 |
|
| Story ID: | 20 |
| Written by: | Scott R. Lupo (bio, contact, other stories) |
| Organization: | OurEcho |
| Story type: | Diary/Journal Entry |
| Location: | Phenix City Alabama USA |
| Year: | 1925 |
| Person: | Mary Cynthia Gullatt Belcher |
Add a Comment |
Print |
|
Visitors
     |
Listen to voice recording:
As a child we lived on Broad Street in Phenix City, Alabama. Papa joined our house to a two-room house next door. The line between Phenix City and Girard ran through our yard making it partly in Lee and Russell County. My childhood was a happy one. We lived next door to my grandmother, Mollie Rutledge and her daughters, Willie Frank and Myrtice. Next door to them was my uncle Al Gullatt and his wife, Ethel. We visited each other and had a good relationship. At Christmas, Papa gave out invitations to dinner and my mother prepared the meal. My mother and her mother and sisters were known to be good cooks. There were some ups and downs between our parents, but to their children, they were good, and we never knew need. As we grew up we attended grammar school in Girard and graduated from Columbus High in Columbus, GA. There was no High School in Phenix City at that time. My brother, C.B. went first to Tulane University to become a doctor, but he left there and went to University of Alabama to study law. My parents had little opportunity to go very far in school but with experience and study they became very wise in living their lives. We all became members of the Baptist Church. We first belonged to the First Baptist Church in Phenix City. There was some disagreement about the current Pastor, J.J. Justice. A group of members separated from First Baptists and formed the Central Baptist Church which is still in existence at this time, 63 years later. When I graduated from High School, my parents enrolled me at Judson College, a Baptist College in Marion, Alabama. How strange I felt as I boarded the train to go to Marion on the Beauty Express. The girls at Judson were very friendly. The girl, who was to be my roommate, had a friend she wanted to room with. I finally met Thelma Moates from Andalusia, Alabama, and we decided to room together and did for the full four years. The food at Judson was very good and I gained at least ten pounds as a freshman. We had a room three floors up. A black man went around each morning, sounding the triangle to wake us up. After we dressed, we easily ran down the steps to go to breakfast. Sometimes in the dinning hall we would sing together and had a good fellowship. As a sophomore, I was on the Student Council. I was rather timid in this place and did not like to report broken rules for punishment. I was on the Council only one year. I had had all the Math I could take in High School and was ahead of most of the class. Calculus was a hard subject and I did some coaching in Math. I always enjoyed the vacation times when I could go home and all the mail I received. Papa was very good to write to me. Momamag made most of my clothes. We had a washerwoman at Judson to do our clothes. We lived through “Rat Week” and later on as upper classman had a chance to be on the other side. There were many activities at Judson and also our classes which kept us busy. It was a time of growing up. How little did I know about mature living in the world! As juniors, we experience the ceremony called Psyche Night. It was to prepare us to become seniors. Toward the end of the junior year the current seniors would sing a chorus in the dinning room that would be very scary. Psyche night was a time of initiation and the time and events were unknown and always come as a surprise. When the time came, the seniors would come for us and put us thru all kinds of crazy stunts. They also had paddles. We were glad when it was over. As seniors we had so much dignity and privileges. The underclassman always stood aside for the senior to proceed. It was called senior precedence. Much more mature conduct was expected of us. I was the poet for the Senior Class in the annual and also co-editor of the annual. Together we tried to make up a good an annual as we could. We included some of the traditional stories about Judson and Marion. Judson was a Baptist College and we had in our studies a complete study of the Bible. On Sunday we would gather outside and marched down the street to the Baptist Church of Marion. The town of Marion was small and the Judson girls were given free range. There was an open front drug store where we could go and buy drinks and sit and talk. How much we enjoyed going in stores and looking at the clothes and other items. During my senior year, I had an ear infection and had to go several times to Selma to the doctor. Somehow I was a little homesick because of this ailment. After four years graduations time came. Winslow had come to Judson for one semester, but decided to go home and stay there. The family came up for graduation. I had majored in Math and Spanish and graduated Summa Cum Laude. I am very grateful to my parents for the opportunity to attend Judson and for the degree I received. Friends were made who have never been forgotten. The memories of that four years and the training I received have meant so much to me. During the years of growing up, my father was first in the grocery business and later a furniture business. It was housed in a two-story building on what was known then as Line Street. The top story was rented out as a dwelling unit. Later the furniture store was moved to 3rd Ave. A short distance from the 2 story building. Later the 2 story building caught on fire at night. In those days a fire was a time of great excitement. People left home and got as near as possible to the fire to see what was happening. I have watched many fires from the top of the hill on 14th St. I especially remember a fire in the stables on 3rd Ave where some horses were lost. Papa was involved in politics during most of his life. He was elected as a City official several times and served as mayor. He was elected to Alabama legislature for three terms. It was during this time that part of Phenix City and Lee County was included in Russell County where it sill is in 1986. It was better than having the city divided into two counties. My mother was a very quiet person. She was smart in house keeping and cooking and had a good business mind. She always said that she helped Papa save and to take care of his money. He acquired quite a lot of property and houses. He charged a very low rent because in the early 1930’s we were having a depression and people had very little money. Over the years since his death in 1950, so many have told me how good he was to help people. He made many loans which were never paid and helped in other ways as he could. After I graduated from Judson, I taught with Thelma Moates in Red Level, Alabama. It was a small town, but the teachers were respected and included in many activities. Thelma’s home in Andalusia was only 30 miles away. On the weekends we would get in her Whippet Automobile and go to her home. Mr. And Mrs. Moates and her two brothers were always very friendly and I enjoyed the visits to their home. One Monday morning on the way back to Red Level, we hit a railroad track and punctured two tires. We left the car and caught a ride on a truck to Red Level and school. The High School had a very good football team. That year the style was to wear dresses long – down almost to the ankles. I am glad this style did not last long. We had an opportunity to go to cane grinding and to enjoy the cane juice and to watch syrup being made. During the year Mamag had not been feeling very good – so Papa wanted me to come home to teach in Phenix City. He got me a job in the new Central High School teaching math, Spanish, and science. It was a bigger school than Red Level, but the city paid little attention to the teachers. Since it was my home town it was easy to adjust. In Red Level the school board had rules for the teachers to be home by 10 o’clock a night – not to smoke at school. In Phenix City in 1929, a young lady, named Julia Hornsley, came to teach in Central High. She met my brother, CB, and within the year they were married. She was a petite precocious girl with a very nice smile. During the years my sister and I had had dates with several boys but nother serious. Even the names of some have been forgotten. We felt very secure living with our parents. I bought a Ford Roadster with a let-down top. Some girls and I would ride around at night with the top down and felt very adventurous. We would stop at drug stores for a Cherry Coke or ice cream. The drug stores had car hops who came to take your order. They were mostly girls. Later on I bought a Ford hard top with a rumble seat. The cars were about $400.00. I taught school ten years and made $100 a month all the time. Once during the depression we were given scripts to use for money and some stores would take them. We did not lose any money at any time. My brother, C.B., was practicing law in P.C. He and Julia had a son named Claude Bertram, III. As he grew into a little boy, Papa spent a lot of time with Bert and loved him very much. While I was teaching in 1931, I met a young man named Bill Belcher. He had been going with a cousin of mine, Audrey Moon and had asked me for a date. I had been going with another boy named Hugh Bentley and he had given me a diamond solitaire. We broke up but he would not take the ring back. On Oct. 19, 1932, Bill Belcher and I were married by the Baptist pastor, Rev. Wilkes, in Opelika. Lyman Bird and Pat and Mareta and Walter Willed went with us. We planned to keep the marriage secret, but in about a week, we told my parents, and I went to stay with Bill in his boarding house in Columbus, GA. Later we stayed with my parents a short time, then moved to an apartment house on the Summerville Road, that Papa owned. Bill had been working for an insurance company but because of the Depression wasn’t making much. For a while he and his brother ran a short order restaurant. Bill was given a chile recipe by the former owners and learned to make very good chile. This lasted only a few months and he gave it up and started collecting and working in the furniture store. Sometimes on Saturday I would drive a collector for the store to his rounds for the day. One day Bill came in and had an ad for a mail order course in law from LaSalle University. It cost $20 to enroll and I had a $20 bill so he sent it off to begin the course. For two years he received his lessons and studied very hard. He went around and talked to other lawyers for help in answering questions. In 1935 he took the bar exam in Georgia and on the first try he passed. The he took the Alabama exam and failed. He went to Jones Law School in Montgomery for 2 weeks for intensive study and passed the next exam. During the 3 year after I married, CB and Julia had 2 girls named Jane and Judy, as well as their son named Bert. In 1935 Bill opened his law office over the furniture store. I worked for him some in his office after I resigned from teaching. We moved from the apartment on the Summerville Rd to over to Papa’s houses on the corner of 14th and Broad, No. 516 14th St. Cynthia was born the year after we moved, in 1934, and Maryanne in 1938. About the Author My grandmother was born Mary Cynthia Gullatt on September 2nd, 1905. She married my grandfather, William R. Belcher on October 19th, 1932. She died on May 17, 1988. As a child and even an adult, it is often difficult for me to imagine my grandmother young and free, without my grandfather and my mother and her sister. But we all had lives before we became who we are today. For my grandmother, that was living on Broad Street in Phenix City, Alabama next to her extended family. This excerpt from her journal talks about her early life growing up in Phenix City and attending Judson College in Marion, Alabama. She was a remarkable woman and I hope you enjoy reading it. The story is recorded by my mom, Cynthia Belcher Lupo, oldest daughter of Mary Belcher. Scott Lupo |
