>> We are rolling.
>> So this is an interview for
the Kennesaw State University archives
of Linda Bass conducted on October 8th,
2018 by Ali Connell and Page Gneiss.
So did you grow up in Adairsville?
>> Well, that's an unusual question that I ask.
When you think of growing up,
you usually think of where you spent your childhood.
Well, I spent my childhood,
most of it in Carrollton,
Georgia, just down the road.
But I guess I really grew up
here because when I moved here,
even after I had graduated from college,
I wasn't at 20 years old.
And I had lived at home when I went to
college because West Georgia was at the top of my street.
So I just walked school every day,
went through three years straight.
And so I was always and I lived at home,
so I still had my parents there.
So here I was thrown into
a situation 20 years old
and I moved into a new community.
And I actually have grown up,
I think here because I
have learned a lot about life and about this community.
So I guess you could say I did grow up here,
at least I have split my entire adulthood here.
>> And why did you choose to move here?
>> The day I graduated from West Georgia,
I found out from my future
father-in-law that the French teacher
here at Adairsville High was leaving,
and so they had an opening
in French, and that was my major.
So I came up and interviewed,
I think it was two days after graduation,
I interviewed and Mr. Lacey who is
the founder of the Great Automotive
was the principal who interviewed me for the job.
So I came here to teach French at the high school.
>> Did you meet your husband here?
>> No. We actually met in
West Georgia when we were seniors
and this is where he grew up or spent his teen years,
from the time he was a teenager, he lived here.
So this is where he was from,
and it just what happened that
there was a first job available.
So we dated our senior year
in college and then the first year of teaching.
>> And did your children grow up here?
>> Yes. I have one daughter and she grew up here.
She grew up in the house that we still live in.
>> And were there any prominent people that
made an impact on you when you first moved here?
>> I'm trying to think.
Well, other than the people associated with the school,
at that time, my life pretty much
revolved around the school and the people here.
Of course, as I said, Mr. Lacey was the principal.
He's the one that hired me.
And I've met a lot of
people that first year that I
taught that are still dear friends to me.
And so really, that's about
the only people that I can think
of right now because being a new teacher,
I spent a lot of time after
school hours preparing for school the next day,
so I didn't get a whole lot of chance to have much of
a social life for a year or
two until I got things going at school.
>> So when you weren't at the school,
were there any places that you hang on
or hang around a
lot when you first moved here [inaudible]?
>> There wasn't a whole lot of
places to hang around in Adairsville.
Now that we're talking about 50 years ago.
I moved here in August of 1968.
At that time, most all of the Adairsville as forest.
Business was right here across the railroad track,
what we now call the historic downtown.
There was a dairy king,
and there was a little cafe right
behind the downtown called the Little Rock Cafe.
That was about the only place to eat in the Adairsville.
And so I hang out in my mobile home most of the time.
Because there wasn't a whole lot
else to do in Adairsville.
Well, now, we would go to
Rome to the movies and places like that to shop,
Calhoun, Cartersville,
but there wasn't much in Adairsville at that time.
And like I said, I didn't have a whole lot of
extra time because my first couple of years of teaching,
I had to do a lot of preparation especially for
my English classes because there was a lot of
stuff to read in literature and things like that,
and I had to know more than the
students did the next day.
So I spent a lot of time at
home preparing for my lessons and on.
>> So how has the Adairsville
changed over time, would you say?
>> Well, it has grown.
I tell people when I first moved here,
if I wanted to buy a birthday card
or even wrapping paper and a book,
I would have to go to
either Calhoun, Cartersville or Rome.
There was nowhere in Adairsville. I take that back.
There was a five and 10 cent store
here that probably sold those things,
but I'm not sure how long they've been on the shelf.
We just didn't have a lot of places to buy things.
We had one grocery store that
the S&H supermarket and then there was not
much on Highway 41 at that time had very little on it
except a couple of little small motels
and gas stations and car dealerships.
So there really wasn't a whole lot to do here
for young people and there's still not a lot,
but at least there are places to eat and places to shop
now without having to go and I can buy
my birthday cards and
wrapping paper in the Adairsville now.
>> So what did you enjoy the most when
you first moved here, about Adairsville?
>> I've never been lived in a community quite small.
Calhoun is not a big town but compared
to to Adairsville it is more like Cartersville.
So I like the idea that it was
a small town that everybody in school knew each other,
and most everybody in the community knew each other.
And it was a safe place,
I think that's the best way to say.
I never have felt afraid since I've lived here.
I've always felt safe and secure in,
and I think that's one of the best things about it.
>> Was there anything that you weren't too fond
of when you came here or was a hard thing to adjust to?
>> I guess the only thing was the fact
that if you wanted to
buy clothes and shoes and anything like that,
you did have to go out of town because there
weren't the places here.
I think years before,
like maybe in the early 60s,
late 50s when the town
was more bustling with the downtown,
there were places to buy clothes and things.
But that was the main thing I think
that has changed and that I missed the most.
>> So you mentioned were a teacher.
When did you decide that you wanted to be a teacher?
>> I think it was in my blood.
My daddy was a high school teacher, coach.
There were eight kids in his family growing up,
seven of them were teachers.
And so like I said, I think it was in my blood.
Well, when I was in the ninth grade,
I wanted to be an errand stewardess
but I was 5''10' and back then,
they had limits, I think as to how tall you can be.
So that was just one of those dream jobs I wanted to be
but then I came down to reality and I just
felt that teaching was what I was going to do.
It was what I was born to do.
And I never thought about teaching elementary school.
I guess because my daddy was a high school teacher,
and I was always around
more high school students because of going to
sports practice with him when I wasn't playing
and games and just things like that,
I didn't think when I went to
college about elementary education.
I wanted to major in a course and then
get my secondary education to go along with that.
So when I first started college, I thought, well,
I'll major in math because I
did pretty good in math in high school.
Well, I took one math class,
that changed my mind then I thought history.
I like history and I had made
good in my first history class at West Georgia.
And the history professor that I had
was married to the French professor that I had.
So when I started taking French,
which I had already taken in high school
and continued it in college,
Madam Alsip told me,
she said, you need to major in
French history is too boring.
And so anyway, here I am,
I majored in French and I
was lucky enough that I was able to
use my major for 35 years of teaching.
>> So besides the teachers that were in your family,
were there any other teachers growing up
that inspired you to become a teacher?
>> Yes, I had some pretty good teachers and
my French professor at West Georgia.
She was a little feisty lady,
very petite, she'd sit
on her desk with her legs crossed, of course,
the boys in the room they took French,
whether they wanted to learn it or not,
I think just to be in her class but I thought,
it'd be neat to teach French because it's something fun.
I know some of my students probably didn't
think it was a lot of fun but I
tried to make French as much fun as I could.
And I think,
of course, she kind of influenced me.
In high school at Carleton High,
I had a social studies teacher that everybody loved.
He could have been a stand-up
comic probably had he not become a teacher.
He was, I think, very influential
in the fact that he made class interesting and fun.
So there were teachers that I had
up through the years that were influential,
but I think there was something in
my genes about being a teacher.
>> And when you came to Adairsville,
which of the Adairsville schools did you teach at?
>> Well, there was only one.
When I came, where
the new Adairsville Elementary School is now
located was Adairsville schools.
Grades 1-12 were all on the same campus.
Now, there were several different
buildings on the campus,
but we were all grades 1-12.
Our school was small enough to have
one campus for all the schools,
which now we have a high school, a middle school,
an elementary school just in Adairsville and we have
two more elementary schools that are
feeder schools to Adairsville.
So we definitely have grown a lot over the years.
But yeah, I think when I actually came here,
I would tell people I teach at
Adairsville High but the sign
said Adairsville School because it
was just one school grades 1-12.
>> So you taught primarily high school grades like 9-12?
>> Yes. Well, I have taught as
low as seventh grade and as high as
12th grade because my certification
for French and English.
I went back two summers after I
graduated and after I started teaching my first year,
I went back two summers at
West Georgia to get certified in English.
So my English certification is grade 7-12 as well.
>> So you taught French and English?
>> Yes.
>> Did you teach any other classes?
>> Well, I had the yearbook for several years.
At first, your book was just extracurricular activity,
but then later on they put it into the curriculum.
And so I had yearbook and newspaper,
so I guess you could call it journalism.
And so that's pretty much it as far as teaching classes.
>> Did you oversee any of the clubs or organizations?
>> Yes. Over the years that I taught,
I was the one that played coach for several years then,
of course, I was the advisor to
the yearbook and the newspaper.
I also at one time coached
the academic bowl team and I was the coach,
I guess you would call it for the Mock trial team.
I'm not really sure how I ended up with that.
It should have gone to a social studies teacher,
but I ended up with
Mock trial and did that for several years.
Now, not all of these were going on at the same time.
This was over a 34-year spread at Adairsville.
And let's see what else?
I think that pretty much is
the extracurricular activities that I was involved in.
>> Were there any classes in
a whole or just individual students
that stood out to you over the years?
>> Yeah. There have been several.
I won't call any names because I'm sure I'd
leave out someone but yes,
there are numerous students that
make teaching enjoyable, and also,
at the time, they may not tell you
what influence you had on them or
what effect you had on them but later in life,
they sometimes will tell you that
what impact that I might have had on their lives.
And so there are some
that probably have done the same for me
that I was influenced by them as well,
by the way they acted, I guess,
or enjoyed or didn't enjoy my class.
So I really don't want to name names,
but there were quite a few over the years that I would
say would be special,
you might remember better than other students.
>> Have you kept in touch with any of them?
>> Well, Facebook has helped, but no,
there's not anybody that I just sit and call or
calls me or write letters to, of course,
people don't write letters anymore but no,
nobody that I correspond with on a regular basis,
but do see on Facebook and hear from on Facebook.
>> So what were some of the challenges you
faced when you first started
teaching here at Adairsville?
>> Well, first, of course,
being a 20-year-old and having kids in
high school almost as old as you
were was quite a challenge.
Of course, I had to establish some kind of
discipline and then I had to,
of course, like I said,
I had to at least pretend I knew more than students did,
so I had to do a lot of preparation for those classes.
So that was a hardship to begin with
because I had nothing to go by.
I had to establish my own teaching techniques
and keep up with
all my things that I used in class and then,
of course, after several years when
I had taught just about every grade level
of English I had notebooks for English lit,
World lit, and American
lit and so it made it a lot easier,
but those first few years just getting established as
a teacher and being able to establish some behavior,
system in the class were quite challenging.
>> Do you think any of the challenges
you had were specific to
Adairsville just from being in this community?
>> Well, I think a lot might have had to do with
the socioeconomic level of the community,
a little bit different than
the socioeconomic community that I had come from.
And a lot of students here just were never exposed to
certain things that you might have been exposed to
like I was exposed to growing up.
My mother was originally from England
so when I was six years old and 11 years old,
we went to England to visit my relatives for the summer,
maybe not the whole summer so at an early age,
I had gone overseas and for a lot of kids here,
they might not have ever gotten out of Georgia but in
the 34 years that I
taught at Adairsville and then
I also taught one year at CAS,
I took students groups to Europe, eight different times.
My first group was in 1977,
and my last group was in 1998.
We went every 2,3,4 years, it just depended.
And for them, that was really an eye-opener.
I was able to show
them something that they might not have ever seen
before and you can
tell students things about French culture,
French food, French life
but until they see it themselves,
it doesn't really soak in.
So I think I had
an advantage in that I had been to places and done
things that a lot of
students here might not have ever done
and then hopefully I allowed some of them
to get out of
their comfort zone and
to explore a little bit of the world.
And I'm not sure if I answered your question,
exactly the question that you asked.
>> So what has changed about
the education system since you
first started until you retired?
>> Well,
they say now that it's a lot
harder to be a teacher than it
used to be and it was pretty hard back then.
But now the overall education system has changed.
There's so much outer influences
coming in and there's so much to do about
the standardized tests and
test scores and certain ways of
teaching that that part
has changed, I'm sure considerably.
Of course, I've been out of
teaching now for several years,
so I'm sure they have
a lot more teaching techniques
out there now than there used to be.
Of course, one of the big things was technology.
When I first started teaching,
we had manual typewriters.
Of course, there were electric typewriters,
but I had a little manual typewriter that
I typed on and when I wanted to type up a test,
I had to take this paper,
which we call mimeograph paper.
You put it in the typewriter and you type
and one sheet had this purple back on it.
You ran that through
a mimeograph machine to make copies of tests.
Now, I never took typing in high school,
but I got where I could type pretty
fast with my index fingers,
but I wasn't always very accurate.
So if I made a typo,
I had to exit out and then continue on.
And so after computers came on the scene,
making out tests got to be a lot neater
for me because I could make corrections.
But I think the technology,
definitely technology changed from 1968 to the present.
And of course, nowadays,
they do so much on computers.
But that's I think the big challenge and
the big change was in the technology and how
we're able to incorporate
the technology or how they are able to
incorporate technology today in teaching and learning.
>> And did you become close with
any other teachers in Adair as well?
>> Oh, yes. I'm very close to
one particular teacher and we go to Florida every year,
have a little girls' trip out,
and my daughter and
her youngest daughters are best friends.
And so I'm very close to
one particular teacher and then still
close to several others as well.
>> And when exactly did you retire from teaching?
>> Well, formerly,
I retired in 1998.
That was my 30th year.
And I retired then.
I stayed out a year,
and then I went back and taught
four more years at Adair's for part-time.
They allowed retired teachers to
come back and teach half a day.
I could draw my retirement and then I would
draw a [inaudible] from the county.
And then I stopped again and then was out a year
before Casi called me about
coming down there and teaching French classes.
So I taught down there one year.
So I've been out of the classroom now for 13 years,
but I've been officially retired for 20.
Been drawing teacher retirement for 20 years?
>> You said your daughter attended school?
>> Yes.
>> Did she have any unique experiences that you know of?
What was her experience like with you
teaching in the high school and her being in it?
>> Probably like it was with my daddy being in
the high school and me being a student.
I had my daddy for two years of algebra.
My daughter had me for two years of French.
And I just treated
her like my daddy treated me just as one of the students.
Of course, she could sometimes get
a little extra help maybe at
home if she had a question
about something she didn't understand in French.
I was right there to help her.
But I never let her
see any test or anything like that ahead of time,
which my daddy never let me see either.
And I think other than that,
I think her experience was just like any other students.
But she got a fairly good education from
Adair school and she went to
Barry College and graduated from Barry,
then got her master's degree from Barry
and she now has her six-year degree,
but that's from another institution.
>> So you mentioned that you got back
and taught a little bit after retiring.
>> Yes.
>> What else have you been up to since retiring?
>> Let's hold on and see if this train gets by.
>> Yeah, it's going through. It must
still think we've got the festival going on.
It's going through slow. Oh, it's just two engines.
>> And a noisy one?
>> We have so many crossings so close
together that is below the point.
>> It doesn't seem that loud in your ear,
but it's incredibly loud on
the recording because it'll drown out voices.
>> You asked me about what I've done.
Well, when I was teaching, like I said,
I spent so much time with preparation
for classes and extracurricular activities.
I didn't really have a chance to do
anything civic-wise or community-wise.
But when I first retired in '98,
I joined the Sans Souci Women's Club at that point.
In those 20 years,
I have served as the president of
that club five different times.
Then for three years,
I was a member of
the Adairsville representative of
the library board for the Bartow County Library System.
And then for six years, well,
probably eight years I was on
the Downtown Development Authority and I served
as the chairperson of that for six years.
And then most recently,
I was on the Historic Preservation Commission.
I was on that for four years and my term
just ended in September on that.
So right now, I'm not really
in anything except the Sans Souci Women's Club,
and then I am a member of
the Bartow County Retired Educators Association.
And spend a lot of time going to club meetings.
>> And what makes you want to join San Susie?
>> I guess it was just when I got invited,
someone that was a member invited
me and I've been by here,
ridden by here, for many years going to school.
And I had come to one of the meetings years before and
made a presentation of one of
my trips to Europe I had done a slide show.
And so that was the their program one time.
So I had come here as
a program and had been invited to join,
but didn't at that time,
because I was busy with
everything else related to school.
And then so I just decided I might enjoy it so I joined.
>> And why did you decide to stay so active in
the community after you retired?
>> I don't know. I think I was too
young to just do nothing.
When I first retired, I was
50 years old and my husband was still teaching.
He taught until 2005.
So he taught for 37 years where I retired with 30.
And I guess I just wanted something to do
and the first year I retired,
I worked at the little local newspaper office.
We don't have one anymore here at Air school,
but we did at that time,
and I worked at the local newspaper office for
a year since I had that background in journalism.
And so I just enjoyed being involved in the community.
>> Linda, could you tell us a little bit
about the San Susie Women's Club,
a little bit about the history and
what they do now in the community,
it's role in the community?
>> Well, the San Susie Women's Club was formed in 1914.
And it was basically a social club for
a group of little ladies whose husbands were out working.
And they just wanted to get together and play cards,
maybe have lunch or have
tea or have something refreshments.
So they they established the San Susie Women's Club.
The name San Susie is actually French,
and it means without care.
And that's that's what they wanted
a carefree life to play
rook and I don't know if they ever played Bridge,
but I know they played rook.
And so that was how it was formed.
But then over the years,
it evolved from a social club to a service club.
At some point and I'm not really sure when
the library actually was in
this building when it first
started being in this building,
but for many years,
this was the Adairsville well,
it was the San Susie library.
It was the CD of Adairsville library,
but it was run by the San Susie Women's Club.
And I assume the librarian and
the assistant librarian were
members of the of the San Susie.
When my daughter was growing up,
when she was in elementary school and middle school,
this was where we came to get the books, summer reading.
So it evolved and how it became a library,
at some point and this I don't know if this
was sometime between World War I and World War II.
The San Susie Women's Club got involved
with this lending library program,
which was I guess the bookmobile
was a later development of the lending library,
but communities especially small communities would have
access to library books through a lending library.
So it started out as a lending library and then
grew into a city public library.
So for many years,
up until 1994,
this was the public library,
but I'm not sure at what
year it became the public library.
Then after the library moved out,
we still support the library.
We give them a donation every year and we help
out in any way that they might need us to help out.
And then back I'm not sure
what year we started with
the Depot volunteering at the Depot,
but our big money maker and our big community service
is being docents for
the City of Adairsville at the Depot Museum.
And we also give out a scholarship
every year to an Adairsville senior.
We've done that now for 24 years,
maybe 24 or 25 somewhere in there.
And I'm trying to think what else.
But anyway, that's what the line
what it started out as a social club,
but then it soon became a service club and that's pretty
much we still get together once a month and socialize.
We don't play cards,
but we get together and have dinner and
bring pot look dinner
and have programs and so forth and of course,
we still make contributions
to different programs in the community.
>> Are a lot of the members of
the San Susie former educators?
>> We have a few that are,
but not that it's not
really that much connected to the schools.
Now we have for several years,
we had a pretty good number of members.
We had 50 members,
but some of those have died out, moved away.
Now we're getting some younger women in,
but they are still young enough to work.
And so we've got a nice little page of members.
I'm not sure how old our oldest one is,
middle 80s maybe and our youngest might
be early 40s, I guess.
>> And do you guys primarily help
with education programs or
do you help we do we do the backpack buddies program,
and we of course, a scholarship.
And last year or year before last,
we actually gave the five schools
that are associated with the Ads community.
We gave each of them a donation of
$1,000 the summer before the school year started to buy,
to use for purchasing whatever they thought would
be appropriate to have at their school.
We didn't do this the past year,
but we may do that again sometime in the future.
So we still support the schools,
we still support the library and of course,
we support the community or
the city of Adairsville as well through the depot.
>> So the depot,
the city basically pays,
makes a contribution to the club
and then the members staff,
the depot so you were the docent.
They they decided that would be cheaper
than to pay for a full time curator.
We worked up a contract.
This is either our fourth or fifth year to do this.
And yes, they pay us so much a month and we man the DP.
>> And then you used the money
from that to help pay for the scholarship.
Tell a little bit about the scholarship.
>> Well, when we first started out with the scholarship,
we wanted to give it to someone
who was going into library science.
But then that fizzled out after a little while
because there are not a lot of people going
into library science anymore.
And then we said, well,
we would give it to someone going into
education and we did that for a while.
But now we don't really have a
specific I know one time we
gave it to a young lady that went into nursing.
So we just we have sometime in January or early February,
we take applications to
the high school and
the counselors will give out the applications
to interested students and then we might
have as 20 something applicants,
so we may have I think last year,
we did not have many eight or nine applicants is all.
And we have a committee that will read each
one and score them and
then decide which person we think is the best one.
>> So it's a competitive process.
And then the students basically that can take this census
Women's Club scholarship and go
wherever they want to Yes, to go. Yes, sir.
>> Yes. And when we first gave it out for many years,
when we gave it out,
it was just an initial scholarship.
I think we when we started out,
it may have just been $500 because before
we did the contract with the city for the depot,
we had a hard time earning
money bake sales and that thing.
The money didn't go very far.
But now that we have a nice little income,
we're able to not only give
the $1,000 initial scholarship,
but we also have what we call a recurring scholarship,
and we will give that particular recipient $500 each of
the next three years if they maintain
a certain average and apply.
They send an application and
send in a transcript of their grades
and a little biography
or a little update on what they're doing.
So our first I think it was our 2000.
Well, this year at the beginning of this,
school year is the fourth payment we've
made to the first time
we started the recurring scholarship.
So we've had one now that has
gotten $2,500 from us over a four year period.
>> Do any of those scholarship recipients
ever come back to Adairsville to live?
Trying to remember.
>> Well, I know the $1,000 ones, yes,
a lot of those have come back to Adairsville to live.
As far as the recurring scholarship,
we'll have to see because like I said,
this year is our first one you
go through four years with the scholarship.
We'll see what she's going to do.
But yes, we have a lot.
The nurse that I mentioned,
she's back in Adairsville but the last time I heard,
she was actually at the hospital in Carrollton.
>> That's the hall.
>> Unless she's changed.
But yes, a lot of our recipients are still in the area.
>> And is the scholarship given primarily to women?
>> Not necessarily. We have had some guys.
No, you don't have to be a female just to have it.
I don't know if guys brag about being
the recipient of San Souci Women Scholarship,
but we have had some male recipients.
But most of the time,
for some reason, it is female.
>> I have a question for you, Linda about,
so you came here in 1968, it's post segregation.
>> Yes.
>> Tell us a little bit about that the schools were
fairly newly integrated maybe three years or something?
>> And not even that much. When I
graduated from high school in '65,
we were still segregated.
When I went to West Georgia, of course,
it was integrated, but
very few African American students.
I think it was in maybe the '66,
'67 school year maybe they did a
little or maybe it was the '67, '68 school year.
I know I've talked to a couple of
former students at Adairsville who are
caretakers of the church
across the street from our house,
which is African American Episcopalian Church.
And they were among the first volunteers to come.
The year before total integration,
they did a little volunteer.
They asked for so many volunteers
to go to Adairsville and
so many volunteers to go to Casfll because at that time,
they were just the two county high schools.
And of course, prior to that time,
the African American students had to be
bused to schools in Cartersville.
So they did the volunteer thing and that
might have been just the year before I came,
the '67, '68 school year because when I came in '68,
it was fully integrated.
And everything went very smoothly.
We've had a lot of
good race relations here in Adairsville.
No major problems at all,
and it's been a very pleasant experience.
>> Did segregation have any impact when you
first started teaching in
the schools since it had just occurred?
>> No. Not really. It was the way things
were and we had to accept it
and not that it was something you didn't want to accept,
but I think the students were more frightened than
the teachers were by any means because this
was a life changing occurrence for them.
But everything seemed to go very smoothly.
I think a lot of them had to test
us to see how we felt about the situation,
but it didn't take them long to see that well
she accepts us for what we are. I would be fair.
>> Were there very many African
American teachers in school?
>> When I came Mary Carruthers,
who I think you've already interviewed last year,
she came the same year I came and Joan Curtis,
who was a science teacher came.
There might have been a few in
the elementary, I can't remember.
Even though we were all on one campus,
they did their thing and we did
our thing in different buildings.
But we had two high school teachers.
And when I say we were all on one campus,
when I came to Adairsville,
the buildings consisted of the two story high school,
which they call the high school building
that had been built in 1967.
So it was just a year old,
but it did not look new.
It was not like today's new schools and
then there was another building on
campus that had been built in 1957.
There was a little complex of buildings that was where
the front door was and it had a wing that came out.
That complex was built in early 1920s,
and then there was a tall two almost three story building
that was built in 1901.
So those buildings were still on campus when I came.
And I had just graduated from
a new high school three years
before and come into an old school situation,
but it wasn't bad, of course,
I was in the new one year old building.
So everything was new for me
and I'm not really
sure why I got off on
that when we were talking about integration?
>> No, but that was tangent though.
I actually had a note here,
but tell us about the buildings on the school campus.
>> I just did, but then there was also
beside those main big buildings,
there was several wooden structures,
and I don't even remember
going in those wooden structures.
I don't know why, but the band room
was like in a wooden structure.
They had a cannery building because
the head teacher in the summers
would let people come in
from the community and they would
can their vegetables and so they had a cannery,
and we had, of course, the shop building.
Those were all in wooden structures on the campus.
There was also a little cement concrete building
that sat in front of
the newest part of the school that from what I
understand was the Homemake Department
before it was moved into the new building.
And I think the year I came,
that little cement building
was the field house for the football team.
Our football field ran east and west
at that time rather than north
and south as it was when we had new building.
When the old buildings were torn
down and new buildings were built up,
they changed the football field and we got a nice,
wonderful stadium, but you wouldn't
call the football field in 1968 a stadium.
It had the home stands,
I don't even know if it had as many as 10 rows,
but the press box was this wooden structure
that sat up on tall posts,
and the visitor section across the way was probably went
from the 40 yard line
here and must have had maybe three rows of seats.
It was not anything fancy by any means.
But strange enough, we
won many football games on that football field.
But yeah, that's what the old school was like.
And during the school year,
they started demolishing some of
those old buildings to start building new buildings.
Before they tore that building
down to build a new elementary school,
it consisted of the 1957 building,
the 1967 building and then in
between those two was a section that
had been built in 1976 and
another section that had been finished in 1977.
>> What was the population
of Adairsville when you moved here?
>> Probably not even half of what it is now.
Now it's close to 5,000.
So if it was even 2000,
that was probably a big guess.
I think there were maybe 250 students in high school.
>> Do you remember when I-75 was completed?
>> Yes.
>> Exactly you moved here?
>> After I moved here. In 1968,
the interstate stopped at Highway 140.
And Highway 140 was
a two lane road and they would get off and come up to
two lane road and get on 41 which was also
a two lane road until you got to
Cassville and then it became four lane.
But yes, I remember that and I remember
the first Christmas that I was here,
traffic was just bottlenecked here.
And they said it was
just a line crawling up the interstate.
Somebody said it took them an hour to get from Calhoun to
the Adairsville exit then because it's just crawling.
Back then I guess it was probably
just two lanes on interstate,
but two lanes of interstate traffic had to merge into
one lane on Highway 140 and 41.
So you didn't want to try to
get out on 41 and go anywhere at that time.
Of course there wasn't much on 41 to go to.
But yes, I remember how exciting it was when they
completed the part from Adairsville to it's Way 411.
Whatever exit it is, that 411-
>> It's around 290.
>> It's not 290. I'm not sure.
Maybe it is 290 but anyways,
where the Tellus Museum is now.
>> It's the one north of 290.
>> Right. Yes, the one north of 290. It may be.
I think it is because then I think Cassville is 296;
the Cass-White and we're 306. But yeah.
They moved it up there
and when I said it ended in Adairsville;
the north coming south,
you picked it back up at
the White-Water exit in Marietta.
So they had to come through
41 and go through Cartersville
and almost parts of Marietta to get back on it.
So yeah, it was very nice when they opened it up.
>> I remember 1977 when it finally opened
all the way from Chattanooga
to Atlanta on the 75 without getting off.
>> Yeah.
>> Why do you think in Adairsville has grown so much?
So it's more than doubled in size.
>> Yes, it has. Well,
I guess its proximity to I-75 has helped.
Even though I-75 has
bypassed our downtown which it does all towns,
but we have since grown toward the interstate.
As I said when I first came
here, everything was downtown.
You had very little on 41 and nothing on
140 except houses and farm land and some gas stations.
So I think our biggest boom has really been
in the last 25 years maybe
when they finally made the four lane;
140 and then started building more things;
fast food restaurants, of course.
But we've gotten some new industries in town which
has helped bring more people into town.
When I came here,
there was one subdivision and it
was located on the west side of town,
a couple of miles out of town, one subdivision.
Now, I couldn't even tell you
how many subdivisions we have in the town,
but it's become a place to
live even though it might not
be the place where you work.
It's the place to live and close enough to Atlanta;
Chattanooga, Rome, Cartersville,
Calhoun for people to commute.
And I think that's helped it grow.
>> You mentioned earlier
the football stadium became a really big thing.
>> Yes.
>> What's the impact sports has had on the community?
>> Well, it's had a pretty big impact.
I don't think Adairsville had many winning
football seasons prior to 1968.
And I would think that integration
probably has helped in that respect.
The first year I was here,
I'm sure we may have had a winning season,
but we didn't advance too far.
But in '69,
'70, '71, and 72,
Adairsville School played for
the state championship for four straight years.
When I first came,
we were in Class C. That was our classification;
the smallest classification you could have.
Then they did away with Class C,
we moved up to Class B.
We had played three state championships in
Class C and we moved up to
Class B and we played one in Class B.
Of course, then they did away with
Class B and now the smallest is Class A,
but we are AAA school now.
But we had four state championship games; didn't win,
but the fact that
we started having winning seasons in football,
it seems like football always dictates.
The community gathers around
football teams more than
they do probably any other sport.
But yeah,
the sports became alive in those late '60s and continues.
Sometimes we have lean years,
sometimes we have good years,
and it's not just in football now.
We've played state championship games
in baseball, haven't won.
I think in all the years I've been here,
we've only won one team state championship
and that was in wrestling in 1996.
We were the state
whatever classification we were in at the time,
AA maybe champions in wrestling.
That's the only team state championship.
We've had individual state champions
in track and wrestling,
but as far as a team state championship,
that's the only state championship trophy
I think that Adairsville High has had.
Of course, they do real well now with
their Junior ROTC program that they
won a lot of state and national titles with that.
But as far as those sports, it's of developed.
Fifty years ago, we had football and basketball.
They started the baseball team I think that year;
the '68, '69 school year,
they started a baseball team and of course, track.
And now they have quite a
few more sports as they've grown.
>> You mentioned that you think
the football team benefited from desegregation.
Do you think sports helped with desegregation?
>> I'm sure it did. And it wasn't just in Adairsville.
I think that happened everywhere
because you got high quality athletes coming in.
Everybody likes to win and when you start winning,
that gets everybody excited.
So yes, I think that helped a lot.
I know we had at least two running backs
that could just outrun anybody else.
That was exciting to
win games and I think that that's one of the things
that helped make integration more acceptable.
I think that sports helped a lot in that field.
>> What else do you guys have?
>> I don't have anything else.
>> Linda, I know from working with you for
the last couple of years that you have a wealth
of knowledge about the history of Batesville.
>> Well, in some areas I'm sure.
>> I know a lot is living here,
but is that something that was a side interest of
yours and you just
pick things up along the way or studied it?
>> No. I think how I got into
this history thing and I'm certainly not
the town historian by any means because there are
a lot of people here know a lot more than I do.
When I served as the downtown development chairperson,
the CVB wanted to have a walking tour here.
It was going to be November the first of whatever year
it was that we did it.
And we had these little brochures and
we had the information that they had put out
on the houses when we were named to
the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
And somehow or another,
I just was able to write
little blurbs about a lot of
the old historic houses in town.
And since it was November the first, we thought,
well, we tied in with Halloween from the day before.
So we called it History and Homes Tour.
And I talked to several of the owners of
these houses and Park Street
is got a lot of ghosts, by the way.
And there were so many houses that had ghost stories,
spirits associated with them.
So we made it a history and haunts tour.
And that's really the only way that I got involved with
the history was with that.
And of course, my husband has lived here
since he was in the eighth grade and of course,
he has witnessed a lot of changes,
and a lot of times he would tell me about
things and so forth.
But a lot of it just evolved from the getting
the information together for
the history and haunts tour. It's fun.
It's like I was telling somebody the other day.
I grew up in Carleton and Carleton is a big town,
but it has history,
I'm sure, but I never
really learned the history of that town.
And this to be such a small community,
it has a lot of history.
Pretty Boy Floyd did grow up here,
but spent his early childhood years here.
How many towns can say one of
America's most wanted gangsters lived here for a while,
was born right outside of town?
So besides, of course,
we have the rich Indian history, the Cherokee.
And we have the Civil War history.
And of course, the history
associated with the Great Locomotive Chase,
which, of course, the Civil War history.
And then, of course,
the old 41 highway with
the Chanel business coming out of that.
So it's just to be very small.
It has a very vast wealth of history associated with it.
And it's interesting and fun to get involved.
And I didn't major in history in college,
but that doesn't mean that I'm not interested in history.
>> Could you tell us a little about the history
of the house you currently live in?
>> The house that I live in now that we've lived
in for 44 years was
built on the little sign out front it says around 1,900.
It was built by John Smith, who, of course,
he's the one that built
the first Adesll school building, the 1901 building.
He built that and he built several houses around town
and George Hayes that you interviewed earlier,
that was his great.
>> His great grandson.
>> Great Grandfather, yeah.
So he probably told you a lot about John Smith.
But anyway, the house was built
in around the turn of the 20th century.
I don't know a lot about the first owners.
The little historic sign says it's the Hamilton house.
I don't know if they're the first people that lived in
the house or just where that name came from.
But in the 19 I'm going to say
the late 1930s and the early 1940s,
it was a funeral home.
And it was the first funeral home in [inaudible].
Mr. Whitworth was the funeral director.
He made caskets in
the upstairs part of one of
the buildings he owned in town,
which was a furniture store on
the bottom floor and he had his caskets upstairs.
But our house was the funeral parlor.
And our house has a wall that bays out,
that's our living room.
Well, that was the viewing room.
And years ago, one of
my real good friends from high school
who lived in Fairmount
later moved to Fairmount and she brought
her two sons to visit one time and one of the sons
was sitting in the couch in front of that bay wall,
he looked up and he saw that curved while he said, Oh,
I feel like I'm in a casket and then
I had to break the news that this
was the viewing room for the funeral home.
And he came back a few years ago
and did some work for me.
I don't know if that scared him too much,
but he did come back and do some work,
but by that time he was a grown man.
But anyway, so it was a funeral home for a while.
And we bought the house in 1974 and
lived in ever since and made a lot of
inside renovations to it.
But yeah, it has a little bit of history.
And you interviewed Clint Coker
earlier and he told you the story about
the sailor brothers that one shot the other.
Well, the one that died,
his body was at our house.
And their mother, Addie Saylor
who was Barnsley's granddaughter.
When she died, her body was at our house as well.
So have a little bit of connection to Barnsley Gardens.
>> Did you know about the history
before you got the house?
I guess we did.
I don't remember when we
learned about it because of course,
back then in 1974,
I don't know if you had to be
told if there was something like the nowadays,
I think they have to tell you
if there's something funny about the house.
I don't remember who told
us that and I don't remember if it
was both before we moved in or after we moved in,
but it had been there ever since.
It never bothered us.
The dead can't really scare you.
When they got there, they weren't searching for anything.
They were already pretty well.
Their souls were already where they were going.
>> Anything else?
>> I can't think of anything else. No.
>> Thank you so much [inaudible].
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you all for interviewing me.
I don't know how helpful that was.
>> It was awesome.
>> How knowledgeable it was.
>> You know a lot.