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Quimby Melton bought the Griffin
Daily News and took charge of it on
February 1,1925, and he wrote a daily
column in this space for more than 40
years. As his eyesight got worse he
limited it to a Sunday School lesson
once a week. Finally he had to stop it
altogether. Occasionally when he went
out of town or was ill he asked his son,
Quimby Melton, Jr., to write it, and he
did. This Good Evening today is written
by his son.
My father, “Good Evening”, was a
good man. He grew in grace and in
spirit and in love. When he left this
mortal earth he left it as a Christian
gentleman. He was 86 years old.
His final years he was blind, but even
before that one of his favorite verses of
Scripture was the one quoting the
person whom Jesus had cured, “I was
blind but now I see.” Even through his
physical blindness, he saw first of all
the Glory of God and the Love of Jesus,
and he kept seeing good in his fellow
man.
Until such things became less
fashionable, he was addressed by his
military title of “Major”, one which he
had earned on the battlefield in France,
World War One. The Army wanted to
keep him but he left it to return to his
two first loves, my mother and
newspapering.
My father was a strong and vigorous
man until the disabilities of age
asserted themselves. Shortly after
graduating from Emory College where
his father was Professor of English, he
left newspapering to coach football and
teach math in Texas. (He was making
something like |7.50 a week as a
reporter, and as a coach and teacher he
could make that plus room and board,
maybe a dollar or so more.) He won the
Texas State Championship in football,
but baseball was his favorite sport. He
could mentally run up a string of
figures and pop out a business decision,
or he could quote batting averages from
memory.
Dad came from a cultured home, and
he showed it. His father was a Doctor of
Philosophy in the day and time when a
person with a sixth grade education
was considered exceptional. His
mother was from a Louisiana plan
tation family, the Kellers, and Dr. and
Mrs. Melton reared him as a gen
tleman. My mother added the finishing
touches, but few were required. I never
saw a man more considerate and
courteous without overdoing it. When
he could hardly walk himself, my wife
took him regularly to Sunday night
church services and he insisted on
opening the car door for her to enter
then feeling his way back to the
passenger side. God bless her, she let
him do it.
His grandfather had a tremendous
influence upon him. Isaac Quimby
Melton was a private in the Confederate
Army. When he got back from that war
he went to work as a shoe cobbler,
travelled about until he had enough
money to pay off the mortgage on his
widowed mother’s Alabama farm, then
became a preacher. He was one of the
founders of the North Alabama Con
ference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South. Often when my younger
brother and I fussed as little boys, our
father would quote his grandfather and
tell us, “Put a little sugar in your
voice.” He could be stern too, and he
gave us many a licking with a Sam
Browne belt, a remnant of his Army
career which we had followed him into
civilian life.
Mother and Daddy had two children,
my brother Fred and me. Fred was two
and a half years younger than I. When
World War Two came on Fred left the
University of Georgia where he was
dating the girls and enlisted in the
Army. He went through Horse Cavalry
basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas,
was selected for Officer Candidate
School and made Second Lieutenant
when he was 18 years old. Before he
was 21 he went after a wounded soldier
in his platoon in Germany and a sniper
got him. The Army sent Mother the flag
from his casket and a Silver Star
Medal, and we are flying that flag at
half-mast at the News Office in Dad’s
honor. It seems appropriate. The flag
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Daily Since 1872
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VENIN VF
By Quimby Melton
on my father’s casket is that of the
Third Battalion, 82nd “All American
Division” which he commanded in
battle in France. Dad earned the Silver
Star too. He asked that I send the flag
after his funeral to the 82nd Division
Museum at Fort Bragg and I will.
From about the end of the war
Mother began suffering from
Parkinson’s Disease which gets worse
and worse. Nobody could have been
more considerate and loving than my
father was of her. For a generation he
cared for her and watched a beautiful
and lively woman suffer the ravages of
disease. But never did she experience
the horror of neglect. He took her in
sickness and in health and he loved and
cherished her.
Dad had the common touch. He was a
teetotaler all of his years in Griffin so it
might surprise some to know that his
first job in newspapering was to fetch a
bucket of beer for the sports editor
about midnight in Baltimore.
He was at home with the mighty, and
equally so with the meek. He loved his
fellow man. Often I have seen him stop
everything he was doing during the
Depression days of the 1930’s to help a
War One veteran with a claim. Because
of his love of his ex-soldier friends and
because of his devotion to his nation, he
loved the American Legion. And he
loved the Exchange Club. He and Nat
Bailey and Bill Beck and Leo Blackwell
usually sat together, and he enjoyed
them and his friends.
Most of all he loved God and Jesus
Christ. Close behind was Mother and
his sons, then the Methodist Church and
the Men’s Bible Class which he taught
for years. He loved Griffin. Usually he
gave people the benefit of any doubt.
More than once he has told me that if I
just knew the troubles so-and-so was
having I would not be so quick to call
him a so-and-so. Then he would tell me
the troubles and I would slow down.
He pretty much gave me a free hand
as an editor, but one time he did advise
me not to be so quick to criticize. As I
have grown older and more ex
perienced I understand this better. It
was good advice.
Major Melton did a lot for Griffin. He
was a builder, a constructive force, a
fighter, an enthusiastic influence for
good. This is a better place because he
who could have gone wherever he
wanted, he who had the personal
resources and the financial backing to
go where he would chose Griffin. And
Griffin took him unto its heart.
After 55 years from his diapering of
me to my burying of him, I assess him
this way:
First a Christian. Then a loving
husband and father, a truly patriotic
American, a man who found good in
nearly everybody. And an optimist.
When he sold his home where he had
cared for his invalid wife, where he
received official War Department
regrets about his son, he told me,
“We’ve been happy here."
And so it was.
Just as he, I believe in God and I
believe in Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit, and I believe that this strong and
good man has been freed from a once
strong and good body which finally
wore out.
This final word: We come into this
earth from the loins of women and most
of us are cared for by them until old
enough to look after ourselves. Then
when the body fails and its functions
slow down, women take care and
nurture us again.
So it was at the Living Center of
Griffin where my father had lived for
what would have been four years this
fall. So it was in the hospital emergency
room. Women looked after him at his
start and at his earthly end. I know he
would have wanted to say thank you to
them all. So thank you white ladies,
black ladies, professional ladies, scrub
ladies. God knows they are ladies
regardless of what part of town they
call home or their social standing.
Ladies. As he said so often, God bless
you. And goodnight.
This is the last “Good Evening” this
paper ever will print.
GRIFFIN
Griffin, Ga., 30223, Friday Affernoon, July 22, 1977
Funeral to be Sunday
for publisher Melton
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Johnstown flood
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) - When the
rains began, Richard Stantz was
drinking Black Velvet and Mountain
Dew with the boys.
His fiance, Rita Jo Searle, had been
swimming at Ideal Park with her three
young sons and her mother.
Richard’s brother, Ray, was minding
their three children, while his wife,
Deborah, played bingo at the Knights of
Columbus — recreation on her day off
from the maid’s job at the Enterprise
Motel.
The two Stantz families lived in
separate apartments, two buildings
apart, in the Solomon Homes project,
along Solomon Run Creek in John-
People
...and things
Youngster struggling home old
fashioned green, round watermelon
that looks like it weighs nearly as much
as he.
Young people enjoying checkers on
sidewalk at Griffin Country Club during
invitational swim meet.
Pre-teener sitting on curb, putting yet
another knot in bandage on his stumped
toe.
Quimby Melton in his office at the Griffin Daily News.
Saga of Solomon Run
stown.
Rita got home at 10:30 and put the
kids to bed. Rich arrived at 11:30.
“It was already pouring rain so bad I
felt like a fish,” he said.
Deborah, meanwhile, stopped off at a
bar. As she prepared to leave, water
already was coursing through the
street, carbumper high. At 12:45 a.m.
her girl friend Marian phoned to say if
she was going home, now was the time.
While Richard and Rita watched
television the power went off. Their
clock stopped at 11:52. Rita switched
her radio to battery power.
Deborah arrived home at 1:30 to an
apartment lit only with candles. They
invited Marian, who had no candles, to
come over with her five children.
Lightning stabbed at the darkened
city.
“Marian looked out the window and
said, ‘Oh, my God, the bridge over
Solomon Run just washed away,”* said
Deborah. The lawn outside their apart
ment building, three feet above
sidewalk level, was under water.
By now the radio station was warning
motorists to stay off roads. But nothing
more.
Then the saga of Solomon Run began.
“I said, ‘My God, look at the cars
floating down Solomon Street. There
are people screaming for help,”*
Richard recalled. “They were going so
Vol. 105 No. 172
swift, no one could help them.”
Rita: “I was stunned, it was too
unbelievable to know water was deep
enough to carry cars.”
By 12:30, cars were tumbling down
Solomon Street, a slight incline.
Through the lightning flashes, Rita
saw half of the office building that
serves the housing project being
washed away. On nearby Widman
street, she could see a fire truck evac
uating people.
About that time, Ray and Deborah
(Continued on page five.)
The Country Parson
by Frank ('lark
Ego
■k
“To prove a fellow wrong,
elect him — you’ll never know if
the loser was wrong.”
Weather
FORECAST FOR GRIFFIN AREA -
Fair and warm tonight with low in low
70s. Fair and hot Saturday with high in
mid 90s.
LOCAL WEATHER - Low at
Spalding County Forestry Unit this
morning 72, high Thursday 97.
The funeral for Mr. Quimby Melton,
Sr., 86, long time publisher of the
Griffin Daily News, will be held Sunday
at the First United Methodist Church at
4 p.m.
The Rev. Lamar Cherry, pastor, will
officiate. Burial will be in Oak Hill
cemetery.
Mr. Melton died Thursday evening at
the Griffin-Spalding Hospital where he
had been taken a day earlier.
He had been in declining health
several years and had been a patient at
The Living Center of Griffin.
He purchased the Griffin Daily News
in 1925 and was its editor and publisher
for many years. His son, Quimby
Melton, Jr., returning from duty in the
South Pacific during World War 11,
joined his father in the newspaper here
as editor.
Bom in Chepultepec, Ala., he was the
son of Dr. and Mrs. Wrightman Flet
cher Melton. Dr. Melton was a jour
nalist, author, lecturer and at the time
of his death in 1944, was Poet Laureate
of Georgia.
Mr. Melton, Sr., was a graduate of
Emory University. He had a varied
career before coming to Griffin.
He was office boy in the sports
department of the Baltimore
newspaper, a cub reporter for the
Birmingham, Ala., Ledger, and a
teacher and football coach at Allen
Academy of Bryan, Texas where he
won the state championship.
He was secretary of the Chamber of
Commerce at Bainbridge, Ga.,
secretary of the Georgia-Florida
Baseball League, editor of the
Americus Times-Recorder, and city
editor of the Atlanta Constitution.
He left that newspaper to volunteer
for the Army in World War One. He
served in France and as a major and
battalion commander in the 82nd
Division and was awarded the Silver
Star.
He later was publisher of the Bir
mingham Ledger where he had been a
cub reporter. He was publisher of the
Florida Metropolis, which later became
the Jacksonville Journal.
In Griffin he has participated in
practically every civic endeavor and
was active in the First United
Methodist Church during all his years
here.
He was a long time teacher of the
Men’s Bible Class and held practically
every office in the church, among them
chairman of the official board.
He was a long time member of the
Griffin Exchange Club and had a hand
in getting the Griffin Kiwanis Club
organized.
The Exchange Club which initiated
the Man of the Year program picked
Mr. Melton as the first person to
receive the honor.
He was for many years active in the
American Legion Post here and rose to
be the Senior Vice Commander of the
national organization.
Mr. Melton was married to the late
Mary Ella Davenport of Americus, Ga.
They had two sons, the younger of
whom, Lt. Fred Melton, was killed in
Germany during World War II at the
age of 21.
Pallbearers will be Cary Reeves, Bill
Knight, Ed Eschman, R. 0. Linch, Bill
Cody, Dr. Lamar King, Dr. H. L.
Cochran, Otis Weaver, Sr., Frank
Thomas, Bill Thomas, Lewis Thomas,
and Russell Smith. Honorary
pallbearers will be W. H. (Bill) Beck,
Nathaniel Bailey and Leo Blackwell.
The Men’s Bible Class of the First
United Methodist Church, Barnett-
Harris Post 15 of American Legion, and
the Exchange Club will serve as
honorary escorts.
Survivors include a son, Quimby
Melton, Jr., four grandchildren,
Quimby Melton 111 of Fayetteville, Ga.,
Mrs. Mary Forhand of Lawrenceville,
Miss Laura Melton, R.N., of Athens,
and Miss Leila Melton of Griffin.
Haisten Funeral Home is in charge of
plans.
(Flowers or donations to the First
United Methodist Church Memorial
Fund or your favorite charity.)
