Conversation with Ladybird

10/25

I used my favorite, personal kind of curse words, but it didn't do a bit a good. Not a bit. I think they're kind of impressed that I'm ninety two and still have my mind. I am blessed to be as old as I am and I have certain things I want to do and I get to do them. My minister came yesterday and brought lilies and my sunday school class brought roses, and I'm getting a lot of petting. I have a bed that, so help me goodness, almost talks.

Let me get a drink of water right quick. I rode into Griffin on the Nancy Hanks from Atlanta, and I had a trunk and everything. The Nancy Hanks was very important because people who lived in Atlanta went on the train to go shopping and stuff that people do now in cars. Lila Penn, a friend from the church met me and took me to her home. We had met because while living in Gainsville I had been active in the youth program and she was in charge of the district youth program and she recommended me as director of the youth program and member of the church. It was a very small town and we had a fairly good membership but I was the first one to be employed other than the minister and janitor. Mr Marvin Maxwell was the minister at the time.
Mr Maxwell was young and very interested in the youth and I remember one experience: we had money to help people who needed things like clothes. One boy, a little boy, came down to the preacher and wanted to speak to him because he didn't have any shoes. They had just spent the money on other things but Mr. Maxwell went across the street and got him some shoes. Not too long the little boy went off and brought his brother who also needed some shoes and off they went, Mr. Maxwell holding his hand.
They were even talking then about the fact that the church could not grow because of limited parking space, and that the space they had then could not add on for things they wanted and it was a while of dreaming about what they could do to help they're youth. I knew the membership and they knew me, and that was a joy.
The church had a choir director and organist . One of the interesting things that happened was that one of the first sundays I was there Mr. Maxwell told them I went to Florida and told them that my name was Margaret Swetnam and how to pronounce and spell it and so forth. He also told me that whenever there was a meeting I should be there, whatever it was, and if anyone asked me to do anything I may do it.
The whole Griffin football team came to our meetings because the head boy was a member and he brought the whole team to the meetings and a lot of the girls in town it seemed too. We had wiener roasts because that's what they like to do. We would take our weiners and walk about a mile out and then walk back. We went to stone mountain and Indian Springs and a lot of different things. We were very active group.
There was another member of the team, the janitor, I mentioned her, and she had two sons, her husband was dead, and she was putting the sons through college. She was also a member, and was very brazen about sitting at my seat and calling the membership to tell them what she had that week to offer for sale. We called her Gillie. Mr. Melton, the editor of the Griffon Daily News then, came up to me and said you do the best you can with her. She sold like personal kinds of things. She also lived in an apartment house and in this house was a meeting house for the women's club, and she was a member of the club and she also cleaned it. She did a lot to take care of her boys. A lot of people didn't get along with her but she did a lot of good. The Dr. and Ms. Wilson had two daughters getting married and she did the party for them.
I stayed with Lila until I could get a place to live. I lived with Ms. Lunley on 75th street and took lunch at Ward's hotel, which was really a boarding house. Across the street from the church, a double street, behind Lynn's clothing was a little stable, there on main street behind the men's clothing store. There were no signal lights up town, there was only one blinker light out past where chick-fil-a is now.