(We learned recently that Liz

Stargell of Waffle House fame worked there then ­ no wonder she's

always seemed like a long-lost friend.)

Jean called the roll at Aberdeen

Village Center: "Partners II on the end, followed by Mrs. [Judy]

Brown's interior decorating store, then the record store (Jack R...?),

followed by the Davis' sporting goods store and Thompson's drug store

on the other end. There was a dress shop [the Cedar Chest]. I can't remember

the back except for the beauty shop and the dentists."

She fondly mentioned Pat Hicks,

who "was nice about giving us girls a Coke at the visitor's center."

Pat worked then, I believe, for Bessemer Corp., the principal developer,

in the building that later became the first City Hall.

I ran into Mary Kaurin Moore

while collecting these vignettes, and she told me how she became the city's

first full-time city clerk. Prior to that, Bessemer shared the secretarial

skills of Sandra Prince with the city, along with a desk in one corner

of their office.

The job went full-time, and

Mary hired on. She recalls how cramped the city's space was. "If

I was at my desk and [Mayor] Howard Morgan wanted to get something out

of the file cabinet, I had to stand up," she said.

Mary was a widow with three

youngsters, and the city could not provide her children health insurance.

When Bob Bivens came to town and turned Bessemer into Garden Cities, he

offered benefits, and Mary went to work for him, staying for four years.

She later returned to City Hall as a city councilman.

For the record, Susan Highsmith

followed Mary as city clerk, then Frances Meaders held the post from 1973

until 1995.

Young as Jean was when we moved

here, I was surprised that she remembers Peskie Park, a ball field now

occupied by First Baptist Church, and a touch football field later covered

1972 completion of the original pedestrian bridge crossing Ga. Highway

54, allowing her and her sister to ride bikes to their school on Wisdom

Road.

She said there was "nothing

across the lake unless you include the old stables and Fayetteville."

Her memory is suspect. What she considers "old" stables were

built about 1972 as the centerpiece of an equestrian-style neighborhood

(street names include Bridlepath, Palomino, Paddock and Clydesdale). A

persistent problem with houseflies hastened the stables' being razed and

replaced by soccer fields.

Jean also mentioned a tornado

that pounced on Flat Creek Club early one morning. The weather bureau

insisted it was straight-line winds, but emergency workers who responded

have never forgotten the damage inflicted on the club's dining room. Shards

of glass stabbed chairs and tables that would have been crowded with diners

had the storm struck during business hours. And the sight of the drapes

hanging outside the walls proved that the roof had actually been

lifted by the wind.

Jean mentioned too that the

Presbyterians worshipped in the old bank building before their sanctuary

was built, an arrangement typical of the era's generous spirit. We were

all pioneers, and churches shared space as their fledgling congregations

grew and outgrew.

Annie Zink, now a spring chicken

of 88 ­ her own words ­ claims that she and her husband Charles

"were the first Catholics in Peachtree City, Jonesboro or Newnan."

(I bet she hears about that claim.) The Zinks did precede Delta's 1972

purchase of Northeast Airlines, flooding Atlanta with Massachusetts transplants

who brought with them incense and liturgy, unheard of in these traditionally

Protestant enclaves.

Miss Annie recalled Father

James Sexstone of Holy Trinity Catholic Church and Pastor John Weber of

Christ Our Shepherd sharing an office in a borrowed warehouse on Dividend

Drive. The Seventh Day Adventists had it on Saturdays. She said the Catholics

first gathered at the elementary school, then met in the developer's information

center, moving from there to First Presbyterian's sanctuary, then to the

warehouse, and then to the basement of the rectory Vince Rossetti built

on Walt Banks Road.

"It was not very long

before we didn't have room there," she said, noting that even today,

with a newly expanded sanctuary, "it's practically the same thing

­ we've outgrown our building."

Oddly, Miss Annie didn't realize

that the Lutherans were also worshipping in the warehouse, at an earlier

hour. Those of us around then still joke about folding Sunday School tables

and chairs as the clock neared 11 a.m. and the cry rang out:

"The Catholics are coming!

The Catholics are coming!"

Back

to the Top of the Page