My mother loved to tell stories about her maternal grandmother, "Granny" Butler. Some of her stories are below.
Elva:
My grandmother’s name was Beulah Viola Phillips [1870-1948]. She was the daughter of Christopher Columbus ["CC"} Phillips and Nannie Putnam Phillips.
She had three sisters.
Alma was a short, plump, redhead who never married, but she was very sweet, a fabulous cook, maker of divine biscuits.
Aunt Willy [possibly Wilma] - tall, lanky, dark hair, fine piano player, made me sing a solo at the first Baptist Church every Sunday I was in Acworth from the time I was 14 or 15. I was told, not asked and my Uncle Gan [Hazel’s husband] agreed with her so I was caught. It did not bother her at all when I turned blue from lack of breath while she played elaborate trills up and down the keyboard. She married Mark Goodwin and had two daughters. I think the younger was Eleanor. The other daughter was Clarice, who married Jack Payne. They were close to my parents and I adored them.
I’m not sure of the ages here but think the youngest sister was Mildred, a funny, delightful, red head, also kind of lanky. Understand that all the above were shorter than my 5’ 4.
Note: When I describe any of the Butlers as “lanky “, I mean , perhaps over 5 ft or even 5ft.2in. and just not chubby!
Mildred’s story was rather sad. When she was young, she and a local guy fell in love and wanted to marry. Grandpa Phillips would not allow it, so Mildred said she would never marry then, and didn’t. Mother said she’d been told the man had “the bad disease.” Pa Phillips (as well as Grandaddy Butler, in later years) had detectives follow the men courting their daughters as well as checking their finances.
One time, my Great Aunt Mildred was in some kind of accident and at an Atlanta hospital. The hospital folks called my dad to go give blood. Seems he and Mildred had compared notes, at some time, and discovered they had the same rare blood type. He was placed on a stretcher, right by her, and his blood was sent right into her veins. He said they lay there and chatted. I can imagine how comforting it must have been for her to have him there. He teased her about having his blood for years.
Alma and Mildred lived in, what I think was the Phillips’ home, a good, long walk from town. It may have been on the road to Woodstock, Ga. The setting was beautiful. We walked up a long drive way; crossed a shallow creek at the bottom, then a good way up a hill to the old country home. We mostly sat on the front porch and were served glasses of sweet tea. The only room I remember was the kitchen with a big round table with a heavy, white cloth on it.
Granny went to what my mother called, a girls’ finishing school, in Nashville, Tn. Ward Seminary for Young Ladies. I’m guessing she traveled by train but seems a long way for a young girl, so most likely, she had a maid or governess.
She married at age 18 and told Judy and me that she weighed 180 pounds the day she married. Granddaddy was not very big so she was at least as tall if not as heavy. Their wedding picture shows him seated. [see left]
Though very proper, I am thinking she must have been a tomboy. She could manage a team of horses pulling a carriage and could crack a whip, placing it exactly where she intended. She was also a walker - walked fast, and often nearly wore me out. I was usually appointed to accompany her on her downtown Atlanta shopping trips and visits to the foot doctor. His office was in the lovely, old Arcade, going through the block, near Rich’s. I must have been about 12 years old when our shopping trips started, as her daughters worried about her being downtown alone. We had lunch in Rich’s Magnolia tearoom and sometimes went back for tea, later.
One day, during lunch - always chicken pot pie for her - several good looking men walked past our table. Granny watched them with great intensity until they were seated across the room. I nearly slid under the table, saying , Graneeeeee ! She just said, “I may be old but I still enjoy looking at handsome men” - and so she did. When she cocked her head to the side and raised that eyebrow, you just hushed yo mouth!
Granny Butler was a perfect grammarian. If you used poor grammar or slang, you were immediately corrected. She would also correct written letters and return them to you.
She was always beautifully dressed and bought a new hat spring and fall. They were dark colored, with a brim containing a bunch of flowers. She always wore gloves when she wore a hat. With some of her dresses, she added a lovely white lacy collar and cuffs. She removed these, washed, starched, and ironed them, then sewed them back on a dress with tiny little stitches.
She did beautiful handwork, knitting, crochet, quilting, embroidery etc. She and mother pieced a quilt top together, before I was born and a cousin of Dee’s quilted it for us, just recently. [see photo, above]
Granny and Mother also crocheted heavy off-white squares for a bedspread. I watched them join the squares and they let me help cut the thread for the fringe so I’d feel like I had helped make it. [That bedspread was used on my guestroom bed for years.]
Granny always wore a hat when she went out, and the hat always had flowers on it. She always carried a leather pocketbook and she also carried a straw tote bag. The tote might have extra shoes, or a sweater, depending on where she was going.
Granny always wore a little makeup. She always powdered her face, and wore pale pink lipstick. Back then, women considered it tacky to have shiny noses and they carried compacts in their purses, always.
Granny liked to do fine cooking, like pastries and delicate foods. She made a butterscotch pie that was heavenly. Elva: I remember visiting her once and she came out and said “I’ve made a pie for Miss Sally Hettie” – and we walked to her house. Granny was living in Acworth with Hazel at that time. [the same Sallie Hettie who was mother to Jane Terry Hasty]
I did not know Granddaddy well, at all, and did not like him …. Don’t think he liked kids much. I was the youngest grandkid until Carol was born. Because of having brothers and boy cousins, I got pushed into mischief sometimes. They put me up to asking him for chewing gum, which he always carried. He yelled and chased me with his walking stick. He only ran a few steps of course. He and Granny were visiting us at the time.
There is the story of high school age Doyle, Ralph, and Carl being told by Granddaddy that they could not attend some party. They were big guys, over 6 ft. tall. They picked up Granddaddy and tied him to the bed where they left him while they went to their party.
The Butler children were mischievous. As adolescent girls, Hazel and Wilma liked to drive through Marietta, Wilma sitting on cushions and steering and Hazel working the pedals. That was in the days before driver’s licenses.
Hazel was punished one day by being locked up in an outbuilding where there were watermelons stored. She found a crowbar or something and ruined every melon in the building. Another time, a little boy came to school dirty and stinky and kept wearing the same shirt each day, until she poured an inkwell down his shirt. “He won’t wear that shirt tomorrow!” she said.
When the older kids were young, Grandaddy fixed up a schoolroom in their house and hired a teacher. I think they may have gone to public high school. They also had a governess.
Grandaddy died 1940, in the house next door to the Women’s Club house, in Acworth. I think the street was the one that ran by the side of Allans’ dime store, down a long, shallow hill, around a right turn etc. Seminole Drive ran off to the left. The Lemon Awtreys [Lemon was a sibling of Hazel’s husband Gan] lived on the corner and Terrys lived on the left, on Seminole. [Don married Jane Terry.]
On one occasion I remember well, I was supposed to spend a few days with the grandparents while Don visited Hazel and her family. They had a son, Sonny, about Don’s age. I refused to go to bed that night, so Hazel came and got me to stay with Don, at her house. I must have been 4 or 5.
I was in the room alone when Grandaddy died. The cover was off him and he was naked. [He lived from 1862-1940] I have no memory of the funeral so I may have been left with Oradee, Hazel’s cook-housekeeper. His daughters said he was a handsome, debonair gentleman, but I only knew him when he was old.
Grandaddy had been in Emory Hospital for awhile. I just remember the doctors actually told him to smoke menthol cigarettes to help his lungs. He normally smoked about one cigar a week, on Sunday afternoon. He usually smelled like peppermint.
After the funeral, Granny gave up the house and moved to Hazel’s for her home base. There, she had a lovely big, bed-sitting room plus a small private kitchen, just off Hazel’s big kitchen. There was a big, screened back porch with table and chairs so we enjoyed that when the weather was nice. For the rest of her life, Granny spent part of her time visiting at her daughters’ homes. We loved having her, sometimes for about a month at a time. She played the piano every day and always called me to come sing for her, usually hymns. Behind her back, Dad called her Mrs. Butler but to her face, he called her Beulah . I don’t recall her being close to her other sons in law unless it was Uncle Gan.
Uncle Doyle was murdered before I was born. This is the story as it was told to me: Doyle owned a car dealership, in Marietta. One Saturday, he
fired a man named Goomis [don’t recall his first name], a salesman, because Goomis came to work very drunk. Goomis went home, got a gun, and came back and shot Doyle, who died. Goomis did not get the electric chair because he was too drunk to know what he was doing. Uncle Ralph sent word that if he ever caught Goomis in the area, he would kill him. I think the story was that Goomis was finally paroled after years in prison, in another state. Yes, I believe Ralph would have killed Goomis. [right, the car dealership Doyle owned] [Note from Dee: The Goumas trial became rather famous, LINK]
Granny had had a sister – name unknown to me – who, as a young girl, was sitting before an open window during a storm, and the lightning came in and struck her dead. Mother didn’t want anyone to sit in front of an open window during a storm. She wasn’t frightened but she was very sensible.
Granny’s hair was always beautiful. She had a beautiful ivory dresser set with a brush and comb, and Dee has it now. I remember when Granny’s hair went down to her waist when it was down. At some point she had 3-4 inches cut off – she said that made it easier to fix. Every morning she took her hair down and combed and brushed it very carefully. It took her a while. Then she completely re-wound it into a french bob. She did it without a mirror. I think her hair was brown with some red in it.
After Grandaddy died in 1940, Granny had her own bedroom in Hazel’s house in Acworth. She also had her own separate kitchen. She kept herself on a strict diet that the doctors had her on, for her health.
The day Granny died [1948], Mother took me out of school [high school] and said “We have to go to Acworth, and you have to pack up some clothes because Mother died.”
Hazel was at work, and her husband Gan was at work. He owned a grocery store.
That morning, Granny had gotten up and dressed and eaten breakfast. She walked downtown [3 blocks] and she got her hair done. Her hair was down to her waist, so she usually wore a bun, but the beautician washed it. Then she walked to the grocery store and paid off her bill.
Then she walked back to Hazel’s house, and sat down on her bed and called Hazel and said to come home. Next, she called the doctor and said she needed him, and to come in the unlocked front door. [Doctors made housecalls in those days.] Hazel got there after the doctor.
Granny was fully dressed and had her feet up, and she was lying there on her back with her hands folded, dead, when the doctor got there.
Later on when somebody started looking in her dresser and closet, they found every single thing with a little piece of paper folded around it designating who it was to go to – the names of her children, grandchildren and relatives. There was nothing unlabeled. She also noted what to dress her in for burial.
She also left a long letter. She made small money bequests but said if there was leftover money it was to go to the church. She said “I will see all of you in heaven, and I hope Ralph will come to love the lord.” [Her son Ralph refused to go to church.]
Right, Elva and the quilt that Granny Butler and her daughter made in 1933 anticipating Elva's birth -- they didn't know if she would be a boy or girl so the quilt is in pink and blue
Note [from Dee]:
Granny left many descendants.
One of her sons, Carl Butler, was mayor of Acworth Georgia for multiple terms. Her son Ralph was quite wealthy and owned a car dealership in Cobb County for many years. Her daughter Wilma married a major league baseball player [my grandaddy Bob Hasty].
from left, Granny's sons Doyle, Ralph, Carl and Dan
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