After Caryl and Granddaddy Scott’s wedding, they got an apartment in Atlanta, Georgia where Granddaddy Scott continued attending Georgia Tech until he got a degree in industrial management in 1955. He had spent his first year of college at Virginia Military Institute but had a bad experience with hazing and decided to transfer to Georgia Tech where he thrived. His roommates were two of his childhood best friends, Pete Thomas and Jimmy Keyton. Caryl had been attending Randolph-Macon College but dropped out to begin her married life with Granddaddy Scott. A few months later, on May 5, 1954, my mother, Holly Scott, was born.
Once Granddaddy Scott graduated, he moved his new family back to Thomasville where he took over Scott Construction Company. Caryl and Granddaddy Scott went on to have three more children after my mother: Cochran, Jr., Margaret, and Robert. While Caryl was in the hospital giving birth to Robert, the family moved into a large brick house Granddaddy Scott built on the corner of Old Monticello Road and Plantation Drive.
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Aunt Dot married Uncle Lint on September 25, 1954, shortly after my mother was born. Like Uncle Bird, Uncle Lint also fought in World War II although he served in the Air Force. Despite Uncle Lint’s fear of getting married in Thomasville after attending Caryl and Granddaddy Scott’s wedding, he and Aunt Dot got married in the church she, Granddaddy Scott, and their older brother, Uncle Fred grew up going to, First Baptist Church. After living briefly in South Carolina, Aunt Dot, and Uncle Lint moved to Savannah, Georgia to take over another family business, Scott Concrete Pipe Company. They had three children, Theresa, Allison, and Linton, who they raised as members of Bull Street Baptist Church. They built a big brick house on Grimball Creek which is a brackish river that attaches to the Skidaway River which attaches to the Wilmington River which attaches to the Atlantic Ocean. Many years later, I would spend my childhood vacations swimming there.
Aunt Dot and Granddaddy Scott’s older brother, Uncle Fred, served as a hospital administrator overseas in the Army during World War II and then moved back to Thomasville where he went into politics like his father. While overseas in the Army, Uncle Fred fell in love with a woman whom Mama Elva strongly disapproved of. Mama Elva demanded Aunt Dot and Granddaddy Scott write Uncle Fred several letters pleading with him not to marry her. Aunt Dot told me she didn’t care if Uncle Fred married the woman, but sat in Mama Elva’s living room and wrote down verbatim what Mama Elva told her to. Uncle Fred granted everyone’s wishes and came home a single man. Aunt Dot went on to introduce him to Mary Andrews who was her summer roommate at the University of Georgia where they both were attending. Aunt Dot was a Chi-O and Aunt Mary was a Tri Delta. Aunt Dot brought Aunt Mary home to Thomasville for a visit and introduced her to Uncle Fred. They fell in love, and Mama Elva was elated with the match. Aunt Mary and Uncle Fred got married on June 23, 1951, in Aunt Mary’s hometown, Toccoa, Georgia. Aunt Mary moved to Thomasville to start her married life with Uncle Fred, and they eventually went on to build a big tabby house across the street from where my mother lives to this day and raised their three children: Freddy, David, and Martha. Aunt Mary, Uncle Fred, and their three children were members of First Baptist Church where they attended regularly and Mama Elva sang in the choir. Growing up, my mother was extremely close to her cousins on the Mitchell and the Scott side of the family and to this day they have a lot of fun when they get together. There is a lot of love between them.
Down one side of Old Monticello Road from the house my mother grew up in is Glen Arven Country Club and down the other side of Old Monticello Road is Jerger Elementary School which at the time was grades one through six. My mother, her siblings, and their Scott cousins grew up being Jergersauruses and would walk and ride their bikes to and from school. They could also walk and ride their bikes to the country club whenever they wanted, which they did, and my mother and her siblings were able to freely use Granddaddy Scott’s charge account.
In the fourth grade, my mother became best friends with Mary Ann Murphy who lived on the corner of Gordon Avenue and Junius Street. They would ride their bikes to the country club and go swimming. In the seventh grade, my mother and Mary Ann began attending Thomasville Junior High School which was located down the street from Mama Elva’s house. By this time, my mother and Mary Ann had also become best friends with Charlotte Slaughter and Philip Faulk, and they would walk over to Mama Elva’s for lunch and Lola Bell would make them something good. Lola Bell was Mama Elva’s housekeeper, and she was famous in our family for her cooking. Her specialty was hoecakes.
In 1969, my mother graduated Thomasville Junior High School and began attending Thomasville High School which connected to the junior high through a breezeway which meant lunches at Mama Elva’s continued. Mama Elva had a playhouse by her rose garden for my mother, her siblings, and their cousins to play in. There was a den, a luncheonette, and a bathroom. My mother and her siblings threw many parties there. Mama Elva adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and bent over backward for our pleasure.
As a teenager, my mother occasionally worked at the Gift Shop which is located downtown across the street from where Hollybrook was. The Gift Shop has always been a special place for my family. It was owned by Caryl’s best friend, Anne Searcy. Anne was 23 years older than Caryl and never had any children of her own. She became extremely close to the Mitchells who thought of her like family. My mother felt like she grew up at the Gift Shop, because not only was she close to Anne, but Aunt Billie worked there as well. No one remembers exactly how old Aunt Billie was when she started working at the Gift Shop, but she is rumored to have been a teenager.
Aunt Billie and Uncle Bird ended up having three children: Fondren, Ginny, and Freddy. Caryl and Aunt Billie remained close which resulted in my mother and Ginny being close. My mother is six months older than Ginny and was in the grade above her in school. Aunt Billie always had a soft spot in her heart for her youngest, Freddy.
Aunt Billie had a special soul. She rarely allowed herself a free second and spent the majority of her time helping others. She and Uncle Bird were a lot of fun and everyone thought so. When Granddaddy Mitchell’s ranch sold, Thanksgiving began being spent in Thomasville, and Aunt Billie and Uncle Bird started hosting my favorite family party of the year, “Sausage and Biscuit Night.” It was always the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. All of the out-of-town relatives, including me and my immediate family while we lived in Virginia, rolled into Thomasville and then headed over to Springdale Circle. Aunt Billie and Uncle Bird invited everyone they knew which was a lot of people. Uncle Bird tended the grill cooking sausage, venison, bacon-wrapped quail, duck, and whatever else he and the others may have come across while hunting in the woods. People stood around him waiting for something hot while the kids, including me, ran around playing hide and seek in the dark, which was a lot of fun in their overgrown yard. Aunt Billie and Uncle Bird loved the woods, and you felt like you were in the woods at their house even though you were right in town on Springdale Circle.
After Granddaddy Mitchell left Vee for Beth, the Columns became too much for Vee to take care of on her own, so she and Weebo moved to where Aunt Billie and Uncle Bird ended up living, on Springdale Circle. By the time Weebo graduated high school and moved to Alabama to begin attending Auburn University, Vee had become a non-functional alcoholic. Eventually, Aunt Billie, Uncle Bird, and their three children ended up moving to Springdale Circle to take care of her. When Vee passed away in 1990, Aunt Billie, Uncle Bird, and Freddy continued to live in the house. After moving to Thomasville, I spent a lot of time at their house, because that is where Kate, Heather, and Mitchell stayed when they came to visit. Along with Liz, those three are Aunt Billie and Uncle Bird’s grandchildren and my second cousins. Liz was my best friend, and while our cousins stayed at Aunt Billie's and Uncle Bird’s, Liz stayed with me. Aunt Billie went out of her way to make sure their visits were packed with a lot of fun. Since Liz and I were inseparable when she came to town, that meant I got to partake in the fun too.
Throughout my mother’s childhood, Scott Construction Company kept Granddaddy Scott out of town on business trips most of the time, when he often cheated on Caryl. Coming home did not stop his affairs, and my mother witnessed his infidelity firsthand and found it upsetting. Caryl and Granddaddy Scott were verbally abusive to each other, and Granddaddy Scott was physically abusive to my mother and her siblings. In the evenings, he would wait at the dinner table with his belt in his hand. It made Robert never want to go to dinner. “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” Granddaddy Scott would say. My mother and Robert got the brunt of his abuse because they were the wild ones. Robert was much worse off than my mother, however. Eventually, Caryl became a non-functional alcoholic just like her own mother Vee had become. Caryl would often confine herself to her bedroom and let the help take care of her children. Unlike Mama Elva, Uncle Fred, and Aunt Dot who had one housekeeper that worked for them over their lifetime, Caryl and Granddaddy Scott had a revolving door of help who changed so frequently that the only name that is remembered is of a nursemaid named Bepa who slapped my mother across the face in front of her cousins when my mother said, “Oh, shut up, Bepa!” I’ve been told Robert rarely made it to school and would sometimes show up in random neighbors’ kitchens asking for breakfast. One time, he was picked up by the police when he was found walking down Old Monticello Road alone. He wasn’t old enough to tell the police where he lived. All he told them was that his oldest sister’s name was Holly.
The house Granddaddy Scott built for his family was considered one of the nicest in town at the time, and Caryl decorated it exquisitely. Their home was a big, brick, two-story house with a swimming pool. When you walked in the front door, you entered a big area with stairs that led upstairs to my mother and her siblings’ bedrooms. If you kept walking straight, you entered the family room. In between the entrance and the family room was a hall that ran the length of the house and was parallel to the street. The kitchen was to the left and Caryl and Granddaddy Scott’s bedroom was to the right. When Granddaddy Scott was home, people remember constantly hearing screaming coming from the direction of Caryl and Granddaddy Scott’s room that echoed down the hall. Their bedroom was large with a sitting area where Caryl spent her time when she wasn’t playing tennis at the country club. Upstairs, my mother and Margaret’s bedrooms were to the left. They shared a shower but each had their own vanity. Cochran and Robert’s bedroom and bathroom were set up the same way to the right.
With Granddaddy Scott always out of town and Caryl confined to her bedroom, my mother and her siblings had the run of the place. Their friends described it as a madhouse where the kids raised hell because they could. At times, it was described as scary. I’ve even heard stories about Robert throwing knives at people including Caryl and Granddaddy Scott.
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