“The years in Alabama were good for them, especially for William Joshua and Fannie. They had two more children, Charles Bryan and William Joshua, Jr. They continued to farm the land.
“In February of 1899, William Joshua Phagan died of measles. Fannie, who was then six months pregnant, was left with their four young children. She was devastated but kept her courage up: she knew the child she was carrying could be in danger. On June 1, Mary Anne Phagan was born to Fannie in Florence, Alabama.
“Fannie remained in Alabama long enough for her and her baby daughter to gain their strength. Then she moved her family back home to Georgia, where she planned to live with her widowed mother, Mrs. Nannie Benton, and her brother, Rell Benton.”
“Why did she move away from her husband’s family, when they’d been so good to her?” I asked.
“Oh,” my father smiled, “I don’t believe she was so much moving away from her husband’s kin as she was moving back to her own kin. Anyway, hang on,” he grinned at me. “Thing is, it turned out that the families weren’t separated in the end, after all.”
He shifted in his chair. “Well, anyway, Fannie probably also figured there’d be more opportunities in a densely populated—well, relatively densely populated—area. Notice I didn’t say city. ‘Cause Marietta was far from that, then. What it was was a country town with a population of about three thousand five hundred. And Southern society was changing rapidly: the younger generation did not know the high feelings of the War Between the States and Reconstruction. The War and its aftermath no longer dominated society and politics.
“The square in Marietta was the center of every aspect of life. It was an arena of sorts for social, political, and agricultural activities and the center of transportation and communication for both residents and visitors.
“Then—see what I meant?—W.J. Phagan moved his family back to Georgia as well. The death of his eldest son so bereaved him that the family could no longer remain in Alabama. He purchased a log home and land on Powder Springs Road in Marietta. WJ. also provided Fannie with a home for her and her five children to live in. He saw to it that they had no hardships.
“About 1907 the last of the Phagan family left Alabama and returned to Georgia. Reuben Egbert and his family moved back to their native state and remained there for the rest of their lives. WJ. kept an eye on all his children and his grandchildren, and by 1910 had all of them nearby him, as well as financially secure, in Marietta.
“Fannie Phagan and her children appreciated what W.J. was doing for them, but they also felt the desire to support their family themselves. So sometime after 1910 Fannie Phagan and four of her five children moved to East Point—Atlanta—Georgia, where she started a boarding house, and the children found jobs in the mill. Charlie Joseph, the middle child, decided he wanted to continue farming and moved in with his Uncle Reuben on Powder Springs Road in Marietta. Around that time Mary found work at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta.
“The Phagan family remained close with relatives in Marietta. Every so often one of Mary’s aunts—Lizzie, Ruth, or Mattie—would ride the trolley from Marietta Square to East Point to pick up Mary and bring her to W.J.’s house. The family always loved having Mary there, especially her female cousins, Willie and Lily. When the cousins got together—usually in the summer, when school was out—they played games—hide and seek, hopscotch, dolls and house. But Mary’s favorite game was house. The girls would clear a clean spot in the shade, place rocks in it for chairs, and then decorate the ‘inside’ of the ‘house’ using limbs from trees or other big branches already on the ground. Their ‘house’ would show the distinct rooms—kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc. But usually in the bedroom they would have a babydoll. Dolis were different back then. Most of them had stuffed bodies but their heads were called ‘China.’ When they would push the babydoll in its carriage, one foot would fly up! The girls could always be heard giggling and laughing together. They cherished those times together. And especially since visits were getting fewer.
“Usually, Aunt Lizzie would make the girls their clothes. How excited they got! They loved new things, just like everyone else. Sometimes Aunt Lizzie would take them to Marietta Square for a shopping trip. They’d get on the trolley where it began—Atlanta Street. Remember, the Square was the center of activity and the girls delighted in seeing things ‘downtown.’ Sometimes they would just ride the trolley car.
“Even though Mary stayed busy at WJ.’s, she always found time to drop Grandmother Fannie a note.”
Here my father stopped and took a postcard Mary had written to her mother: it was postmarked Marietta, Georgia, June 16, 1911, 6:00 p.m.:
Hello Mama,
How are you?
I got here all O.K.
I would have wrote sooner
but I hadn’t thought about it.
Willie is up here.
Aunt Lizzie has got my gingham
dress made. I am
going to have my picture made soon.
Your
baby,
Mary
We were both deeply touched by the way Mary had signed the card.
“On February 25, 1912, Fannie married J.W. Coleman, a cabinet maker. He was a good man and accepted her children as his own. And they all liked him and accepted him as their stepfather.
“They moved to J.W.’s house at 146 Lindsey Street in Atlanta near Bellwood, a white working-class neighborhood.
“Well, Coleman didn’t have much money, but he wasn’t considered poor by any means. After marrying Fannie, he requested that her youngest child, Mary, quit work at the Pencil Company and continue her education. But Mary liked her work at the factory and didn’t really want to quit.
“Eventually, Fannie’s eldest, Benjamin Franklin, who worked as a delivery boy for a general merchandise store, joined the Navy. Ollie Mae became a saleslady for Rich’s Department Store. William Joshua, Jr., continued to work in the mills. They didn’t seem to mind working at all, because they were earning money.”
“Why did anyone mind?” I asked.
“Oh, mill life was anything but easy then.” He looked out the window. “The conditions were awful; mills were filthy and lint was everywhere. Child labor laws weren’t enacted ‘til years later. Small children were hired as sweepers and were whistled at to keep moving. My mother, Mary Richards Phagan, was eleven years old when she became a spinner at the mills. She was so small, she was one of the first to be run away from the ‘officials’—the labor representatives—when they came by. It was hotter than the hinges of Hades, and cotton was always flying through the air. In fact, the flying lint eventually became a term for those who worked in the mills: lint-heads.”
“Okay, Daddy,” I interrupted. “But life in Atlanta must have been more exciting than life in Marietta—or Alabama.”
“Cobb County itself had a county population of twenty-five thousand. There were no paved roads in Marietta and Cobb County, including the square in Marietta. People used wagons and carriages; virtually no one owned an automobile then. If they chose to travel the twenty-five miles to Atlanta, they used the N.C. & St. L. Railroad or the electric streetcar line.
“Telephone service had come in some twenty-five years earlier—about 1890, or so. Water and electricity had only been available for five years.
“Cobb was considered an agricultural county and had practically no industries. In late autumn, the square in Marietta was filled with cotton bales. Throughout the summer it was filled with vegetables.
“Justice,