Talking Southern No. 101 – Ain’t School Transport Grand?

Last week we discussed some school bus stories from Fayette’s past. Today we will cover some more in the midst of talking about one of your compiler’s favorite people of all time, Sarah Adams Rivers of Fayetteville, who died in early 2016 at age ninety-seven.

Miss Sarah was a tiny little woman who grew up in jail, then moved to city hall. Lest that statement need explanation, it should be noted that Miss Sarah’s father, Ben Adams (1884-1941), was sheriff of Fayette County during much of the 1920s and 1930s, and that he, Miss Pearlie, and their daughter Sarah lived in the downstairs portion of the two-story jail that then stood on the north side of the Fayetteville town square. That explains Miss Sarah’s having grown up in jail.

In 1937, as his time as sheriff was winding down, Sheriff Adams built the lovely redbrick house (since painted white) that still stands on the north side of westbound Lanier Avenue, just past the old Fayetteville depot. The family lived here till about 1965, when they sold it and moved further out Highway 54, at which point the city bought it and turned it into City Hall. But during that period of time, Miss Sarah had nearly worn out the sidewalk between there and Jeff Davis Drive, for she would sweep that whole distance at least once a day.

Miss Sarah knew everyone and everything in Fayetteville. She, Ruby Crews Mize (1910-1985), and your compiler’s maternal grandmother, Martha Stinchcomb Schell (1919-2013), talked all the time by phone and were on par with the finest detectives in knowing what was happening around town. High school kids in the 1950s and 1960s referred to them as Sonic Sarah, Radar Ruby, and Megaphone Martha.

But we need to get to the school transport stories promised in the title and opening paragraph.

Miss Sarah fell in love in high school with fellow FCHS Class of 1936 graduate Clarence Rivers (1919-1992), and as folks around Fayetteville said at the time, “Sarah chased Clarence till he caught her.” The chase went something like this: Sarah, who either had her own car or had access to Miss Pearlie’s, would jump into it as soon as school was out each day and fly out Gingercake or Sandy Creek Road, where she knew Clarence’s bus would be coming, block the road with her car, and agree to move it only if the driver would let Clarence off so he could ride around with her. Who knows what sort of penalty a kid pulling such a stunt today would face? Folks seemed to take much more in stride back way back when.

The other school transport story involving Miss Sarah is one told by her oldest son, Dr. Ben Rivers, a retired oral surgeon in Tennessee, who grew up with your compiler’s late mother, Jane Schell Langford (1939-2024), and was best friends in high school with your compiler’s late father, the first Dan Langford (1939-2001). Listen to Benny tell the story: “When Jane and I were in Miss Irene Davis’s 7th-grade class at the old schoolhouse in Fayetteville in the 1951-52 school year, a day-long field trip to Atlanta was planned for the spring. Old Mr. Sams, the superintendent, said the county couldn’t afford to send the buses that far, but that Miss Irene could take us on the trip if she could arrange independent transportation. So Mama loaded the whole class into the back of an open cattle truck, and drove us up to Peachtree Street and out to Grant Park to see the zoo and cyclorama, and then back home afterwards.”

Your compiler was nearly agog the first time he heard this story, for two reasons. First is that it would be a game-stopper in our day and time, and second is that he wonders how tiny Miss Sarah could’ve seen over the dashboard. She must have been sitting on two or three pillows!

It was much as your compiler’s paternal grandfather, longtime Brooks mayor H. R. Langford (1901-1987) used to say, “I swannee, I think Fayette County contains more characters per square inch than anyplace on earth.” And Sarah Adams Rivers was a world-class character!