
But the Terrell's swimming pool was the same way.
But she had a big garden.
So she used the water when she drained it
every week to water that garden,
which was between my house and her house there.
I was a big swimmer,
so I loved to swimming pool, both of them.
I grew up in just about as about a fish.
It was fun. What the heck. Had to do something.
>> How has the community changed since you were a child?
>> I'm not finished yet.
>> Okay, sorry. I'm sorry, go on.
>> Let's see. The other big activity was the scouts.
And the scout hut,
which was up on top of Boyd Mountain,
and my dad helped to build it.
How we didn't all die from drinking
that old cistern water. [LAUGHTER]
Because it had no well up on top of the mountain there.
And when I was a kid before
I was old enough to be a scout,
every month, when they met up,
they see the lights on.
They had outside lights.
Not the buildings but the place.
I always wanted to be a part of that.
Chief Boyd was a scupmster
and you probably ran into that name around.
He was the oldest scout master in the country.
He was a veteran of World War I,
a brother of Carl Boyd,
the hero that was Pershing's sister or whatever.
Anyway, the scouting was fun and that we met there
overnight once a month
and we have what's known as what we gained,
a fox and hounds divided up the group of
scouts into you're either fox or you're hound.
And the foxes would go out in the woods.
Now, this is dark.
I mean, no flashlights, nothing.
We go out the fox [NOISE].
The hounds got a plan
before and tag you before
you could get back to the scout.
If you got back scout hook, then you won.
Then you reverse the hounds
become foxes and foxes becomes hounds.
And how somebody died.
Because we'd be running through the woods
and they just pull out.
I remember hitting a bob wire fence [LAUGHTER].
But was young.
It was great. It was a different world back then.
The other thing was my Kool-aid stand.
I was entrepreneur early in life down south.
I hadn't been there in that I don't mean just a table
out with a deal.
I mean, I had built me
a little stand on South Main Street there
and my sister be so
embarrassed her boyfriend come up bot.
Got to use what you got to it
And the two cotton gins,
that was that was big time.
They were on South Main Street just up from our house.
And in the fall,
those things weren't around 24/7,
and there was another taboo
I wasn't supposed to be there,
but all of those kids had to go up and
watch the land because it was big stuff,
the wagons would come in with that cotton,
be backed up a quarter mile
long and all that machinery going whirly,
and that was that was big stuff but it
only lasted a couple of months in the fall.
That was a big time. And then
when I got a little older driving,
gathering on the square.
Gathering on the square was if you was
lucky enough to have a date on Saturday night,
then after you took her home,
you went down to the square.
And we all sit around and tell lies,
[LAUGHTER]
have a good time.
And that's, I know another question you're going to
ask me about when dad was mayor,
so if I was good or bad.
But at that gathering,
anybody that had a hot car
because the cops weren't around,
they go down lay little rubber
down the main street there,
not not up where the cars were,
but down along by the depot,
the long stretch there.
And so I happened to bought a Corvette,
this was '65,
and of course, they were all after
me haggling me on, "Hey,
know your dad's mayor,
but you got to do a burnout here on the plane."
and I said, "No. I can't do that, boys. Can't do that."
all while knowing I was going to.
[LAUGHTER]
So I said, "No. Guys got to go."
End of the night,
and I drove down to the end of the street where
the Methodist church is at the end of
the street which police station.
I pulled up to see the police
wasn't there because we only have
one police car back then by the way,
so I back down, of course,
I let the flag fly and I come down.
And as I came in because you got guys at the end,
you got to turn left,
or you drive into those buildings
and stores at the end of the thing.
I go in that slide to burning.
Police come down there in those corner and
they're blowing the horn at me
because they thought I was going to run all over them.
[LAUGHTER]
I got a scolding for that.
They didn't let me go.
Took me into the place station,
told me, well,
I shouldn't have been doing that,
they had been the mayor and so forth,
so maybe, what I said earlier,
it was a different time back then.
They had tolerance, I guess, I would say.
Anyway, that's some
of the memories I have of my childhood stuff.
>> What was your dad's reaction when, I guess,
he got the call from the police officer?
>> He never got the call.
>> He never got the call?
>> No. [LAUGHTER]
They let me go.
[LAUGHTER]
They ran it down to me and said,
"Don't do it again."
>> Okay.
>> Now, another one though,
coming back to the same thing but we all
gathered there and we want to do a little racing.
We would go over to 140 but then I75
was built and it it stopped in
Adairsville from the north.
But before it was finished out there,
they still took the traffic off in Calhoun.
So there was a drag strip man.
It was probably sat there for years while
politics ran to try to figure
out where they were going to cross our town.
That's why it was held up so many years
there with environmental studies and so forth, and so on.
So we had a quarter mile
marked off to that bridge where 140 crosses 75.
So somebody want to challenge somebody,
everybody stood on that bridge and you
had verification on who won to the bridge.
Well, this particular Saturday night,
I didn't go because me
and my girlfriend at that time were out late,
so I just went on home.
The next morning, I wake up
and my dad's sitting by
my bed bed looking down and he says,
"Son. Tell me about it."
I said, "What?
I'm innocent this time. What are you talking about?"
He says, "Cooks dead and I know you were there."
Cook was the nickname,
I don't even know his real name. I can't remember.
But he had a new Satellite,
Chrysler, what it was, Chrysler Plano,
and this other guy in town had
a ridge Chevy super sport
Chevelle that had been
boss dog in town until the Satellite,
Cook bought the Satellite,
and it took me a good week to find out or to get
somebody that would really tell me what happened.
And what really happened was is that they went out
to see which car was the fastest, and thank goodness,
Cook let his girlfriend out on the bridge and went off,
well, anyway, he outran,
as they said, he outran the the Chevy Chevelle,
but he got in front of it and was going to show out
and just pull over in front of him like he passed him,
but as I told you,
'75 hadn't been finished,
the shoulders hadn't been there.
It was a six inch drop on the shoulders he ran off.
He ran off on the road, on the shoulder,
pulled it back in the highway,
they said, which he overdrove, anyway,
it turned sideways, flipped threw him
out and ran over him and flipped on top of him,
and then when it came to rest,
the car was on top of him.
Bridge had come down and drove the car under road.
But I was not a part of that.
Did not have anything to do with it.
But that was a drag strip when I was growing up.
It was a good one too.
>> Did they close down the drag strip
after that or monitor it more?
>> Yeah. That was the end of the drag racing now too.
>> Okay.
>> How has the community changed since you were a child?
>> Well, it's funny,
people ask me where I'm from and I tell them,
a little town halfway between Atlanta and Chattanooga
that when I was real small,
I remember operating some blacksmith shop.
It was right between the two towns [inaudible] between
the little billows,
fire up the horses shoes, shoe
the horses and the mules there.
Well, the last time
the Atlanta telephone exchange moved
out 15 or so years ago,
it took in a dash.
So my lifetime, I've seen
my hometown come from
one-horse waging town to Metropolitan Atlanta.
So I don't know if that
answers your question, but it's nothing.
It's it's suburb of Atlanta now.
>> What else did you do for fun as
a teenager in Adairsville
besides drag race, your crimes?
[LAUGHTER]
>> Well, I was older than that.
Come down to the creek and throw rocks at water monsters.
[LAUGHTER]
We'll go up to the depot and watch them load the freight.
That was big stuff on Friday night.
[LAUGHTER]
Lordy mercy. What did we do?
The swimming pool, as I've already covered,
the scout hut,
we rode bicycles everywhere back in those days,
that was a way of transportation.
I'm not sure kids still ride bikes
now and they go on mountain bikes and trails,
we rode them everywhere.
It's a way of life. I really don't know,
other than the big thing was school activities and
church activities because we didn't have anything else,
skate rink, which we did skate,
but we skated on the streets.
>> What would you do with the church?
>> Just different activities. Can't remember now.
Well, social have social activities.
Get together and tell stories.
I can't tell you anything
big specifically, quite frankly.
But school and church was about the only organizers,
I guess, group activities.
>> So your father opened Penfield Chanel?
What was Penfield Chanel?
>> Chanel it made
Chanel bed spreads back in the old days,
Chanel bed spreads was the thing,
especially ones with the overlay,
you may have heard the term Peacock Alley,
which runs from probably Chattanooga to Atlanta
and back in the old days
before testing machine during the Depression era,
they just sheets of cloths
and yarn out to the farmers and rural people.
And the whole family would stitch the yarn
through the yardage and
then cut the map and make it fuzzy.
And that's what Chanel and that's the way they say
that a lot of people were starved during
the Depression had it not been for Chanel in that area.
And then, of course,
the tufting machines came along and make this all
mechanized and this was the full runner to carpet.
And that's the reason carpet is this is the center
of the carpet manufacturer of the world.
There's only difference in Chanel
and carpet is car carpet,
you don't cut the map. It stays low.
But the same technology basically applies.
And dad got in on the tail end of Chanel.
I say Chanel went out and probably the late 70s.
He sold out and retired in '75.
>> How old were you when it opened?
>> I was in third grade,
so I was nine or 10 years old and didn't like it.
Because he and my mother had
the Little Rock Cafe right downtown,
which is the buildings still there,
but it's not there, the little rock
still there, which is a big rock.
If you know where the police station is,
the building right across 41 from me.
You'll know it by the big rocks
on coming out of the porch there.
And I like the cafe because it made me real popular with
all my buddies because I can go get
free candy, and goodies.
And when he built the plant,
he sold the cafe, of course,
and I didn't have
any trade tradability with
Chanel bed spread [LAUGHTER] Yeah.
>> Was Penfield Chanel successful?
>> Yes. Very much so. Very much so.
When I say say that, I mean, like I said,
he operated until '75 when he
sold out and retired enjoyed
a 29 year retirement office income
he made out or money he made out of it.
But again, the Chanel was
dying out and carpeting was coming in.
That's reason he sold out
because he at his age, he was 62.
He didn't want to read too because it did
require, different tacking machines.
So he would have to make
a sizable investment back into it to do that,
and he was at the time of retirement anyway.
>> How did Penfield Chanel affect the local economy?
>> By was one of the the three largest employers
of town Penfield Chanel,
Carmen Chanel, and Chalkers was
only three plants in Dashville.
It didn't have the impact that
the Peaches did at the turn of the century,
but he employed, I think, about 60 people.
>> What are some of your memories growing
up around Penfield Chanel?
>> Sleep in the damn the floors [LAUGHTER]
Well, yes, I swept floors.
I folded bed spreads, took them to the laundry.
Dad's partner was Vernon Carmen that owned Carmen Chanel.
So really, when you put the two of them together,
they were the biggest employers by far.
The laundry was out at Carmen.
So all of the spreads had to be taken transported out
there to get bleached and dyed and then of course,
dried and then brought back for
folding packaging and shipping.
And I rode I have maxed up.
He still alive. I can't believe that.
He drove the truck, the big old box truck that we carried
all those bed spreads out there.
And I really liked him.
Because he wouldn't squeal on
me for sneaking and smoking cigarettes.
[LAUGHTER]
In fact, the only thing that can remember getting
a whipping mostly sneaking, smoking cigarettes.
I'm going to smoke cigarettes,
and they were held be them and I wasn't.
That was our clash with my mother then me bad boy.
As always the black sheep in my family anyway.
But I worked in the like I said,
the shipping department when I say work, I helped in it.
I never worked, never drove a pay check out of place.
Well, I think I made some money out of it, though,
but I I did vending without a vending machine.
It was on a linear system.
I make up sandwiches and go
by Wordington wholesale grocery,
pick up candy buy the box,
and put it out and I sold
candy extension of my Kool aid stand.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Can you tell us about your father's cut buckshot?
>> Not really. [LAUGHTER] Buckshot I had already I mean,
I've I've gone I'd left
home when when Buckshot came along.
The article, I believe I gave you there
shows it 66, I believe it was.
Right there. I was on the way.
But the story behind Buckshot is a lamb
that his mother rejected.
And he and mother picked
the thing up and fed it by a bottle.
And it was like a puppy to him.
I mean, followed him around everywhere he'd go.
He took it to the office with him
Rome paper came over
and did an article and took a picture.
That that article I gave you didn't have
the picture because that's
just a anniversary 50th anniversary of it.
But he was the only mayor
in the state that took a lamb to work with him.
>> When was your father elected mayor?
>> That's a good question.
It was early '60s.
In fact, neither me nor my sister.
I called her last night to find those dates.
It had to be in the '62 '63 era for his first.
And I remember the hearing that he served eight years.
So from the early '60s to the late '60s.
Middle '60s was his term.
>> Did he ever talk about
the things he wanted to achieve
for Dashville asked the mayor?
>> Yeah. He he was very business positive.
He wanted to track.
He was a progressive in that respect.
In fact, the industrial park out
between the new one out close to 75.
He was instrumental in getting that built.
And I'm sorry, I can't give you
the people's names and so forth there.
And he wanted quality too.
That was one of the things.
I remember you know saying he didn't want just a bunch of
junk businesses in town.
And I remember him telling me about roads
and I didn't realize that at the time,
but about roads and what you saw coming in,
all the curbs and sidewalks He
said curves and sidewalks cost just as much as the roads.
If that's the reason where we don't have
curves and sidewalks everywhere.
[LAUGHTER] Roads came first.
>> How did his service as mayor
affect your life in Dashville?
>> Not a great deal.
In fact, I can't can't say anybody held it against me,
but I mean I had enough respect for him,
but I wasn't going to show my fanny unless I just
had to [LAUGHTER] around.
Like I said, I had a couple of slips
[LAUGHTER]
but recovered in both of them.
You want me to tell you the worst one?
>> Yes.
>> I can't tell you the dates on that because I was 16
and which would have been '62,
I guess that would be '63.
No, it had to be '63.
And I was driving
the family car and I had one of my buddies that,
in fact, his name is Sonny Parker.
He turned eventually or at one time
was a policeman [inaudible] way
after what I was going to tell you.
And then a buddy of mine,
we were out just riding around.
He was a basketball player and
the bus left at six o'clock to go to our town game.
So we just gave it time.
We were going down Hall Station Road.
And all of a sudden Mike Kamp
another buddy of us which wasn't but
15 years old by the way.
He comes by us in
a '57 motor mobile just to fly, trying to [inaudible].
His father owned a used car lot over on the highway.
He got this car off the car lot,
new four barrel carburetors
380 engines, da, da, da, da.
He says, come on, take a ride.
So we jumped in the car, of course.
So Sonny in the center and I'm on the side.
He floorboards that thing and I mean just burns
rubber up to the top of that hill as
we press the top of the hill,
Georgia State Patrol meets us.
And I looked around
and I see the State Patrol just
hit shoulder and just made it, it looked.
The dirt throwing up looked like
a ski from a boat on the thing.
I said, man, he's coming.
And Mike said, he'd just floorboard.
We came down Park Street,
turned right on Park Street,
came down where San Susy Club is right there.
Running two cars off the road, by the way on that.
He threw that thing into a slide to take a right,
right there go down the railroad track.
You can see where they dug up asphalt way after that.
We went down through Sander's,
hit the dirt road thinking we could shake
him off the dirt road.
Couldn't shake him.
This thing went on for 45 minutes.
It was over the radio station
and [inaudible] where they were broadcasting,
stay away from this area.
[LAUGHTER]
Stay back.
The brakes got so hot,
there was no brakes.
He would come into where we wrong turned,
he just stowed the thing and slide into it,
we'd hit the ditch on the other side of the thing.
He got it and come back and
hit on right that straightens up and we go.
Well one of the heels
there it took the back bumpers and let them out.
When we figured out we couldn't shake him
on the dirt road,
we hit over 41 coming back into town.
That's where they clocked this is over 120 miles an hour.
[inaudible] took a left.
I can't think of Chestnut Street, I believe it was.
Went back across the railroad, took a left,
went back out because
we figured if we could get to what we call Funder Road,
it's a logging road over on the mountain,
we maybe shake him there.
And this road that we're going south is
parallel with my home street,
Main Street and railroad.
[NOISE] And logging this
just holding on because whatever.
If we hit anything. There's S curve
though and [inaudible] farm is in that S curve.
Bob wire fence all along there.
I hear a bump and I look out and I see
a wheel and tire just going out,
the right front wheel tire
which sheared off the lowest turf.
The car went into
that bob wire fence and we
were shearing down poles like
picket fence because we were traveling,
I mean, we were probably hit
hitting a good 80 to 100 miles an hour.
And it just [NOISE] and they had put up
a new telephone pole and how dirt they
mound up around and the car
came up and rested on that dirt.
It been up 100 feet, I wouldn't be here today.
We didn't know that we had outrun.
So we thought that they were based on top end.
This thing was geared for top end.
We had walked off.
It took five minutes for him to come,
for the cops to get there.
And Lord, when they did,
there was more than one I tell you.
[LAUGHTER]
And the back tires were in
the ditch and the waters
in the ditch and they were so hot,
there's steam coming off of it, all that stuff.
You remember my father's also the chief
of the volunteer fire department at the time.
Well, they, the police were not kind with us.
Obviously, they were very upset.
They threw us in the back seat of that police car.
If it had been open on the other side,
I'd just gone home through.
[LAUGHTER]
We're sitting there in
the backside and I look up,
here comes that green Chevy pickup truck
across railroad tracks, my father.
He comes up. He'd come home from work
and heard commotion and saw the steam
and all this stuff and he come check out the tire.
And I'll never forget him.
He parks and he just nonchalant like da,
da, da, da what's going on and everything.
And there's a police chief goes over,
whispers up to him.
And a [LAUGHTER] look come on his face.
He turned and looked down.
[LAUGHTER]
[inaudible] and he turns out like,
oh, well. That was not the best time in my life.
But it worked me.
I was just aiding in the [inaudible].
[LAUGHTER]
That's what they charged me
and Sonny Parker anyway.
We had to write I forgotten, I think,
it's a 1,000 word thing on
the dangers of riding with an unlicensed driver.
How far in the jail house would
you be today if you did something like that?
[LAUGHTER]
Of course, no.
Mike had to do the same,
but his daddy got
really fined for letting him have that car.
Oh, well.
>> What are your memories as
a child or young adult of the Depot?
>> Going watching the freight [LAUGHTER] believe that.
Well, I actually rode one of
the passenger trains to Atlanta.
But I'm going to tell you I was so young at the thing,
I just barely remember.
I know you asked about segregation. I don't remember.
And I asked my sister,
she doesn't remember any segregating
waiting room there either.
It could have been there but I don't know.
She remembered it was $3 to go to Atlanta though.
That was big money back in those days.
Big money back those days.
>> Your father is credited for saving
the Depot from demolition, how did that happen?
>> Well, when the railroad
abandoned the Depot and that wasn't stages.
They stopped the passenger
train business back in the '50s,
but it still stayed as a freight depot up,
gosh, had to be into the '60s, maybe '70s.
I'm not sure. No, it had to be in the '60s.
Anyway, Dad heard that they were going, of course,.
He shipped out a lot of the bed spreads out of that
so that when they advised him of that, he asked, well,
if they would lease it to him for use for warehouse
and space for storage of his raw materials, which he did.
Then as I said,
he sold out the plant,
but before he did that
he and my mother had been dabbling in antiques.
My sister and I called it the junk,
to go to the auction and bring home all this junk.
I remember Chip n Dale said they brought home in pieces.
And we just thought it was a junk.
And then later I found out what junk would work.
But anyway, when he retired,
he sold out the plant and retired,
he and mother used the plant or
the depot for storage of all their antiques.
And they opened up
a little antique shop called the General Antique Shop.
I don't believe they had regular hours.
You have to know when they move
to do but they would open it up
for like the festival this past weekend
or it was in special occasions.
And they ran that until I'm not sure
when they actually turned it over to
the city which turned it into a museum, of course.
But when their health started failing,
which would been 20 years ago, I guess, roughly.
Mother passed away in '02 and dad in '03.
So I'd say about 20 years ago is when they dated it over.
When I say dated it over,
it was one of these 99-year leases for,
I think it was $100 a year.
I'm not sure about that,
wasn't much money involved [inaudible]
>> What was the town's reaction to the depot being saved?
>> Nobody cared back
in those days about something like this.
It's like here in Canton.
The one in Canton was at the same time,
and it was just tore down, called off,
gone, but little towns like Adairsville
here in Holly Springs,
they turned this one into a really nice, little place.
So at the time, ma'am,
I assume you're asking
the question about the time when they
did that, nobody cared.
What was they going to do with it?
Didn't have the vision, but my dad did.
By the way, there's one story.
Go ahead and finish with for this.
>> You go ahead.
>> No. About the bell?
>> Go ahead. Talk talk about the bell.
>> When dad was building the plant,
it was located on city property he
bought where the old courthouse
and their maintenance shit was.
In fact, old courthouse that's over now,
and straight that was where dad's office is right now.
That front part of Penfield Chanel,
that's where that building was.
They moved it over there to save it.
The old maintenance shit,
which was behind it,
they didn't save it because there was nothing to save,
but that's where all the water works
and city maintenance kept all their stuff.
Well, they started cleaning that out and moving
it and there was a 32-inch bell.
It was the original fire bell over there.
And because dad was
the chief of the volunteer fire department,
they said, well, Bill, why don't you take the bell?
And he said, I will.
So he took that bell,
had it moved to our backyard.
I hated that bell growing up.
And the reason being that's
what my mother called me with.
So when me and my buddies
was out when we wasn't supposed to be,
they had the convenience
of telling their mother, we were out.
I didn't hear you because [inaudible].
I didn't have that privilege because you can hear
that damn bell all over town.
The school house, over in the lumber yard, whatever.
Well, as I said about 20 years ago now
mother and dad was preparing
and said we've got our wheel,
but if there's anything you kids
want specifically, put your name on.
I said, I got to have the bell.
So dad said, well,
I know that you're going to put it in your garden,
which I've got garden behind the house.
He said, I want you to take it now,
so I can see what you're going
to do with it before I die.
So there's a picture of it over there in the article
that basically that I've just told
you about the bell and the garden,
and named the garden the bell, after it.
>> So you were recently able to explore Bogle's corner?
What is that?
>> Bogle's corner. That's the corner building
, Gilmore and O41.
The old timers called it Bullneck.
Why did they call it hat?
Got bullneck out of that area right there, I don't now.
Ms. Bogle had a dress shop there.
She was the only dress shop in town
from my sister's recollection,
up until Ms. Keig [phonetic] put one in in the 50s,
but Ms. Bogle had
the dress shop and had a living quarters upstairs.
And her and her son lived there and her son
was grown. I forget.
He died in I believe '92,
but anyway, he was much
older than me. He was a grown man.
Anyway, they were the only merchants up there
that had their business and
their living quarters upstairs.
And it was always fascinating go by there at night and
see the lights on and you want say,
what kind of living quarters up there they got
a penthouse or whatever, you know how it's like.
It was always I'm wondering there as a child.
Well, when Ms. Bogle died about 40 years ago now,
Bella, her son moved away,
I have since found out over to Ranger,
Georgia, and lived out of his life,
but anyway, they just boarded up that place,
didn't take hardly anything out of it.
And it sat there for the last 40 years.
And my nephew, Chuck Shropshire, was able,
about a year ago,
to run down the [inaudible] and buy it.
And he asked, what they wanted to take with him.
I said, just his military uniforms
and left everything else there.
That's where I went in with my camera
and it was like walking into a time capsule.
I remember, as a little kid,
my sister taking me because that's
taboo a young boy going into a dress shop,
but she dragged me in.
And I remember the display case. It's still there.
The old dress dressing booth is there.
All kinds of the books
where she'd buy stuff what
she paid for it, there's that and the other.
There's a lot of interesting thing.
Well, if you look
at the pictures of that [inaudible] thing,
it's that time a nice little apartment up there.
And that's, of course, ran
down not at just today's standards.
Nice, sharp, little place.
Bella himself was a photographer,
by the way, as we're on this.
And I went through photographs of his,
got some interesting pictures.
Most of them were
portraits and there was a few gun shots.
[inaudible].
>> But they would be rated G now.
And he had some eight and 16 millimeter films.
I took some of these eights and had them digitized.
He was a lot better
still photographer than he was a motion photographer.
The only one that was of of any interest was
a film station fire.
And I put it on, and in fact,
it's on my group.
And best anybody can
figure out it wasn't in Adairsville,
we think it was on
O41 Highway in Acworth, and really interesting.
The other one was his vacation pictures
in Silver Spring, Florida.
And one of them was just a video in a funeral.
Now, that's still shot fine,
but not just taking a picture of a casket back and forth.
All I can say, but Bogle's was a unique little place.
>> What does your nephew plan to do with it?
He wants to develop it,
but I really can't say because he's bought
the building next to it and
he's negotiating for the two buildings next to those two.
He's trying to buy that whole block,
I think, based on what he's told me,
and do shops and so forth, and so on,
but he's still out to
lunch really on what to do with them,
but it's in good hands anyway.
It's not going to go away.
>> How did your family's involvement
in the shaping of the city of
Adairsville in the recent past
affect you and your career?
>> Really, the only thing
that affected my career is I got out of the little town.
When you're growing up in Mayberry,
the only opportunity there
would have been to go to work with
my dad at the mill plant,
and I wasn't about to do that, be a lint head.
When I'm saying lint head,
when you worked with all that lint
and the women who worked in there,
at the end of the work day, they were white headed.
As they clocked out,
they'd get the old blow gun to blow out all the lint.
So I had to get out and
get to Atlanta as fast
as I can because that was promised land.
Went to Southern Tech,
Southern Poly now,
for a couple of years.
>> KSU now?
>> Yeah. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Excuse me.
I can't keep up with everything,
can't keep up with players with that scorecard.
We found that my talent was in
sales and went from insurance,
some securities to just
tripped into industrial supply business.
And February '74,
got my first line represented
for Hoffman Diamond Products
and the rest of it is history,
been in the business ever since.
Incorporated [inaudible] in '78.
So we're almost 40 years old.
And I ain't got sense enough to
lay it down. Still enjoy it.
>> So when did you leave Adairsville?
>> I left back when I left to Southern Tech in '64.
No, I went back for a short period of time,
probably '65, and left again in '66.
>> How long until you visit?
>> Well, I still got four rental houses up there,
so I have to get up there pretty often.
>> What do you think makes Adairsville unique?
>> What makes it unique? The lineage,
I don't know how to determine.
It's just a halfway point
between Atlanta and Chattanooga,
the jumping off spot,
but what made it unique to me was just,
I hate to come back to this Mayberry thing,
but it was like family.
It was almost like the whole town was one big family,
and that was unique to me.
That just don't happen. like my wife, well,
she grew up where she was born Cornelia, Georgia,
but they, at an early age moved to Atlanta,
and so she was a city girl in a way.
And she really looked at
my background and where I came up
and all the people that were neighbors,
that were involved with us,
and she never had that.
You know so I don't know if I'm answering that question.
That's a hard one to really pinpoint.
There's so many different points
of the thing to look back on it.
I don't know. Sorry, I'm out of words.
>> I think you described it
beautifully. You be honest out there.
>> So you mentioned it a few times that you manage
a Facebook page devoted to
the history and heritage of Adairsville.
How did you get started with that?
>> Going through it, my sister
didn't have space for all the stuff after
we divested all the goods from our inheritance,
all the pictures and so forth.
So I've got them back here in our warehouse.
So I started going through all these pictures.
Most of them are of people.
And that's something that, of course,
nowadays digital stuff is easy to
[inaudible] to identify people.
I'll get it out here, but back in those days,
they didn't write down who these people were.
You just got all the damn people and
the people that know who they are already dead.
That's bad, but anyway,
in an envelope set was negatives, 1949.
Most of the pictures that I gave
you were from those negatives.
I put them on my scanner,
scanned the things in.
And they were the houses
and buildings in Adairsville at that time.
The new 41 Highway had just opened up.
Well, it actually, I believe,
opened officially in 1950.
So '49 those service stations
were out there were brand new,
just being built out there.
Anyway, I asked my sister about it,
and she said that what the garden club,
at that time, did a push to beautify
the town and mother was involved with that.
And that's the reason some of
the pictures there will show
a house before and house
after they renovated it or cleaned it up.
So anyway, I was fascinated with that.
I said, how many other pictures
are they out there like that?
So I created that group in hopes that
other people would do the same as me,
dig through mother and dad's,
and grandmother and dad's pictures and post them.
There have been some, there's no question about that,
but not near as many as I thought.
There's over 1,000 in that group now,
but I was able to, like,
the Terrell swimming pool,
ran him down and got that to see that video,
and that video had to be around 1949.
So did I answer that question?
Before you, trying to
get more what y'all are doing right now,
but y'all need to have done is do
this about 20 years ago when
the real people were still alive.
>> And tell me about your family, your wife.
>> My wife, Linda Joy Penfield.
She's Joy and for me.
And my daughter is Samantha Penfield.
My wife, I'd say,
we're both North Georgia Hillbillies.
She was just born on
the opposite side of the ridge as me being Cornelian,
and we just followed the ridge
down to Atlanta where we met.
We've been working our way
back to the mountains ever since.
We raised Samantha and Dunway in Sandy Springs.
And then when she got out of school,
we bought the house up here 24 years ago,
and built this building 20 years ago.
Been here living in the dream.
>> That's all I have. Thank you.
>> Well, thank you. I hope offered some help.
Again, I saw Carl Han was
one of your other people, and Mr. King.
They're a little older than me,
so they can give a lot more in depth,
I guess, than I can,
but maybe some of this stuff would be helpful.