Newspaper Page Text
TRENDS!Monday, May 71 Page 7
auction of the items in the house, there were
no heart-shaped beds or mirrors, no
undecipherable but highly suspect devices.
Only the carvings in the dusty chests hinted
of previous amorous dealings.
As for Miss Effie Matthews, she is said to
have died in the mid-'50s, mid-'60s or early
'70s, depending on which news accounts
you read.
One story claims a madam bought the
Elm Street house in 1919 for $850 and hung
a red lantern on the porch to announce her
business. Ray, an Athens native, says he
believes another woman operated the house
before Effie. The establishment took her
name only because she was the most
successful.
"Nobody ever saw her (Effie)," Hutto said.
"I think it was like that movie with Dolly
Parton ("Best Little Whorehouse in Texas").
She watched after her girls... ran it just like a
business. When I saw that movie, it kind of
made me think of Effie's."
Locals say Miss Effie used to send a cab
to women's clothing stores to pick up
wardrobes. When she and the girls decided
what they wanted, she would send the cab
driver back with the money and the
remaining unwanted clothes. The same was
true of her furniture purchases. She was
strictly a catalogue shopper who paid on
delivery. It is said that doctors made regular
monthly housecalls to check on the health of
the girls.
Effie managed to escape one mandatory
public appearance through a note from her
doctor. She was to appear in court in May of
1960 to answer charges of operating a
house of prostitution, but the trial was
postponed because, as the note said, Effie
was too ill with a heart condition and high
blood pressure.
It is the stuff of legends, and images of a
flaming red-haired, Belle Watling-type
madam with a Mae West demeanor are
easily conjured. But, according to Ray, who
met Miss Effie once or twice on his mail
route, she was a tall, somewhat heavy
woman who wore her gray hair swept back
into a bun. "She seemed to have a pleasant
personality," he said. Tom McGahee, chief
of police when Effie's was shut down, puts
Effie and her house in the same terms. Both
"had some age on 'em."
Her line of work may not have been above
reproach, but by most accounts her
business practices were exemplary.
"Legend has it she ran a real orderly place of
business, " former Mayor Bentley said. "If
you were drinking, you got bounced. If you
were disorderly, you got bounced."
According to some, Miss Effie was even
struck with a strong sense of civic duty. "She
was very generous," Bentley said. He
remembered her contributing to Junior
Chamber of Commerce Christmas fund
raisers.
Hutto said there was always talk that Miss
Effie paid off police and politicians so she
could stay in business. Others say the place
was raided at times, but only after Miss Effie
had been warned so nobody who shouldn't
have been there would get caught on the
premises.
According to old news clips, the three
houses of ill repute on Elm Street, the most
notorious being Effie's, were raided 18 times
from 1966 until they were shut down
permanently in 1974.
But many times it seems the police were
called in as much to protect Effie's as to
protect the moral character of the town.
Police were summoned once when a
drunken man went into Effie's leaving his
wife and two children in the car outside.
Bentley recalls another incident when a man
claiming to be an FBI agent showed up at
the house.
"He was down there throwing his weight
around, so to speak. He may have been
trying to get special attention or maybe
something for free," he said. "I think the
Feds got hold of him."
At the time of Effie’s closing, the district
“The guys in the fraternity would
always talk about it, but I didn't
know any regular customers.
Everybody knew about it, but I
think it was more for alums who
came in on football weekends."
— Val Hutto, 1965 UGA graduate
attorney said there had been fear of
organized crime involvement with the house.
There was some evidence that the women
who operated the three houses were in a
ring that supplied other houses in Georgia
and in other states as far north as Ohio.
Hutto said that when he was a student it
was generally accepted that the houses
were part of a network.
After 50 years of operation, a politician
making good on a campaign promise finally
brought an end to the brothel. The Atlanta
Journal article on the closing summed it up
this way: "District Attorney Harry Gordon
had made ridding Athens of Effie's a
compaign pledge in 1972. Raids were
stepped up, and last May (1974), he went
into court to seek an injunction against
operating the houses for lewd purposes,
which resulted in the padlocking."
"It had been a thorn in my side and a lot of
citizens' sides," said Tom McGahee, chief of
police at the time. 'It wasn't so much a
hassle, but by law it shouldn't have been
there."
Effie's grew up with the town. It was
operating during the pre-World War II days,
thrived during the post-war manufacturing
booms, outlasted the Ozzie-and-Harriet
days of the '50s and chugged along right
through the civil rights and anti-war
movements of the '60s. Effie's ironically
came to an end in the free-love days of the
early '70s.
Some say it served its purpose well.
"Some thought it might have kept some
young girls from getting molested,"
McGahee said. But by 1974, most agreed
that you didn't have to pay for it anymore. In
a land of supply and demand, Effie's was on
its way out, and the legal push just helped it
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