Ruralite Cafe: Published 06/19/03

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Mail brings echoes of home

While I don't know that answer, I do know how surprised I was to see a notice about my alma mater's class of 1953 mixed in with The Sylva Herald's Monday mail.

The smiley-face return address label indicated the letter was from Mrs. W.K. Anderson of Atlanta, zip code 30338. In the old days that zip code belonged to Dunwoody, just as 30341 meant Chamblee. But both of those once-little towns are part of the Atlanta metropolis now.

Feeling a need to connect with someone from my old school, I called the number provided... and got an answering machine. But bright and early Tuesday morning Betty Morris (nee Warbington) called back.

She couldn't tell me why the Chamblee reunion notice came to this newspaper, because her classmate, Alvilene Price Anderson was the one who had sent it. We had a nice chat, though. Betty was familiar with the house two doors down from the school that my family had lived in, and my family doctor (Dr. Alfred Mendenhall - he made house calls) took out her tonsils when she was 12 years old.

"I never liked him after that," she said.

Betty told me a few things I didn't know like the fact that Dr. Mendenhall's father had been one of her science teachers.

She remembered the distinguished gentleman down the street, "Mr. Harold" Smith, whose yard my brothers and I ran through on our way through the neighborhood, as a fixture at the high school; we both still called him "Mr. Harold."

Betty even knew the flakiest, most politically incorrect (though we didn't know that term in 1963) teacher I ever had - my Georgia history instructor, Miss Hannah P. Bowden.

Miss Bowden was close to retirement when my class came along. She had grown up on a big farm near Columbus and seemed reluctant to acknowledge changes brought by the war. That would be the Civil War - or the War Between the States, as she preferred to call it when she could bring herself to mention it.

Though Miss Bowden fancied herself a "lady," she was unconcerned about her students' feelings or self images. She mostly called all the boys "Sonny-Boy," but she sometimes resorted to unflattering descriptions like "Little Fat Boy," to make sure we all knew just exactly which Sonny-Boy she meant.

Betty said Miss Bowden wasn't much different in the 1950s than when my class passed through some 15 years later.

Talking to Betty was like visiting with an old friend. She lives in Alpharetta now, and she said it's growing fast the way Dunwoody (now one of Atlanta's most affluent suburbs, it was the sticks when we started high school) did when we were kids.

"We moved out here in 1970 because there were farms and horses, and it was like Dunwoody used to be," she said. "Now the horses are gone, and we've got all the professional ballplayers."

Then Betty gave me Alvilene's telephone number.

Alvilene, as the zip code proves, still lives in Dunwoody, although she also bemoaned the area's lost rural character.

Her family moved to the Atlanta area right after World War II, she said, so her father could work at the Naval Station (now DeKalb-Peachtree Airport). When she and Betty were classmates, Chamblee was the only high school in north DeKalb County, Alvilene said.

That all changed during the mid-1960s when I was there. Three high schools constructed in rapid succession all siphoned off students while I was there, but there were still more than 300 of us receiving diplomas in 1968 - three times as many as graduated with Alvilene and Betty in 1953.

As we talked, Alvilene and I discovered that her husband is related to the wife of one of my high school (and Sunday school) classmates.

Because Alvilene's letter found its way to my desk, she succeeded in getting word of the Chamblee High School Class of 1953's 50th reunion into this newspaper.

So if any former Bulldogs who graduated half a century ago are reading this, the party's set for September, and you need to call Betty at (770) 475-6282 for more information.

Back to Archive: 06/19/03.