Once a month we drove to Savannah to visit the large branch there. As a city, Savannah fascinated us. Protected by poverty, the pre‑Revolutionary War architectural heritage had been preserved almost intact. Although the majority of these buildings were tenements inhabited by poor black families, they were in the process of being reclaimed and rehabilitated by wealthy white Georgians. Even though the architectural heritage of the city was magnificent, I was horrified at the incredibly bad housing in the Negro ghettos. Housing conditions there were worse than anything I had seen, except for slums in Rio de Janiero.
Trying to find more Latter Day Saint families, we began to prowl through the region asking about Mormons. Several times we found Mormon girls from Utah or Idaho who had married servicemen from rural Georgia during World War II. Their husbands were rural, uneducated Georgian small farmers struggling to earn a living as marginal farmers or sharecroppers. They and their large families lived in housing worse than anything in Utah and Idaho. These girls beaten down in spirit, existed in poverty, and were dominated by patriarchal Georgian families who did not accept them fully. Often their health was poor. I can never forget one woman from Utah who, in her late thirties, was toothless, gaunt and ill from a variety of ailments and unable, because of her husband's opposition, to visit a doctor. They had little contact with the church, except for casual visits from missionaries, and were ashamed and embarrassed to meet people from the Rocky Mountains. I doubt that their western families knew of their conditions. Their plight was one of the greatest evidences I have found against marrying outside the church.
The hot, humid summer climate of south Georgia was almost unbearable in the pre‑air conditioning years of our residence in the state. Unless one had to work outside, one restricted one's outside activities during the heat of the day. One wore extremely light‑weight clothing. Heat rashes were chronic. Mosquitoes, flies, gnats, red bugs, cockroaches, water bugs, and poisonous snakes abounded during the summer months. We sprayed our house constantly. One could not casually sit or sprawl on the lawn without suffering from itching red bug bites. Clouds of gnats made life unhappy during the hotter hours. In school and out one would see teachers and students protrude their lower lips to blow air at pesky gnats. Rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, and water moccasins intruded the town, crawling under shrubbery. I cut a cotton mouth into pieces once when cutting the lawn. Although the winters were not cold, houses did require heating. The poorly‑built wooden or brick homes were apt to be hot boxes during the summer and cold and drafty during the winter. We fought the heat during the summer with a large exhaust fan and cold during the winter with electric heaters, besides a large, natural gas heater.
The spice of danger was never absent from the Georgia weather scene. Hurricanes and tornados kept us alert during the year. Several times each year hurricanes traveling north up the coast, brushed us with heavy winds and torrents of rain. Whenever heavy, black clouds hung low, one became sensitive to the possibility of tornados. Many times tornado alerts were sounded for our area but, fortunately, none erupted during our stay in Statesboro. Although suffering from asthma in the humid, polluted atmosphere of Nashville, I was never molested in Georgia. In compensation, I had chronic rhitinitis. Much to our surprise, Ruth came down with asthma.
Because of the humid, rainy climate, south Georgia is an incredibly beautiful land. The contrasts between the red soil; the complex varied greens of pine, deciduous trees and shrubs; the beauty of dogwood, mimosa, magnolia, tulip trees, camelia, azalea, red bud; the ever‑subtle interplay of light and shadow; and the play of water in numerous ponds, lakes, streams and rivers composed a lovely, ever‑changing countryside modified, but not destroyed, by man. Ruth and I spent many hours each week driving through the countryside along bad dirt roads to enjoy the subtle blend of changing colors in the lovely landscape.
I spent days with students exploring swamps, woods, and fields to study the abundant animal and bird life. I loved to watch the red, flying, and fox squirrels, the white‑tailed deer, the wild hogs, the opossums, the raccoons, rodents, skunks, and foxes. One day while idling away a warm afternoon beside a stream, I was thrilled at the appearance of a puma that casually walked along the other side of the creek. The numerous varieties of colorful birds, mockingbirds, cardinals, brown thrashers, bluebirds, red‑headed woodpeckers, martins, swallows, and many other species fascinated me. I enjoyed the diverse species of snakes, lizards, and turtles. The many chameleon lizards that shared my front porch were carefully protected. Ruth and I spent numerous warm, peaceful summer evenings watching fireflies and listening to the whippoorwills.
Within a few months the first house we rented in Statesboro was sold out from under us. We moved briefly into a small apartment and then into a two bedroom white frame house at 339 S. Walnut Street, a narrow, unpaved lane close to the college. The house had been occupied by George A. Rogers, who moved into faculty housing on campus. The house was our home until we left Georgia. It was located in a lower middle‑class neighborhood occupied by skilled workers and white collar employees. On one side of us lived Clarence, Thelma, and Becky Billings, who became not only close neighbors but life‑long friends. On the other side lived a shy, aging single woman and her bachelor brother who accepted us as friends. In back of us resided Nimrod and Katherine Dixon with their two girls, Rina and Ruth. This family also became fine friends. Their girls spent almost as much time in our house as they did their own.
Two or three times a week during the warm, languorous summer evenings the neighbors gathered on our large front porch with its two wide swings to gossip, tell stories, and discuss the events of the day. One neighbor brought over homemade ice cream, another cool, sweet Georgia watermelon, and still another lemonade. We often supplied cookies or doughnuts. Fireflies twinkled around us. The wind sighed in the pine trees. Whippoorwills flew calling overhead. Ruth and I loved the warm, velvety texture of Southern life. I have never encountered such story tellers or conversationalists, except among Mexican‑Americans.
Beside our house stood a giant native pecan tree. Numerous birds nested in its branches. Squirrels ran up and down its massive trunk and along its branches. Each fall we harvested the nuts. We sent small packets of nuts home to our families and then sold the rest at very good prices, securing money for Christmas spending and luxuries. If Ruth and I had remained in Georgia, I planned to buy up poor farm land and plant it with pecan and other nut trees.
We had a backyard big enough for a good vegetable garden. The garden not only supplied vegetables of many different varieties for our table, but a large surplus that we bottled for the winter. I was quite interested in local agriculture and constantly attended fairs, lectures by extension agents, tobacco and livestock auctions, and visited many farms of the parents of my students. Once they found that I could talk crops, livestock and markets, I made many rural friends who constantly brought Ruth and me farm produce. We loved boiled peanuts, Georgia watermelons, pecan and black‑bottomed pie, sorghum syrup, catfish stew, and other fine Georgian foods, few of which we had ever tasted before.
Now for the major events of the years that we lived in Statesboro. Before we were really settled in Statesboro, we were visited by our old friends the Jose Marcondes family from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Ruth and I had known them well at Vanderbilt and in Sao Paulo. He had received a grant from Dr. T. Lynn Smith at the University of Florida for advanced study there. Then in the fall of 1952 our entire department went up to Knoxville, Tennessee, expenses paid by the college, to attend the meetings of the Southern Historical Society.
While Ruth, Betty Rogers and Elise Alexander toured Knoxville, I attended the meetings with George and Tom and put in many long evening hours at the library of the University of Tennessee ferreting out data on Syrian and Lebanese immigration to various countries. I also walked over a good part of the downtown area of Knoxville. I quite liked Knoxville and the beautiful forested hills that surrounded it.
Upon our return home Ruth joined the Statesboro Musical Club. Both of us quite enjoyed our association with faculty and townspeople in musical activities. I was also invited by Miss Isabel Sorrier, the fine librarian of the small Statesboro Public Library, to help organize an American Heritage Program for the community and to lead a community discussion group composed of some faculty members and many townspeople on American issues. Through this program I got to know well many businessmen, school teachers, and lawyers and doctors in Statesboro.
Miss Sorrier became one of our special friends, as we were heavy users of her library. She was a good example of a group of World War II casualties that are seldom mentioned. She had grown up in Statesboro and had wanted to get married and have a large family. The boys she dated went off to World War II. Most of them never returned to Statesboro. Tied to the community by family responsibilities and her job, she very unwillingly slipped into old maidenhood. Her books, the library, and her church provided consolation, but she felt that life had cheated her. One day she mentioned to me that she would not mind sharing a good man with another woman. I chuckled, thinking of Mormon polygamy and the hysterical Protestant reaction to it.
Ruth's parents visited us in June, 1953. Bringing Rulon with them, they spent several days with us before going on to New York to meet Ruth's two brothers, Melvin and John, returning from missions in Holland. While they were here we went swimming at Tybee Beach. Ruth went on to New York with her parents while I remained at home to teach my classes.
At the conclusion of the summer quarter in August, 1953, Ruth and I drove slowly up to Washington, D.C., to visit the Library of Congress. Searching for a place to live, we found a low‑cost, furnished room just behind the library. The walls were quite thin and one night we heard a violent quarrel between a man and a woman, punctuated by the thuds of falling bodies and of thrown pots and pans. As we started out the next morning, we observed a young couple rather bruised and decorated with bandaids and bandages come out of the room arm in arm.
Through Congressional influence I secured a working desk at the Library of Congress and went through their material on Lebanon and Brazil. I found a very valuable series of Protestant missionary reports on Lebanon. From there I shifted over to the Library of the Pan‑American Union and filled in the gaps in my statistical data on immigration for Brazil and for Sao Paulo. Finishing my work, Ruth and I spent three or four days sightseeing around Washington, D.C. Broke, we returned to Statesboro rested and refreshed to start the fall quarter.
Shortly after our return home, I received a long distance call from the Atlanta Mission Office, headquarters of the Southern States Mission, asking me to visit and to assist an elderly New York couple who had been severely injured in an automobile accident near Statesboro. Their car had been hit by a lumber truck. Mrs. Woods, the wife, had a fractured hip and her husband died within a few days from a severe skull fracture. The Woods had operated a dairy farm in up‑state New York. The hired man, Charles Gillis, had no place to stay. Ruth and I invited him to stay with us for a week before he and Mrs. Woods were able to travel to her home in Florida. We thoroughly enjoyed Charles Gillis. He was the first example of a New England rural hired man I had ever met. He worked hard on my little vegetable plot, and we had many long talks comparing up‑state New York to Georgia and Florida. Mrs. Woods visited us for several years on her annual trek between New York and Florida, and we traveled to Florida to visit her.
In November a telephone call came from the office of President Wilkinson of Brigham Young University asking me if I would represent Brigham Young University at the inauguration ceremonies of a new president at the University of Florida. As Brigham Young University would pay all the expenses, I went. I had a long talk with T. Lynn Smith and with Emilio Willems who was also there. As fall slipped into winter, Ruth's brother John spent a few days with us before going overseas to Korea. There he was fortunately sent to a baker's school, having taken courses in high school. His older brother, Donald, also in the army, had been sent to Korea earlier.
The ever‑growing controversy over segregation began to impinge upon our lives in the Spring of 1954. The state legislature passed loyalty oath legislation requiring all state employees, including teachers, to sign an oath of loyalty to the national and state constitution, swearing that they had never belonged to a "subversive" organization. The controversy over whether to sign or not spread from one campus in the state to another factionalizing the faculty and creating an environment of insecurity. I signed it with written reservations that were never challenged by anyone. Some faculty members left the state and recruiting became a bit of a problem.
The state legislature in numerous sessions passed legislation permitting Georgia to abandon its public school system and encouraging the firing of public school teachers advocating integration. In Bulloch County about 20 black school teachers were fired whose only crime was that they came from outside the county. Desperate but futile attempts were made to refurbish black schools, increase black school attendance, and to equalize teacher salaries. I might add that although I attacked segregation in all of my classes, neither I or anyone else suffered any interference. Intellectual freedom continued to exist in the colleges and universities, although it vanished from the public schools. My friendships, however, with pro‑segregationist faculty members such as Fielding Russell were strained.
In May 1954 Ruth and I were invited by the widowed mother of two very fine students, Rose Mary and Francis Ammons, who had become close friends, to visit them over a weekend in Brunswick, Georgia. To support her two daughters, the mother worked in a shrimp packing plant. We quite liked Mrs. Ammons, a very cheerful, kind woman. The girls and their mother showed us over Brunswick. They also took us over to St. Simon's Island to visit the site of Fort Fredericka, an early English settlement. We had a glorious time crabbing in tidal pools, picnicking on the island, and swimming in the ocean. We also visited Jekyl Island. Wildlife was very tame and quite photogenic. We were especially taken by the wild turkeys.
Several months later Ruth's sister Ann and her husband Everett Call came through Statesboro. At the time Everett was selling fine quality clothing. I brought several suits and introduced him to a number of potential customers in Statesboro. We toured the coast of eastern Florida with them. I especially enjoyed St. Augustine. The town with its Spanish fort fascinated me. Heavily commercialized, St. Augustine had no organic connection with its Spanish past as Santa Fe does, but it was an enjoyable vacation.
That fall Jack Averett returned to Statesboro from England. I had learned that his family had became wealthy during World War II. They made much of their money through building and renting horrible housing to blacks. As the only child of a very ambitious and domineering mother and a weak father, Jack (a banker) was quite spoiled. He had spent four years in England and returned disliking the English people. Malicious, nervous, abrupt, secretive and conspiratorial, he rapidly factionalized the department. I was quite surprised to note how he intimated President Henderson and Tom Alexander, both far better men. Observing the situation, I retreated into a policy of polite but friendly reserve.
All through 1953 Ruth had had one miscarriage after another. Finally, Dr. Bert Daniel, our family doctor and the finest doctor that I have ever known, performed a curettage on January 25, 1954. The failure of Dr. Kimball to properly care for Ruth after the birth of the first baby was responsible for Ruth's problems. Dr. Daniel recommended that she become pregnant as soon as possible. This she did in the early spring of 1954. She went through her pregnancy with few problems and after very hard labor on December 31, my birthday, gave birth to a baby boy during the early morning of January 1, 1955‑‑the first baby born that year in Bulloch County. Right after the baby was born, Dr. Daniel brought him out of the delivery room, showing us the big, red, whimpering baby boy, saying "Look, another professor!" He was nineteen inches long and weighed nine pounds. The doctor told me that Ruth was magnificent. She had gone through a difficult delivery without moaning, doing exactly what was asked of her.
As Ruth had fallen asleep after delivery, I returned home with Tom and Elsie, who had been with us during delivery to call our parents and our friends in Statesboro. Then I planted cabbages and lettuce in my garden and took a nap. Returning to the hospital towards evening, I found a radiant, happy and beautiful Ruth with her baby boy in her arms. We decided to name him David Clark Knowlton. On January 5 baby and mother came home. For over a week a constant stream of faculty, friends and students poured through the house to see the baby. David could hold his head up within days after birth. His appearance was the big event of our lives in 1955.
His coming changed our life completely. Our entire schedule was determined by David's needs. Our sleep was broken by his feedings. Our house was filled with lines of drying diapers and baby clothing. However, we had no problem with babysitting. Our students and neighbors literally fought for the privilege of tending him. The baby belonged not only to his parents but to the college and the neighborhood. Few babies were ever as popular as David.
The winter of 1954‑1955 was cold by south Georgia standards. Going outside to pick up the newspaper one winter evening, I smelled frost. I hastily wrapped our exposed water pipes snaking their way up the side of the house. Several neighbors came over to tell me that that was not necessary. That night it really froze. Damage through the county was severe. I was asked how I knew it was going to freeze when the weather reports stated that it would not freeze. My neighbors found it hard to believe that I could smell frost in the air.
We were a little uncertain about Ruth returning to school in the spring quarter, but much to our surprise, Ruth's mother came out to care for the baby until the quarter ended. She immediately fit into the neighborhood and became close friends with our dear neighbor, Thelma Billings. We were able to take them on a tour of Savannah and the local country. Ruth's mother was quite impressed by the beauties of the azaleas, wisterias, dogwoods, magnolias and other flowering shrubs. Ruth and I had planted a beautiful spring garden of bulbs, zinnias and other flowers.
As the spring quarter got underway, Tom called me in to ask about my dissertation. I was warned that my future employment was contingent upon securing my doctorate by the next school year. So I feverishly organized my material and began writing early in the morning, late in the evening, and on weekends. It should be noted that I was teaching fifteen hours a quarter, three classes every day, plus a Saturday class for teachers that lasted all morning.
As I finished one chapter, Ruth or her mother typed it up. Then I mailed it off to Dr. Emilio Willems, who returned them within a week or two with recommended changes. Making the changes, I mailed them off again. Each time I mailed in a totally clean copy. Willems wrote to state that it was not necessary to send a clean copy for review. I could scissor and paste the changes into the existing manuscript. Unable to resolve by mail certain problems in methodology and theory, I went up to Nashville by bus, thoroughly enjoying the ride, the numerous stops in small towns, and the rural and small town people of the South. I checked into the Sam Davis Hotel owned by Tom's father‑in‑law, who refused to permit me to pay for my room. I managed to solve my problems in about an hour's visit with Dr. Willems. Before returning to Statesboro, I walked over Vanderbilt and downtown Nashville, called Gerald Wallwork, the branch president, and learned that there were now around 200 members in very active, progressive branch of the Church.
Ruth, her mother and I traveled up to Vanderbilt for the defense of my dissertation on May 18, 1955. I braced myself, and with a pounding heart went into the department to confront Willems, Brearly, Marchant and others. Much to my surprise they treated me very lightly. They recommended a number of minor manuscript changes. Ruth, her mother and I sat up all night making the changes in the Sam Davis Hotel. My father flew to Nashville to visit us on his way home from New York. We toured Nashville and Vanderbilt and went to a mission district conference, saw most of our old Nashville friends, and heard Brother Antoine R. Ivins, a friend of my father, speak. I quite enjoyed his presentation. After the meeting we put my father on a plane for Salt Lake City and then drove back to Statesboro in glee. I had finally finished my Ph.D. I had my union card. I found that the card gave me a much higher status and an increased salary on campus. Come to think about it, I enjoyed Georgia Southern College so much that I had not noticed that my salary had not risen very much over the years. In June Ruth also graduated with a B.A. in music education. Thus, 1955 was one of the most important and happiest years of our lives. Ruth secured her B.A., David came into our home, and I finished my Ph.D.
At the end of the spring quarter Ruth and David traveled to Salt Lake City by train with her mother. They were delayed by floods in Kansas. Ruth, caught between the DeYoung and Knowlton families, and spent much of the summer in the Knowlton cabin in Mt. Aire Canyon. As the summer winded its way slowly, I taught my summer classes, worked in the garden, read, and spent considerable time with friends and neighbors. Without Ruth the house was lonely. I left Statesboro on August 18, in the midst of a tropical downpour, with a cherry pie from Thelma Billings as provisions. I drove nonstop for Salt Lake City, cat‑napping here and there, arriving late on August 19. Finding Ruth at my family's, I stopped there and slept until late afternoon the following day.
Upon awakening, I went with Ruth to visit her family. That night the Knowltons all met at the cabin for family outing. My niece, Marilyn, broke her arm while playing on the canyon gate. We gave her a blessing and rushed her to the hospital to have the arm set. The next morning Ruth and I went down to Provo with mother to visit my sister, Jayne, and her husband, who were studying at Brigham Young University. We also spent some time with my life‑long friend, Ross T. Christensen. He was now chairman of the Department of Archaeology.
Conditions in Ruth's family had improved. Her father had secured a permanent position as building inspector with the Salt Lake City School Board. For the first time since I had known him he seemed happy, relaxed, quiet and peaceful. Ruth's mother, on the other hand, was nervously trying to arrange numerous family get‑togethers. We did manage to visit all of Ruth's married brothers and sisters.
We departed Salt Lake City on September 12, 1955, eager to get back to Statesboro. We stopped in Provo to visit friends and relatives and then drove up the dangerous canyon road to Price and then to Cortez.
Unable to find accommodation in Cortez, we drove through Durango with another flat tire. Happy to be in New Mexico, we visited all the Spanish‑American villages and Indian pueblos and stopping in Santa Fe to enjoy the art galleries and museums. Ruth and I commented that someday we would like to live in New Mexico. Spending the night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, we drove on to Russelville, Arkansas, to stop for the night and reached Statesboro the next day. I was happy to return to our small wood house, to inspect my garden, to visit our fine neighbors, and to sit down in my small office to read my accumulated mail. Statesboro had become our home.
Tom Alexander secured leave for the 1955‑1956 school year to teach history at the University of Alabama. I was surprised that Jack Averett was named acting chairman. George Rogers and I passed a hard year. Jack was capricious, arrogant, and emotionally insecure. Before the fall quarter had ended, Jack had factionalized the department and antagonized the students, who called him "Shaky Jack," made enemies of a good part of the faculty, and showed physical signs of severe emotional tension.
To compensate for the strained emotional environment within the department, Ruth was called to serve as musical director of the South Georgia District and I as a member of the district Sunday School Superintendency. Placed in charge of teacher training in the district, I traveled to Savannah along with Ruth once a month to attend union meetings. Ruth and I usually would spend the rest of the day touring the forts and colonial architecture of Savannah. We also came to know and to appreciate President Berkeley Bunker from Las Vegas, Nevada, and other mission and local leaders.
One South Georgia branch, because of its extreme factionalism, caused us concern. The branch president, a local businessman, was involved in building a branch chapel. As donations from branch members were slow in coming in, the president raised the money through donations from his business friends and built the chapel within a few weeks. Many families in the branch were antagonized and refused to hold branch positions or to attend church. The mission president, after sending out the missionaries to round up the members, came to branch conference. He administered a tongue‑lashing to the membership of the branch. He told them that he would excommunicate the entire branch membership unless they cooperated together. He reorganized the branch alternating members from each faction in branch positions. He ended by telling them that they were on probation until they had clearly demonstrated that they would work together in the spirit of brotherhood. The branch members mended their ways and the branch became one of the strongest ones in the district. I was amused and excited by the way that he handled the situation.
In November, 1955, my parents visited us. We were able to take them on a tour of south Georgia. My father blessed David, who enjoyed his grandparents' visit. David by now was walking and getting into everything. He was welcomed into all the homes of the neighborhood was the pet of students who constantly came to the home to visit him. We never lacked for eager babysitters. As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity of discussing national and church politics with my father. We did not agree on national politics, he defending Eisenhower and I attacking him. In discussing church politics, my father felt that there was a need in the Church of what he called a loyal opposition to prevent the Church hierarchy from developing hardened arteries. He told me he disliked the creeping smugness, the sanctimoniousness, and the increasing tendency toward adulation of Church leaders within the Church. But on the other hand, he felt that the Church hierarchy tried to do their best for the welfare of the members of the Church.
McCarthyism finally reached Statesboro. Along with most members of the faculty, and of the intellectual circles of the community, I detested McCarthy, resented his reckless accusations, his destruction of the careers of many innocent Americans, and never forgave Eisenhower for not protecting members of his administration from McCarthy's demagogic accusations. I lost all respect for Eisenhower when he failed to come to the public aid of General Marshall when savaged by McCarthy. I revered General Marshall as one of the greatest generals in American history, who led his country to victory in World War II, fostering Eisenhower's career in the process and saved Western Europe from destitution and perhaps Communism after the war through the Marshall Plan. I have never been able to vote for national candidates on the Republican ticket since then. There is a strain of viciousness, or irresponsibility, of paranoia, and a lack of moral integrity within the Republican party that appalls me.
During the spring quarter 1956 I began teaching evening extension classes at Camp Stewart. The military at the time was discharging all officers who did not have college degrees. As a result, extension classes were being offered panicky officers at all nearby military bases. Upon entering my first class, I was quite surprised to find a number of officers from my old 70th Infantry Division, some of whom I had detested. I am ashamed to admit that I worked them extremely hard.
Ruth and David both suffered from bronchial problems during the winter of 1955‑1956. Shortly after our return from Salt Lake City in the fall, Ruth became pregnant. Her pregnancy proceeded quite normally. Then on May 25, 1956, minor labor pains began, but she refused to go to the hospital. The baby, Daniel DeYoung Knowlton, was born within 15 minutes after her arrival. Like David, Daniel was adored by neighbors, students, and many faculty members. A stocky baby, he was rather reserved and quiet.
In the fall of 1956 Tom Alexander returned to the college to resume his duties as department chairman, but the department was never quite the same. After talking with Averett, Tom accused me of possessing a strange power over the student body and using my influence to poison them against Averett. Rather astonished, I replied that no one had that much power over any student body and that I never talked to students about faculty affairs. The conversation ended with Tom saying, "I had a magnificent disregard for the trifles that governed other mens' lives." I am still not sure what he meant.
As the spring quarter of 1957 began, my father sent us money to buy a small washer and dryer without being asked. From time to time he sent us small sums of money whenever he sensed that we might be having financial stringencies without being solicited. Toward the end of the quarter he asked us to come to Salt Lake City in the fall. Rather reluctantly we left Statesboro on August 17, 1956, stopping to visit every museum and point of historical interest on the way. The first night caught us at Mt. Ida, Arkansas. The next day we drove to Anadarko where we spent most of the day touring the Southern Plains Indian Museum and open air exhibits. We were quite impressed.
Upon approaching Dalhart, a brake cylinder blew. I stopped at a local garage to have it fixed. While the mechanic worked on it, we talked about our army experiences, about crops and livestock, and the weather. I was astonished at his incredibly low fee. The next day we drove without mishap to Salt Lake City, determined to try to avoid any problems with our families. The day after our arrival my brother, Paul, and I attended Rotary with my father who, although a shy man, was well‑respected and liked.
On August 17 Ruth and I attended her sister Naomi's wedding to Earl Lloyd, a medical student at the University of Utah, in the Salt Lake Temple. Naomi had earlier become engaged to a boy who did not meet the standards of the DeYoung family and her mother broke up the engagement. Earl was much the superior young man. During the days that followed we tried to visit all family members on both sides of the family and to avoid family conflicts. But as always happened to us, we were trapped by our families scheduling family reunions on the same nights. I could never get away from Salt Lake City without a scolding from Ruth's mother. But we did manage to get to the state fair. The boys especially enjoyed the rabbits and chickens.
Leaving Salt Lake City on September 18, happy to be away, we stopped in Provo to see everyone and then drove up to Price. The very dangerous winding road along which I had once herded a horse, unable to escape from the road for several miles, had been improved. We stopped in Cortez for the night and then drove through Durango with our fingers crossed to Fort Garland, intending to travel from there to Taos. But close to Fort Garland a tire blew out, damaging a rim that had to be replaced. We went through the museum at the old fort in Garland and then crossed into New Mexico. We toured the Indian pueblo, the churches, and the plaza in Taos. As always we enjoyed driving through New Mexico. We stopped at Chimayo and bought several blankets at the Ortega weaving establishment. We then proceeded to Cordova to visit the church. Finding it locked, I knocked at the door of the nearest house. Before coming to the door a woman said in Spanish, "Here comes a Gringo." When she came to the door I asked her in Spanish where I might find someone with keys to the church. Realizing that I had understood her earlier comment, she threw an apron over her head and retreated into the house. Another woman then sent me to the Lopez family. Mr. Lopez, I found out, was an outstanding sculptor and woodcarver. We bought several small items from him. He took pleasure in showing us through the church and in pointing out the Penitente Death Cart and saints. From there we visited the Bandalier National Monument and Puye. With a sigh of regret we pulled ourselves back into reality before we spent all of our money and drove steadily from Santa Fe to Tucumcari, from there to Malvern, Arkansas, and on to Statesboro to find that Thelma and Becky Billings had thoroughly cleaned our house.
When the fall quarter began I sensed that Tom had lost interest in the department and was in the process of searching for another position. I exacted a promise from him that he would let me know if he signed a contract with another school. The boys were growing very rapidly. David ranged throughout the neighborhood, welcomed into every home. He had become the neighborhood pet. Daniel preferred to remain at home. He had become a husky boy who loved to take things apart. Ruth and I worried over his failure to speak very much.
On March 12, 1957, Tom told me that he had signed a contract with the University of Alabama. I looked so shocked when he notified me that Jack Averett would be acting head of the department that he hastened to inform me that Jack had changed very much. To recover from the shock, Ruth and I took the Billings on a trip to Charleston. We fell in love with the architecture, the town design, and the incredibly beautiful gardens.
Early in the spring of 1957 one of my students mentioned that members of his family, during spring plowing, had found bits of pottery and what seemed to be spear points. I went out to the site, made a surface collection, and mailed the materials to Dr. Kelly, an archaeologist at the University of Georgia. He wrote back that the site ought to be excavated and suggested that I do it. I promptly read everything I could find on archaeological techniques and methodology, organized an archaeology club at the college and proceeded to excavate the site, sending all finds to the University of Georgia. Dr. Kelly called to say that we had found some of the earliest pottery and points known in Georgia.
On September 1, 1957, Ruth and I drove to Macon to pick up her parents. It seemed as though we were either traveling to Salt Lake City to visit our families or our parents were constantly coming to Georgia. We took them on a tour of the Indian mounds and ruins, visited Macon University (which hired retired faculty to keep costs down), bought some fruit, and returned to Statesboro. Her parents remained with us for several weeks. We managed to take them ocean bathing at Sea Island and showed them interesting early colonial settlement sites and revolutionary battlefields in neighboring counties.
Dr. Bert Daniel called me in January to notify us that an elderly Mormon couple suffering from exhaustion had entered the hospital. From Salt Lake City theY were on their way home from a tour of Europe. The man was Brigham Young IV. He knew my father quite well. We visited him several times, he told me that he had worked for several church agencies. He felt that the greatest danger to the Church was the growth of materialism among both church leaders and members.
Dr. Daniel removed David and Daniel's tonsils on February 8, 1958. Daniel's tonsils had been so swollen that he could hardly talk. Dr. Daniel had invented a new machine for removing tonsils with a minimum of bleeding and tissue damage. The operation began at nine in the morning and we were able to take them home by five in the afternoon. Before going to bed they were eating ice cream. Dr. Daniel warned me that I had to remove my family to a drier climate. Ruth and both the boys would suffer from bronchitis, asthma, and recurrent infections until I did.
With little choice I sent out vitas to a large number of western schools. On February 15, 1958, I received a letter from Dr. Lynn I. Perrigo, New Mexico Highlands University, requesting references. Apparently they were satisfactory, as he sent me a contract for about the same salary as I was earning at Georgia Southern College. Without saying a word to anyone I signed the contract. Apparently word about my dissatisfaction with Jack Averett had reached the administration, for they sent me a contract for the school year 1958‑1959, offering me a $400 increase‑‑$400 more than I would be making at New Mexico Highlands University. The moment I signed a contract for summer teaching, I resigned my position at Georgia Southern.
All though the spring and summer of 1958 I directed an archaeological dig in Screven County of a very large mound. I called Dr. Kelly when I discovered the mound. He came to the mound site to get us started properly. Using the members of the college Archaeological Society, I uncovered a series of burials with some magnificent pottery and some implements that were identified as Early Archaic. The mound in the Savannah River Swamps fascinated the students, several of whom went on to become archaeologists.
David and Daniel came to the mound with me. They hunted surface artifacts with enthusiasm. All of us were intrigued by the abundant wildlife. I found the boys several times chasing squirrels, raccoons, foxes and deer. I tried to keep an eye out for snakes. Several times I went for long exploring trips into the swamps with students who knew the region and became quite interested in black and white families who preserved a pioneer way of existence in the swamps. They lived in small cabins on islands of solid earth and earned their living bootlegging, gathering Spanish Moss, fishing, hunting, and by primitive agriculture. They had no title to any land, but lived as they pleased and where they pleased, paying no taxes and obeying only their own customs. Speaking a unique dialect of English, they retreated from contact with the outside world into the swamps. Few of their children ever attended school. If I had remained in Georgia I would have liked to have studied them.
Leaving Statesboro was a trauma. We visited and cried with our neighbors. David, refusing to go, hid in the houses of those whom he loved. We drove around Statesboro to imprint the town where we had so many years firmly in our minds. Just before we left we found that Ruth had become pregnant again. I developed strong reservations about leaving Dr. Daniel. We traded in our old Cadillac for a used Dodge station wagon and left Bulloch County on August 19, 1958. I was shocked at the exploitation of the moving van companies‑‑companies without any conscience.
Although forced to leave Georgia for health reasons, we left it with great regret. The years that we spent there were among the happiest years of our lives. We loved the people and developed many life‑long friendships with neighbors and colleagues. I came to appreciate the personalism, the humanism, the individualism, the love of family, community, and region, and the sturdy individual and family independence of the South region. I admired the determination of the people to be themselves, regardless of what other people might think about them. On the other hand, I deplored the strain of violence that was just beneath the surface of southern life and the destructive attitude towards nature.
Leaving Statesboro in a very mournful state of mind, we drove to Macon, bought fruit for our trip, and then slowly drove through the lovely green Southern countryside. In Georgia tobacco was being picked. Cotton was being harvested. Farmers were digging peanuts. We stopped for the night at Talburton, Georgia. Ruth took the children into the motel room while I paid the motel manager. When she came out to help me unload the car, the two little boys came out of their shower and locked us out of the room. I went to the manager to secure another key. Much to our dismay, they locked us out again. Ruth gradually talked David into unlocking the door.
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