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, law, and order were other areas that were vastly different then. After the War Between the States, the antagonism between those upholding the federal judicial system and those who wanted more local control of the courts led to night riders and lynchings. Men settled their differences immediately. It became a way of life.
“Atlanta in 1913 still hadn’t reached a half million in population—but it wanted to. It was a mule center and railroad town. But it had grown significantly since 1865.
“Oh, there was light industry, including the National Pencil Company at 37-39 Forsyth Street. Mills were the most numerous, and a few breweries.
“Life in 1913 was casual and slow. Folks got most of their news from local newspapers, which printed ’extra’ editions for late-breaking stories.
“Sanitary conditions were terrible. The facilities were few and far between and were located outside. Sanitation workers were called ‘honey dippers.’ Typhoid fever was all over the place.
“Boys wore knee pants until they completed grammar school. Women wore high laced high-heeled shoes and bloomers made of the same material as their dresses.
“There were no frozen foods. People had streak of lean and perhaps some beef for stew. Hogs were plentiful. Biscuits and milk gravy were staples. They had apples and oranges occasionally, but raisins had seeds in them.
“Photography was all over—not just in the newspaper. Tintype, most usually.
“For recreation, most entertained themselves. There was a form of baseball, ‘peg,’ that they played in quiet streets or in vacant lots. Movie theaters ran silent films on weekends, especially around the mill neighborhoods. The Grand Theater, the Bijou, and the Lakewood Amusement Park helped people forget their daily drudgery.
“The South hadn’t really recovered from the ravages of the War Between the States and Georgia was no exception. The economy was shifting from the land to industry. Families were resettling from small towns and farms into the urban areas. Wives and children were often forced to work in factories to help the family survive.
“Mary Phagan was a beautiful little girl with a fair complexion, blue eyes, and dimples. Her hair was long and reddish brown and fell softly about her shoulders. Since she was well developed, she could have passed for eighteen. Her family all called her Mary rather than her full name of Mary Anne.
“Mary was Grandmother Fannie’s youngest child. Your grandfather says that she had a bubbly personality and was the life of their home. Mary was jovial, happy, and thoughtful toward others. When she was with her family, she’d show her affection for them by sitting in their laps and hugging them.
“The last Phagan family gathering was a ‘welcome home’ for Uncle Charlie. There the family had begun to notice how beautiful Mary was. Lily, her cousin, who is still living, tells me that she envied Mary a particular dress she had on. It was called a ‘Mary Jane dress”—long, with a gathered skirt and fitted waist. Lily and her sister Willie were ‘skinny,’ and Mary’s dress looked better because she was ‘heavier’ than them. They both wanted their dresses to look like Mary’s did on them.
“Early in April, Mary was rehearsing for a play she was in at the First Christian Church. The play was ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ and of course Mary played the role of Sleeping Beauty. Your grandfather tells me that he would take Mary to the church and watch her rehearse. The scene where Sleeping Beauty is awakened by a kiss always made him and Mary giggle. She would watch her brother with her eyes half-closed, and then begin to giggle when he cracked a smile. It seemed that that scene took an eternity to rehearse.”
I could picture Mary on the stage playing the little Sleeping Beauty. “April twenty-sixth was Confederate Memorial Day, a Saturday, and a holiday complete with a parade and picnic. Mary planned to go up to the National Pencil Company to pick up her pay and then watch the parade. She told Grandmother Fannie she’d be home later that afternoon. One of the last things she did was to iron a white dress for Bible School on Sunday. She was a member of the Adrial Class of the First Christian Bible School, and she wanted to look her best so she might win the contest given by the school.
“She was excited about the holiday, though, and wore her special lavender dress, lace-trimmed, which her Aunt Lizzie had made for her, they tell me. Her undergarments included a corset with hose supporters, corset cover, knit underwear, an undershirt, drawers, a pair of silk garters, and a pair of hose. She wore a pair of low-heeled shoes and carried a silver mesh bag made of German silver, a handkerchief, and a new parasol.
“At
