>> So I am William Fry.
>> And I am Leslie Lepart.
>> And we are here with
John Gray Trimble at
his home in Adairsville on October 12th,
2018, and we're here with Dr. Dickey of KSU.
And we're going to ask a few questions here.
So will you please introduce yourself
and tell us a little bit about your background?
>> I've been trying to think about how to write up
my obituary for about the last week.
>> John, introduce yourself and tell them
a little bit about your background.
>> Talk a little louder, all of you.
My hearing aids are clooged up and I can't hear you.
>> All right. Just if you would introduce
yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself.
>> Hi. My name is John Gray Trimble,
Jr of Adairsville, Georgia, Route 2.
I was born really born at Gardner Springs,
Georgia, which is in Georgia County.
And I don't know what all you want to know.
I can remember eating green apples over
there and getting real bad stomachache,
and we had no doctors around here.
And they brought me to a halfway quack here in
Adairsville and I had a real bad stomachache.
I was four years old.
And he lived right over here.
What's the name of that street?
It's right over next to the Baptist Church.
And he gave me
some medicine and I went home and got well.
But it was rough times back in those days.
My mother had appendicitis had to be operated on,
and they only had one doctor in Calhoun
had had a resting knife, they cut her open.
And she had some adhesions from that.
She had been bitten by
a cottonmouth when she was about eight.
What's the name of that area over there?
>> Union Grove.
>> What?
>> Union Grove.
>> Can't hear you.
>> Union Grove.
>> Union Grove. And mother
ran out in the yard and caught a chicken,
pulled it open, put that on her leg and
took her to an old doctor up there named Dr. Starr.
You don't have to write all this down.
But I'm trying to give
you some background how bad it was.
And she, I guess,
had pulled some of the poison out and he cut her leg.
And even to the day she died,
she had a scar halfway from her knees to
her ankle on the inside of her leg from the doctor,
he had to cut it open and scrape the bone.
But she was a tough woman.
And I think she was part Cherokee but I don't know.
So that makes me a lesser part Cherokee.
>> What was your mother's name, Mr. Trimble?
>> I don't know. They called her Josey.
But her name was Sara Ann Mara Trimble.
She got married when she was 12 years old to my daddy,
who was one of the Trimbles from Trimble Hold here.
His grandfather was named Augustus Trimble.
He came here about 1840, settled.
He had a land grant from Georgia.
That was when they run the Cherokee Indians out.
And then my other great grandfather
settled here in Adairsville.
His name was Colonel John Gray.
One of his sons was the first editor of
the Journal Constitution and they were good friends.
My grandfather, Trimble
all of these people got 120 acres,
and that was it and they couldn't make do with it,
so he followed up 120 acres.
He owned all the property
from out here at the highway all the way back.
He owned about 1,100 acres.
He was the largest land owner
in this part of the country.
And Colonel Gray,
he was colonel because he was a colonel in the Civil War.
And he's buried over at East cemetery.
And he was the one I was named after.
My name was John Gray.
His name was James Gray.
Well, if you read all that stuff
in that trunk that I did,
you'll be able to retain some of it.
>> I don't remember his name.
I just remember Colonel Gray.
>> Well, anyway, that's the reason I'd like to get
in a car and drive you and show you
these places I'm talking about.
Anyway, if you look out there in the yard,
there's two or three big rocks when you come in.
They were the fireplace hearts
of the first cabin in Adairsville itself,
and they were in the cabin that
belonged to Colonel John Gray.
And he was the first white child in this whole area,
and he was six foot five and
he was the biggest person around.
And I don't know where I got my small size.
But I had a loud enough mouth.
But if I could take it to
the home place at AC Augustus Crawford Trimble,
where he settled over here.
There was a big spring behind it.
And I remember when I was young,
18 years old, my mother and father would cut watercress.
Do you know what watercress is?
And barrel it up down to the depot.
What kind of market they call it?
And they would set it
up there and send them a check back.
So that was my mother
and father made that living off of cutting watercress.
What did we have in 1929?
>> Depression.
>> What?
>> Depression.
>> The stock market crash and the depression.
>> Yeah. That is what they made a living back then.
They could wear wave boots up to here,
big sharp knives, they cut that stuff in brunches,
tied up, throw it in baskets, take it down here
to depot and barrel it up and put ice on it,
salt, ship it to Chicago.
My poor old granddaddy he just farmed.
It was tough back in those days.
Before that they owneded
peach orchards all back over that way.
And they used to ship out box cars of peaches.
This is before the stock market crash.
I had one one picture
of him shipping out box cars of peaches down here.
And that was the big way
that people made a living, peaches.
And then you got to
where you couldn't get the labor to pick
the peaches or to spray the trees or whatever,
so it died out.
>> Which relative grew the peaches and the watercress?
>> His parents.
>> It was your parents? Your parents
grew the peaches and the watercress?
>> Well, my parents did
and I guess my great grandparents did the same thing.
And then they grew cotton after that and I had
a biopsy taken out of
[inaudible] and get a surgery on it.
Hopefully, they don't have to go too deep.
>> And what was your occupation?
>> I didn't do that.
>> Well, what did you do instead of?
>> Well, when I got
out of high school at Millwood up
here and the school doesn't exist any longer.
They have an elementary school,
but it consolidated with Calhoun High School.
And I left Calhoun.
In fact, Patsy went to Calhoun with me,
and we grew up 2 miles apart.
And she's younger than I am.
But I knew her mother better than I did her.
I used to walk about 10 miles once a week,
delivered grit newspapers.
Remember grit newspapers?
And I delivered one to her mother every week.
And this little curly headed thinghad come
walking out on the deck looking at me.
And I said she cute.
>> Cute sStory.
>> Beg your pardon?
>> She don't like me to tell stories of her.
>> Where was that?
>> She asked what your occupation was.
>> What did you do for work?
>> Well, I had a very educational background.
I got out of Bill Wood to Calhoun High School,
and I went to Georgia Tech.
>> You went to the FBI first.
>> Did I go to the FBI before that?
>> Tell them about going to FBI. Tell them.
>> Well, I thought I went to
Georgia Tech before I went to the FBI.
Anyway, I'm sitting at
Senior Calhoun High School in City Hall.
Principal came to the City Hall door,
he says John, the FBI is here to see you.
I said, okay.
I went out, [inaudible] said, you got to come
to police headquarters with me up here,
let me take your fingerprints and everything.
What happened, I had written
the letter a couple of months before that and I said,
hey, I want to come to Washington and work for you guys.
But they stand there to get my name and everything,
so they came to get me
and I was the hit of the whole high school,
"The FBI were talking to John."
And so a couple of weeks later,
I got on the Eastern Airlines plane in Atlanta,
first big plane I'd ever been on,
and flew to Washington
and they told me where to go and get a room in
a boarding house and report
the next day. Where did I report to?
>> FBI building.
>> What's the first building down there?
On Pennsylvania Avenue.
The FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. Anyway.
>> The Hoover building?
>> Yeah. What year was that?
>> It was 19'. Shit, I lost half of my memory.
You want me to tell them about that?
>> It was 1952.
>> 1952?
>> '52. And I fell out here,
we've been out here three years.
A big old home, big old two-story [inaudible] home,
Southern plantation, burned down.
We were in it.
So she's running out of the house with the dog,
the nightgown on,
and the dog under her arm, a little white dog.
And running up down the gravel driveway,
no neighbors, up the street, in the rain.
I'm right behind her trying to catch her,
house was on fire and made it out of it all fine,
[inaudible], and you could see it burning in Atlanta.
And I couldn't catch her,
and some guy came by and I had on underwear and socks,
came by, he would 911,
they would call the fireman.
The fireman can't do nothing
when there's no water or no nothing,
so I couldn't get back in the house to save anything.
So [inaudible] burned up,
Social Security cards burned up.
Everything from the drug store,
I couldn't even get a prescription filled
because I couldn't prove they were lost,
phones burned up, car keys burned up.
We were in real bad shape
and don't ever let it happen to you.
>> Was this the Trimble Family Home that AC had built?
>> No, his son William Wiley built it, in about 1865.
AC built his over here in about,
what was that date I gave you earlier?
1840 or something like that?
>> Yeah, 1840.
>> This was one of his sons, built this house,
and pulled up all the land around AC's house.
It's before the Civil War.
William Wiley was after the Civil War.
AC's house, Augustus Crawford was
his name. What was the question?
>> So this was the Trimble House,
did it get struck by lightning?
>> No.
>> Is that what happened?
>> Esther went to the kitchen to get a drink
of water or glass of milk or something,
and the goddam house was on fire.
>> It was just electrical.
>> Electrical fire?
>> Yeah.
>> We think it was electrical, we don't know.
>> It started in the laundry room.
>> Anyway, we got out with nothing.
No clothes, nothing.
Car keys burned up,
I couldn't even move the car truck.
All of our family history,
I had in a big old trunk upfront,
about the size of that piece of furniture back there,
and it had our whole family.
Trimble Hall was where all the kin folks came by.
Most of my family was
military and they'd come by about once a year,
and drop off stuff, store it there.
All the uniforms, swords,
bayonets, guns, whatever, and everything burned up.
Mine burned up, all theirs burned up.
I had a World War II German,
what do you call it, P-32?
It was the [inaudible], Hitler's gun.
I had one in my library there.
With all the books, it had been there for 100 years,
all burned up and it was hidden under a table,
and I couldn't remember to go get it.
I got it inside that room and got burned up.
But all my pictures of Robert E Lee and
Stonewall Jackson and everybody
was on the wall burned up.
My daddy brought back some Gestapo flags
and whatever from the Second World War.
He was in Germany in the Second World War,
and they burned up.
You bought me a gun cabinet
with all the rifles and shotguns in it,
and they burned up.
So it was a really bad fire.
Anyway, in 1865,
WW built that house
and it would still be there
today if it hadn't caught on fire.
>> Since we're on the topic of the Trimble House,
can I ask you another question there.
What memories?
Do you have any good memories about
that house when you're younger or anything?
>> First house or second house?
>> The first, the one that
burned up, the tremble house?
>> That's the second one.
>> Yeah. The first one burned up from a lightning strike.
>> Well, I think the first burned up
from the people that owned
the property there after three or four generations on it.
I believe they set it on fire to get insurance money,
but I can't prove it.
But anyway, they called me and I was home in the tub.
Somebody came back said,
John your Granddaddy's house is burning over.
So I jumped in the car and drove over there and he had
a little fire truck
out there with a little water hose on it with the tank
spreading it looked like somebody
was pegging on the damn car,
I wouldn't do nothing.
So that is all we can say.
>> Did you grow up in the second Trimble House?
>> No. I grew up in
Gardner Springs until I was about four or five.
School bus come back to get me over there.
And there was the old, was that Mr. Hawk?
Mr. Hawk was a bus driver.
He dropped me off there every night after school.
He says, John Gray, what are you going to have to supper?
I says, country ham red eye gravy, homemade biscuits.
So I had some good bus drivers.
And I remember one episode there or two episodes.
It was two story or two story white frame house,
and I had a goat
and I guess my mother left the goat in the house.
And the goat went up the backstairs,
it was upstairs eating
whatever it was eating up there before we got it out.
And I think its name was Bamby.
I don't think it was Bamby I think
it was goddamn goat. I'm not sure.
>> So you lived in
Gardner Springs until you're about four or five?
>> Yeah. So my granddad built his house over here,
and then I moved down on his place
and he's still there now.
The guy bought the property.
That property belonged to my great aunt Gussie.
And what happened, they split the place up.
Part of it went stayed on my great granddaddy's place,
part of it stayed in the middle of my granddaddy gut,
and part of it belonged to aunt Gussie.
Well, I named my cat here,
if you see her walking around a minute.
Her name is Gussie.
I named it after my great aunt
and she's some kind of a kid.
Not sure what that thing is in Pat's life.
But anyway,
I remember running away when I was about five.
I was pretty adventurous, I guess.
I was about five and I tied my stuff up in
a hands skiff and put it on end of the stick,
and I was walking up the country road running away.
And mailman came by and his name was what?
He lives right over here.
Stegall, Mr. Stegall come by his old A model,
B model and picked me up and made me go back home.
He took me back home.
It hurt my feelings.
I don't like male people since then.
But that's about all I remember and eating green apples.
>> So besides trying to run away and eating green apples,
what other activities
did you enjoy doing here as a child?
>> Well, I can remember the goat,
and I can remember looking out of the upstairs window and
my daddy and uncle were going to creek,
at a creek and a swamp area over there.
They were going to catch a turtle.
Go to make turtle soup.
And they came back with big old snapping turtle
and life there to catch turtle thing
killed. Do you remember that?
>> I remember that.
>> Do you remember me talking about it?
But that uncle is out
and he's still alive way out west somewhere.
>> When did you move into those house that burned?
>> Well, after I got out of Georgia tapp,
I went to the Merchant Marine Academy on
Long Island where I was a naval cadet.
Are you ready?
>> Yeah. We're ready.
>> I went to the Merchant Marine Academy
and I left it there and to go
into Aviation cadets with Air Force for fly jets.
And then in the meantime,
I got an appointment with West Point.
So I said, no, I'm going to go to West Point and see it.
So I went to West Point.
It's United States Military Academy.
[NOISE]
In Kings at West Point. Where in the world is it?
>> West Point?
>> New York.
>> It's in New York State.
>> But I'm trying to thank my uncle.
I had a brother in law was up there last week.
And that makes Harry went to West Point.
James Harley went to West Point.
>> Richard.
>> I went to West Point.
The story of us went to West Point.
>> Uncle Richard did not? Uncle Richard?
>> No, Uncle Richard, he went to Yale.
He went to Emery and then he went to Yale.
He was the only one that had any sense.
>> Are those your brothers or cousins?
>> Those are cousins.
>> One of the retired was lieutenant.
Colonel lives up in Memphis,
now in the Air Force.
He was flying jets, got shot down in Vietnam twice and
escaped the first time through the jungle and everything.
And second time is when they had
the Armistice and he got out.
That's reason I'm say I will write a book and
go back and get my memories a little straighter.
I got another cousin. What's his name?
One from Peachtree City was worried about him last night.
Not Peachtree City.
Peachtree City where the hurricane came,
and it blow him away. What's his name?
>> Well, it's Leighton and then you've got Jimmy.
>> Laton?
>> Leighton and Jimmy.
>> Leighton, he's the one.
He was in the army.
He was a retired colonel from Fort Mac and he made
250 parachute jumps before he retired.
And I'd like to show the cemetery up here on
the hill because you could come in from town and go out,
somewhere right on the top.
The Trimble cemetery where the first one is buried there.
He's got a road iron fence up at the top
and it's got her names on the gates, Trimble.
And I've been looking at it for 20 years
and he went and got somebody to
bring a truckloads of gravel.
He gravel up there and put
around the markers and everything.
It looks real, real good.
I can't walk up that hill now.
>> That's the Paper Springs cemetery?
Yes. I've been up there.
>> Have you been up there lately?
>> About a year ago, I was up there.
>> Did you see the Trimble cemetery on top?
>> I did. Yes, sir.
>> The tall always covered in [inaudible]
that was Essie Trimble.
He was one of the first Trimble house.
And there's a marker down on the highway
down Bellville 140 in
front of the Popular Springs Church.
It was put there because of that house.
And then I had another cousin over here they wrote up
a history and I gave it to
Calhoun Times and they printed it.
And then we had a box at the University of Georgia.
And all this history and everything in it.
All the original deeds
had leather little disc on the bottom of them.
I'm trying to think what I'm trying to say.
At one time, they called me up at
the fair grounds and gave me a coin
because I was one of
the only three descendants
left of the original people
where the land had never changed hands.
I can't remember what the name of it.
It was that lawyer,
another a jack-legged lawyer lives over
there past Swan School on the hill up there,
I used to deal with them all the time.
You don't remember jack-legs?
>> I don't remember jacklegs. [OVERLAPPING]
>> She does. She just won't mention on names.
>> So did you graduate from West Point?
>> No, ma'am. I was going to go in
aviation because they have some flying jets.
And then I ended up coming back
and I guess I got married the first time.
>> He went two years.
>> So two years at West Point?
>> Yeah.
>> He fucked up.
>> That was about all I could stand.
>> He fucked calculus.
[LAUGHTER]
>> No. But I could have gone back.
I got turned out, what do you call it,
I had a failing grade.
You get a failing grade in any subject,
that's it, and I had a failing grade in math,
so they were going to send me to a tutor in
New York City and get me a job at
Mama Mia's Pizza Place down there.
But I figured I already had two years,
who hell could send three more years up there,
but I wish I had now.
I wish I had and I'll dream about the place at night.
I got all kinds of weird dreams,
and every time I get a new pillow,
my wife throws them away. She said they stink.
>> So you left
West Point and came back here and got married?
>> You came back to Georgia?
>> Not really. Had one more stop.
Me and a buddy mine got on a Trailways bus.
We got all the newspapers we
could found where we'd like to go.
He wanted to go to
Washington State and become a lumberjack.
I said, "Now, that's too much hard work for me."
So anyway, I guess I got
the Los Angeles times
and just said that I wanted to be a policeman.
So I went to Los Angeles to get on the police force.
So I got accepted and everything but I had
to come back here and lose some weight.
I wouldn't though, I wouldn't hit it.
I just didn't want to be come back and exercise more,
lose a little weight and come back out there.
And meanwhile, I got married here,
didn't go back out there.
You remember those boys on those motorcycles
out there riding up and down the highway?
I was going to be one of those guys.
[LAUGHTER]
So I came back here and got married,
and lo and behold,
we went along and gotten three kids
and went to work for IBM,
and IBM didn't pay nothing,
still don't pay nothing.
And so we came back here and spent 40 years with IBM,
and then my house burned down.
>> What did you do for IBM?
>> I was a personnel manager type person.
I made people happy.
I never did nothing.
They moved me around.
I was in Atlanta, and I went to Memphis,
I went back to Tampa,
went to New York, all
of places where they needed somebody.
So I left. You ever heard of Jeff Foxworthy?
>> Yes. [OVERLAPPING]
>> I worked with his unit for
30 years and he got [inaudible] in Alabama.
He was going around a curve,
taking an old use truck back to Ford dealer,
ran head-on to one of these water trucks,
appears to be gallons of water.
Didn't know if a seatbelt broke
his damn neck and killed him.
Best friend I ever had my life.
Unbelievable. I dream about him every once in a while.
He was a tough son of the bitch.
Tough. We'd go to the dives in there in Tampa.
I went to work for him in Tampa.
Where was I?
Anyway. wherever it was,
I went to work in Tampa and we'd go
eat lunch and he'd pick out the ugliest wreck,
roughest looking dive there was in that area,
pull his tie off, pull his tie down, pull his coat off,
throw it in the back seat,
walk in that place like
a God damn cocky rooster
and wouldn't nobody mess with him.
He had two eye teeth coming out looked like a wolf.
And I'd maybe throw my hat in the back seat
and maybe his jacket and I'd go in with
it and nobody messed with us.
And then we had company golf tournament.
I didn't know he had any golf clubs,
and I played every week somewhere.
We were going to get golf to him.
I went to pick him up,
and he come and picked me up and he had
his golf cart full of beer, and whiskey,
and everything else going to go play
and reached the back of his old Chrysler,
pull out a set of golf clubs,
had a rust on him, pit the rust off,
put them in the back of the golf cart,
and went and won the damn tournament, scratch.
Just scratch.
[LAUGHTER]
And he couldn't stand to lose.
Really, he married this sweetheart from Hollywood.
Craig, what was her name?
Greg, what was her last name?
[OVERLAPPING]
>> [inaudible]. [OVERLAPPING]
>> [inaudible]. I went to the wake talking to her mother.
Her mother was one of
these Hollywood mothers and whatever
but she thought I was somebody
and she got along really good.
And the chef, he was okay.
>> So after you came back here to Adairsville,
you said you spent 40 years here at IBM.
>> Yeah.
>> Can you tell me about any events,
or festivals, or anything that happened
in Adairsville that you can remember?
>> I remember Bank Ruby.
>> Those 40 years,
you were moving around a lot of different places, right?
>> Well, I was with IBM.
>> When did you come back to Adairsville to live?
>> I guess I came back then,
but I was over here from
dark in the morning to dark at night and had a wife,
3, 4 kids in Trimble Hollow.
>> But you came back in the early '80s,
didn't you, from Tampa?
>> Yeah, I came back here,
but actually, I lived here,
and I came back to Chattanooga,
and I was able
to go up there and help a guy out for six months,
and I stayed five years.
>> But you were living in Gordon County.
>> But were you living
in Georgia and commuting to Chattanooga?
>> I was living in Georgia.
One of the things in Chattanooga,
or Memphis rather,
it was Memphis, that I had to look after.
It was about 50 rental cars and 50 condos.
That was just a sideline.
But I lived in one of the condos free, IBM paid for it.
And I'd drive back home here.
When did I drive back here?
On a Sunday night?
>> You came back here on
Friday night and you'd drive back on a Sunday.
[OVERLAPPING]
>> Friday night, and I drove back to
Memphis on Saturday morning.
So I commuted from here to Memphis and back,
and it was pretty tough.
>> But John, can you tell them something
about all this stuff in Adairsville?
[OVERLAPPING]
>> A little louder, I can't hear you.
>> All this stuff in Adairsville that you attended.
Like you were in the Lions Club,
and all these festivals and you went to
church downtown all those years.
>> We bought two little storefronts down in Adairsville.
One is where the bank is now,
and I sold a little one
to the first dentist we ever
had who had hurt
his back playing golf, he had to quit dentistry.
And next store sold it to,
what's the doctor's name?
He lives over here in front of the schoolhouse,
and his little wife went to Georgia,
pretty little thing, put a powder puff on
her face every day. I can't remember.
[NOISE]
We probably run into her
dad's at Susie. She's a sweetheart.
And then it came
a thunderstorm when the season started
[inaudible] and I sold it
to an out-of-the-way way
church people who tore it up.
>> Was this on The Public Square?
>> By the train depot?
>> Ma'am?
>> Was that in The Public Square by the train depot?
>> Do you know where
the little thing is in
the middle there in The Public Square?
It's right across from it in the main.
She had to take you down there to show you.
But my first wife,
there's no place to eat down there,
so she being an Adairsville woman, she knew everybody.
What do you call those little slop-down places?
>> It was just a little soup shop.
>> Huh?
>> It was just a little restaurant. It was a cafe.
>> Yeah. And I had to come home from Atlanta at
night and sweep and mop
the floor because she had
opened at about eleven o'clock in the morning,
she'd close at about 3:00 in the afternoon.
And then everybody knew her because her daddy was
the undertaker and she was really likable.
>> She was a Barton.
>> I was going to say, what was her name?
>> Sydney.
>> Sydney Barton.
>> So that was the funeral home that
was up on the hill behind The Public Square?
>> That's her daddy.
>> That's where she was raised.
>> In the house?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Nephew owns it now,
but he lives down Hall Station Road.
And his mother helps to run it now,
[inaudible] and she'll be down at the [inaudible].
She was a boss at [inaudible] for years.
And then before that,
his mother was kind of a leader down there for years,
and they know a lot more about it than I do.
But I have names that come back
to Mr. McCutcheon on
a grocery store on Main Street on the main,
and he's no longer there.
And when I was about five years old,
and stole a green bean
and my granddaddy saw them and got mad.
Made me, you take
those to Mr. McCutcheon and tell him what you did.
So I took it over there and
got blasted out for stealing a green bean.
[NOISE]
>> Sorry.
>> Tell your daughter, I said, hi.
>> So do your kids still live in this area?
Do your kids still live in a Dersville?
>> That was two grandkids
both have just graduated from college last year.
They would like to come and build
a house back at their own place.
And they don't realize
what it takes to build a house out in the country.
We've got a well out there it's
in one side of the where the house burned down.
Got a septic tank on the other side.
You got to get somebody to take care of
that, build a house.
Get your guns ready.
When the night riders come out at night.
My mother lived out there for seven years while I was in
Washington and I'd come
back and do a screen portion of the side.
Every time I'd come back, there's
two or three more holes in it,
where she'd take her 32 or 38,
somebody up on the road created havoc coming down
the driveway and she let
down and be more holes on the screen.
>> Where is this place where the house was?
>> If you get on out here and get on 75, go North.
It's right past the next bridge.
You go into the next bridge,
look to the right over all those trees and everything.
You see the chimney sticking up.
Now the first house is on this side of that bridge,
when you turn up here on
75 and you go off about halfway to the next bridge,
the chimney is sticking up over here.
That's it first. I was AC's house.
This was Dev Deb's house.
>> And that is that north of Highway 140?
>> There was seven houses.
>> But you're going to get
my truck I'll take you up there.
>> What about seven houses on the Tremble Ps.
What there about seven houses?
>> All rental houses, yeah.
>> On the Tremble P.
>> And burn down.
Cut up in brush fires or whatever.
>> So about you guys still on that land?
And how many acres of that land is it about now?
>> How on some of it?
>> You are on 44 now?
>> We have 38 acres we own.
And right above now,
there's I saw 25 acres
to I don't know what to call some of
these places really hurting somebody's feelings.
What can I call that damn church?
>> It's the cults.
What you always call.
>> So 25 acres,
so damn cult and
they sold it to I don't know what these women are.
They're supposed to be running it down.
And they order orphan or like an orphans home up there.
And they got these kids out of Atlanta,
the state of Georgia is paying them and they would come
running down there at knives and whatever.
And they never bothered me.
There were guy who was on a sign porch
crying one day. Remember that?
>> So church or cult five acres.
>> But I sold. I bought 85 acres from them.
>> That's the story.
>> I bought 85 acres from them.
What's that place up there
where truck stop?
Not the truck stop.
What's the name of that place where trucks
parked on the side of the road up there.
Here is here is a Brewer house.
Here's a what house.
You come up there and here's where
people park all these trucks.
>> Tell me about the rest stop.
>> Okay. I bought 85 acres out behind the rest area.
And then I turned around and sold at 85 and I sold at 25
and I'm not sure what else I sold
to the guy that's the director over at the,
what's the name of that place over the highway.
Can't hear you.
>> The Seventh Day Adventist Church.
>> Cumbo Academy. Runs Cumbo Academy.
And you sure you all don't want to take a ride?
>> Well, maybe we will do that later when
we have more time and you can
take us and show us some of these places.
>> All right.
>> What else?
>> I don't know what else you've asked.
>> Well, you ask.
I'm curious about what you
can tell me about Popular Springs Church.
I know your family helped find that.
>> I think they gave the land for it.
And then some woman came back,
there was an old church there before this one.
So crazy woman came down 75.
And burned it down.
And I was in Washington for seven years with him around.
And that land belonged to me
before they built the damn church they belong.
My granddad let him
have the land to build the church home.
My mother wouldn't she was she should have torn them up.
I think I owned the land where McDonald's is now,
but I didn't get nothing out of none of it.
And the lawyers wanted to get their share, whatever.
Now they wanted to not a few months ago,
they wanted to buy
the cemetery in the land around the church there,
they wanted to buy it and they wanted the money.
And it was going to I don't
know what they were going to do with it.
Who was going to come in there and
build a restaurant terrace?
Which they never did.
Have you all heard of Vic Beasley?
>> Yes, sir.
>> He's a football player for the one of
the football players for the Falcons?
He's from America.
If you in town or leaving town you see
a signs home with Vic Beasley.
They never put a sign up for me, tremble.
We've got a little tremble sign
up there that that'll be all.
But anyway, I I was told cemetery is in bad shape,
except where I kept a little bit up there fairly street.
Vic Beasley's mother.
I got Vick to clean it up
about two years ago. Bush Hockett.
And I can't get anything out of the city hall.
I don't know anybody down there except the mayor.
I used to know everybody down there.
I don't know that little Pam Mar or whatever her name is.
Little what's her name?
>> Pam Madison.
I don't I've never got to meet her or go
down there to meet her she's never there.
So she's an important person.
>> So what was the Beasley connection to that cemetery?
>> Nothing except his mother got him to go clean it up.
>> Okay. So they don't have family buried there?
>> No. If you're looking at the cemetery,
the right hand side facing it from
the highways where all the black people were buried.
They kept theirs up from the top
of where the trembles were over here.
He got growed up all the way back to 140 or whatever.
And she got I think she got Vick to
get some boys to go bush hog and weed whatever.
Now I've got a cousin and Harley live?
>> Kentucky.
>> Can't hear you.
>> Kentucky.
>> I ain't enough.
>> Elizabeth Town.
>> He bought one of
these things that were cutting down trees and bushes
and everything and brought it down here and
cleaned up around the top a little bit,
but he stumps from
the last tornado hurricane and rocks and everything.
He couldn't get in there and it was also
some black people's graves
in there and he couldn't
cut the marvel up and everything.
He did a good job between he and Vick,
the guy it cleaned up pretty good.
And did Michael meet him somewhere,
Vic and told him who he was and told him about Trimble?
And Vick said, yeah, I know where Trimble is.
So you use shake your head on the damn word goes
that just shake your damn head.
>> So you talked about segregation.
>> Ma'am.
>> You talked about segregation in the cemetery.
Can you tell us a little bit more about
race relations in Adairsville?
>> Segregation.
>> Yes.
>> Is that what you're saying?
>> Yes.
>> I couldn't. I don't remember if he
segregation here.
I don't remember.
>> Adairsville was segregated.
The schools were segregated into the mid-1960s.
>> I don't remember. What about Calhoun?
>> They were all segregated until about 1963.
Your mother was the first person that I ever saw,
and I grew up in a household.
My daddy wasn't actually prejudiced.
[OVERLAPPING]
>> What about my mother?
>> His mother was
the first white person I ever saw or heard of,
taking some of the black children out of
the community and taking them to school in Calhoun.
She had them in the car and she took them to school,
and she also went to the bank.
>> Took them to vote too.
>> Went to the bank and helped get a loan and help
build a house. That was his mother.
>> That was his mother?
>> That was his mother.
>> That's the reason I don't have any problem with it.
>> He just never thought, he just not.
But I never could understand myself why the neighbors,
the black family, they were friends of mine,
why they couldn't get on
the school bus and go to school with me.
I thought that was bad still,
but there's nothing I could do.
>> We used to have a bus came
by Adairsville and Calhoun,
it was called the Blue Goose.
It was a forerunner of,
what are these bus lines now?
And you could get on at Calhoun and ride to Rome.
I don't know why we went to Rome once or twice,
but a buddy and I got on
the Blue Goose and we were the only two white kids,
and we went to the back of the bus and sat down.
[BACKGROUND]
And the bus driver stopped the bus,
and there's some couple of
black kids out there and he made them
get up and leave because
us white kids was playing in the back of the bus,
and I couldn't understand that.
And I was about eight years old.
>> Another thing, and maybe I get him to talking.
When he went to school in Calhoun and
he played football or in the band or whatever,
he had to catch the Greyhound bus at
night when he'd get through and come home,
and they'd let him off down there and he'd walk home.
So there's a lot of stuff.
>> Honey, I'm sorry,
but I don't know what you're talking about.
>> I was telling them about you having to
catch the Greyhound bus from Calhoun home.
>> It didn't even make it all the way home.
We had a what was
really airport landing strip about a mile up the road.
Well, I'd have to pay 15 more cents to
ride the Greyhound bus at night down to the next stop.
And I didn't have 15 cents,
so I walked home in the mud and the rain and
everything across this 100-acre muddy field.
I didn't think it was bad.
I guess I was tough.
>> When we were growing up, I was a neighbor.
We thought the Trimble family,
I was intimidated by them.
>> They had been here a long time.
>> They've been here a long time, they were military.
And when John Gray went to West Point,
I thought, oh, my God.
When he went to FBI,
I couldn't believe it.
>> And what's your maiden name?
>> My name was Owen,
O-W-E-N, Patricia Anne.
And I was a neighbor.
I just thought they had a bunch of money,
they had a bunch of land.
It wasn't cash,
it was land is what they had.
I was intimidated by the fact that he was
the brightest child that ever went through Bellwood,
and then he went to the FBI,
and those things were big for me.
His mother wanted to know when I was 15,
she said, why don't you write John Gray?
Well, I was scared to death.
He's at West Point,
[LAUGHTER]
I couldn't do that.
>> You missed out on a lot, honey.
>> But he married Sydney Barton
and they had four good children.
And she was sick
and they left here and went to Portsmouth,
Virginia, stayed there five years,
went to Washington, stayed there five years,
and then went to Tampa,
stayed there five years,
and then he worked at Memphis.
But Sydney was sick,
she had some kind of heart disease, and she died.
And my husband, after 35 years, he died.
So we just got together.
>> When did the two of you get married?
>> About 15, 16, 17 years ago.
>> In November of 2001 because during 9/11,
I was supposed to go to Washington.
I worked for HUD, and so I didn't go.
They canceled everything.
But we got married in 2001, November the 2nd.
>> That's a good way to remember it, isn't it?
>> Yeah. That's the way I remember.
>> She was getting ready to go to
Washington when the plane landed in the Pentagon.
And I called her on the phone, I said,
don't you go, because
I was moving her furniture out
of her house into my house.
And that was when I was stronger.
>> He used to do all this stuff and take the trash out,
he can't do it anymore.
But he lost a son, you all know that, don't you?
>> No.
>> He lost a son three years ago to a liver cancer.
So he lost his home, everything he had,
everything I had, everything,
and then he lost a son a year later.
>> That's the reason I can't remember nothing.
>> He tells the doctor, he says,
I'm okay from here down.
But he said, from here up,
he knows he doesn't think real good now.
>> You were asking me some questions a minute ago,
and I couldn't remember what you said.
>> What else?
What other questions?
We don't want to wear him out too much.
>> How are you guys involved in
Adairsville community in present day?
>> We don't.
>> If I've been involved in anything, let her know.
>> You've not been able in
the last four or five years since the house,
but we went to church downtown in that little church.
>> In Poplar Springs?
>> No. This one downtown, the Methodist. [OVERLAPPING]
>> The Methodist Church that's
right next to the police department.
>> Right next to the cops.
>> Correct.
>> I got the church painted the last time.
[OVERLAPPING]
>> We've given money too.
>> The Lions Club was right behind it,
right behind the church.
And I was president of
the Lions Club for a period of time.
>> He taught Sunday school.
>> Taught Sunday school.
[OVERLAPPING]
I climbed up in the attic of
that church to put in lightbulbs in the ceiling.
I was chairman of the,
what do you call those people that's in
charge of the church and everything?
>> Committee?
>> Deacons, no?
>> Davids. Is it Davids?
>> No. You were chairman of
the committees. Something committees.
>> And there's a lot of committees in the Methodist.
>> They said the deacons wouldn't do anything,
I had to do everything.
And the pressure washed the little Family Life Center.
That just killed me because
nobody else would do anything.
I planted trees out front,
nobody else would help me water them.
I cut the grass out there.
I was looking at the church grounds and everything.
And the Sans Souci Club
used to be a library, and I'd go down there.
It goes down four blocks, it was.
>> We grew up in Gordon County
but we're used to Adairsville.
But the little library down here,
lady let me drive when I was 12.
I'd come down here and go to the library.
>> In the San Souci Club?
>> Yeah, in the San Souci Club.
I loved that library. He did too.
He went over there and come downtown,
and you could shop downtown
and he ran the movie projector.
The movie down there.
>> Yeah, I was a motion picture man.
>> Where was the movie theater?
>> You're facing the church, there goes this 404.
It's on the right-hand wing.
Here's a railroad track and this is the right-hand wing.
The last two up.
>> I think it's from 1902.
>> In the 1902 building?
[OVERLAPPING]
Was it in the 1902 building?
>> No.
>> On no, it wasn't.
>> That's up on the main section.
>> The Gilmer Street buildings?
>> Yeah.
Give me a pad of paper and I could draw it.
>> Well, is that the south end of Public Square?
Is that where the movie theater was?
>> You want to get me a pen and piece of paper?
I've got a pad on that narrow piece right there,
I just need a pen.
See, I knew you was worth something.
>> He's got lots of friends who
are still staying down there.
So I asked one of them, I said,
what is he doing because he knows things about computers.
They said he made people [inaudible].
So that's what he's done.
Have y'all talked to any other [inaudible]?
>> No, not yet.
>> I loved living in Trimble Hollow.
I lived there 12 years.
I used to ride the bus and go by.
I was in the bus and
used to think what would it
be like to live in [inaudible].
>> So was Trimble Hollow AC's or WW's house?
>> WW's.
>> AC bought the land and built that other house.
WW built that.
>> It's not very good.
There's a railroad, here's US 41.
>> So the theater was down here.
That's Gilmer Street right there.
>> And there's City Hall and
there's where the dentist and doctor offices were.
>> And the building, that's the old bank building?
>> Yes, right next to it.
I'm not sure if it's the same ones or not,
but it's right next to it.
My great aunt, her name was Aunt Jo Gray.
She was Colonel Gray's daughter.
She was the first post mistress in Adairsville,
Aunt Jo Gray.
And I was afraid
to go to the post office when I was
four or five years old, afraid she'd get me.
>> Well, so we don't take up too much of your time,
we're going to go ahead and close.
So is there anything anything you want to add
about your family or
your life or the town of Adairsville?
>> No, I can't remember nothing.
>> Thank you so much for taking your time.
>> I'd be glad to tell you anything if I knew it.
I remember, what's
that street goes out by the new funeral home.
It goes from 41 like that out with the cemetery?
>> Summer Street.
>> Huh?
>> Summer Street?
>> It's probably Summer Street.
At about halfway to the end,
outside about the third house back this way.
That's where the barber shop was in the old days,
it was a one-stool barber shop.
And I just now remembered,
this is where I got my second and third haircut.
I'd go out there. I can't remember his name.
And I don't know
where I got the first one
but something happened to my head.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't know what happened to my head.
I had to go get my ear worked toned up.
>> Well, thank you, Mr. Trimble.
>> [OVERLAPPING] Thank you so much.
>> You can come back anytime, you know where I live.
I'm not going to run away.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Okay.