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Energy Crisis? Not Here
By CHARLES SALTER
Journal Slate Editor
CORK, Ga. The Hay sisters—Agnes and Vivian—
were mighty glad to see cousin Ethel and her husband,
L.J. Brown, from Jackson.
After I was introduced to the spinster sisters, both in
their 80s, we were invited to have a seat on the porch of
their five-room house that was built in 1893 by their fa
ther. Andrew Jackson Hay.
I was curious to see the inside of the old farm house
where the sisters live quite comfortably without benefit of
such modern-day necessities as electricity, gas or running
water. But the pleasant visit got no farther than the sunny
porch.
Sitting on an antique high-back wooden chair, its back
held secure by strong cord, I had the eerie sensation that I
was chatting with two women lost in time who were living
in the style of the 1840s.
Miss Agnes was wearing several layers of clothing, a
jacket and laced-up boots, with a bandanna wrapped
around her head. Miss Vivian was in similar attire but
also wore a long coat, and her head was protected by a
crocheted wool stocking cap and a colorful bonnet. Her
feet were warm in heavy socks and black work shoes.
The sisters lease part of their 300-acre farm to hunt
ers during deer season, and one of the men invariably
stops here to tease Miss Agnes, who has quite a sense of
humor and likes “to talk back to him."
One day, referring to an imaginary suitor, Miss Agnes
told him, “Mr. C.J., I got me a new* one.”
“Who is that?” the hunter asked.
“He’s just 30 years old,” Miss Agnes replied. “And. I
tell you, he doesn’t chew tobacco—that suits me. He does
n't smoke—that just suits me.
“He doesn’t drink whisky, and that just suits me. He
doesn’t gamble—that suits me. He cares nothin’ about
goin’ fishin’ all day, and that suits me.”
She continued, “He doesn’t care about watchin’ televi
sion all the time, and that suits me.”
The hunter asked, “Well, does he want to marry
you?”
Miss Agnes said, “No—and that just suits me ”
I asked her how such a lovely lady stayed single when
so many eligible, handsome fellows in past years must
Human Resources Department
Lists Single Mother's Options
She is 14 years old,
pregnant, unmarried. She
can’t decide whether to keep
her baby or not.
Another woman, 35, wid
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ON THE MOVE IN GEORGIA AND C fH' .1 -,C>i • ,ONf- -. rc.
The Hay Sisters, Both in Their 80s, Live Comfortably
Without Benefit of Electricity, Gas or Running Water
owed with two children, finds
herself with an unplanned
pregnancy.
A young man of 22 thinks
he may have fathered a child
THE JACKSON PROGRESS-ARCUS, JACKSON, GEORGIA
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Photos—Charles Salter
“We are antique.” Miss Agnes (left) says in describing the lifestyle of
she and her sister Vivian (right), who live in a five-room house (above)
their father built in 1893. “I am just as aotique as I can be. I haven’t got
nothin' new. We haven’t got no electricity. Tell you what I’d rather have
electricity for ... a washing machine and a Frigidaire.”
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have proposed to her.
A smile spread across the wrinkled face, and her eyes
twinkled, as she said, “I can tell you the truth. I had
plenty of chances.”
Many years ago she told a cousin that she had 50
chances to get married, and he said. “Somebody’s gonna
say you is the biggest story teller in the county.”
Miss Vivian, two years younger than her sister, suf
fered considerably from arthritis in the cold winter in the
house that is heated only by fireplaces.
In a jocular vein, cousin Ethel’s husband ask°d, “You
slept with Arthur (arthritis) the past month, haven’t you?”
She said, “Yes, I couldn't stand it. Got up in the mor
nin’ and my legs wouldn't go. It affects my nerves and
muscles. I get it in my neck, and it’s hard to sleep.”
Despite the aches and pains, Miss Vivian still cooks
each day on a wood-burninq stove or in 19th-century pots
in the hearth. Miss Agnes helps in the kitchen but admits
her sister is a better cook, and both share housekeeping
chores.
Miss Vivian showed me the old. 75 feet-deep well
from which they draw a gallon bucket of water many,
many times each day for household needs and for their
several cows.
The trips to the barn are too numerous per day to
count, says Miss Vivian, explaining that a cow can drink
five or six gallons of water without stopping.
Miss Vivian, who claims she’s a better climber than
her sister, ascends a ladder into the hay loft and works
with a pitch fork to toss hay through the open door to
cows patiently waiting for dinner.
and wonders what his
responsibilities are.
All county departments of
family and children's
services provide counseling
services for people with
problems caused by unwed
pregnancies.
In smaller counties, coun
seling unwed parents is only
one of the many duties of a
caseworker. But in Fulton
County, there are two
full-time counselors for un
wed parents.
“We get calls from women
who are pregnant and don’t
know what they want to do
about it,” says Lynn Hunter,
caseworker supervisor in the
adoption unit. “These may be
girls or women who don’t
have financial resources or
whose families cannot or will
not help them. We figure for
every person on our caseload
there are three more out
there who could use our help
hut don’t call. Then, of
course, some unwed mothers
are able to make all
arrangements and need no
assistance from us.”
Nearly half of the unwed
mothers the counselors see in
Fulton County want to keep
their babies. Ten years ago,
this was almost unheard of.
"II a mother chooses to
keep her baby, we can assist
her in several ways,” says
Ms. Hunter. “She may wish
to go to a maternity home to
live until her baby is born.
We can pay her room and
board for the last month and
a half before delivery time.
After the baby arrives, we
can provide temporary foster
care for the child until the
mother makes other ar
rangements. We help her find
infant clothing and refer her
to the health department if
she qualifies for nutrition
assistance. We have a
limited maternity clothes
bank and we will help all
mothers receive the safest
delivery at the lowest cost.
Basically, we help the
mother look at the reality of
her situation.”
The counselors would pre
fer to be contacted early in a
pregnancy but feel lucky if a
woman calls on them as
early as her fifth or sixth
month. Many wait as late as
their eighth or ninth month.
Some even call after de
livery.
“If a mother doesn't want
to keep the baby, adoption is
the usual alternative and we
can make all the arrange
ments,” says Ms. Kay
Crawford, director of adop
tion for Fulton County.
The younger a mother is,
the more reluctant she is to
give a child up. “Younger
mothers, even as young as 13
or 14 have very unrealistic
ideas about mothering. They
tend to think they can cope
with any situation. Often they
try to keep the baby, then
realize how hard it is and
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She does little reading nowadays "on account of my
eyes,” but Miss Agnes reads aloud the news from Jack
son’s weekly paper, and they hear news on a transistor
radio.
Miss Vivian said, “She wants the weather on the
radio, too.:’
Sometimes Miss Vivian looks out of a window and
tells her sister, “I think you’ve got it out here now.”
Miss Agnes milks their cows each day, and the sisters
sell milk and home-churned butter to folks in this section
of Butts County.
A friend or a relative takes the Hay sisters to a gro
cery store in Jackson every week or so, and in the sum
mer they can a lot of fresh vegetables.
Both sisters drink a large quantity of milk, and they
don't have to watch their diets. They work so hard that
they never have weight problems.
“I eat anything in the world that’s made to eat and is
good, except hot peppers,” said Miss Agnes, “but don’t you
give me no hot peppers. They bum my stomach.”
Both sisters laughed when I told them that hot pep
pers made my scalp itch and caused me to break into a
sweat.
Commenting on their life style and pointing out they
use kerosene lamps, Miss Agnes said, “We are antique. I
am just as antique as I can be. I haven’t got nothin’ new.”
She added, “We haven’t got no electricity. Tell you
what I’d rather have electricity for. I’d rather have it for
a washing machine and a Frigidaire. As far as the lights,
that doesn't bother me.”
Miss Agnes has watched television in a relative’s
home, but she isn’t too impressed with quality of program
ming.
“I’m not missin’ much, I tell you,” she said. “Tell you
what I’m missin’, and I'm glad of it. It's those dirty things
on television—and these crimes.
“Two boys the other day tried to wreck a train, and
the police said, ‘Where'd you learn this?’ And they said,
‘On television.’ ”
The Hay sisters are wary of strangers riding down
their unpaved road because in 1973 they were robbed and
beaten by two men, who later were arrested, tried and
convicted.
* Monday, Mar. 14,1977 gitf Atlanta Bottrnal
finally give the baby up for
adoption. I'd rather they go
through this experience and
realize giving up the child
may be the best thing for its
welfare than to give the child
up and always wonder if they
did the right thing.”
Among older women those
who give birth for the first
time, almost always give up
the child while a mother who
has older children generally
keeps the baby, even if her
other children are teenagers
or grown, according to Ms.
Hunter.
DECS is providing more
services to fathers than it
used to. according to Ms.
Crawford. “Because of a
supreme court decision,
when a woman wants to
place her child for adoption
we must consider the father’s
rights. We make every effort
to contact him and inform
him of his rights. He can do
one of several things. He can
deny he’s the father, sign the
release papers for adoption,
or state that he wants
custody of the child. In that
case, he must go to court with
an attorney to prove that he
can provide for the child. If
he does nothing after a
reasonable length of time, we
can take the child out of
foster care and place it in an
adoptive home.
"Of course, this can be
done only if the mother
names the father. She may
state that she doesn’t know
who the father is. She may
give his name but not his
THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 1977
whereabouts. Or she may
sign an affadavit saying she
knows but has decided to
withhold the name of the
father."
Counseling is not limited to
mothers in financial need,
Ms. Hunter stresses. Her
office will help anyone who
calls.
She advises that if you are
pregnant, and need some
help, call your local county
department of family and
children services.
PLAYTEX BRAS AND
GIRDLES
Special Closeout SALE
£off
Deraney’s Dept. Store
Jackson, Ga.
Creative
Cookery
#}
By Eilene F. Milam
The Utility Club of Griffin
has published a collection of
recipes and entertaining
hints called ‘The Stuffed
Griffin’. I tried this dessert,
Rum Pie, from it and it
turned out well. I used light,
brown sugar which gives the
pie a richer flavor.
The second layer calls for
dry sherry. I used creme
sherry, but almost any flavor
liqueur would be good - like
Tia Maria. Experiment! The
dessert is good frozen or just
refrigerated and is easy to
prepare.
RUM PIE
To make
1 graham cracker pie shell:
1 cup graham cracker
crumbs
one-third cup sugar
dash powdered cinnamon
>4 cup melted butter
FIRST FILLING
2 eggs, well beaten
4 packages creme cheese,
softened
'l> cup sugar
3 tablespoons rum
SECOND FILLING
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon dry sherry wine
To make crust, melt butter
and mix with crumbs, sugar,
and cinnamon. Press mix
ture into pie pan. I baked this
crust for 7 minutes at 325
degrees to set it. Making
your own graham cracker
crust might be a little more
trouble, but certainly w-orth
the effort and less expensive.
Those prepared crusts taste
like cardboard and ruin a
good pie filling.
Cream together the ingre-
WATCH FOR
TPexa//
COMING SOON
At
City Pharmacy
State Traffic
Flow Reflects
Better Weather
February traffic count
figures just released by the
Georgia Department of
Transportation show that
motorists in the state are
returning to the roads with
the improved w'eather after
the difficult driving condi
tions of January. The
average daily count at each
metering station during
February was 11,860 ve
hicles, up from 10,904 in
January.
The count is up 1.8 per cent
from February 1976, up 8.1
percent from 1975and up 12.6
per cent from 1974. Based on
DOT figures for the first two
months of this year, the
projected daily traffic for the
rest of 1977 is 12,148, an
increase of 1.3 per cent from
1976. Georgia has had steady
annual traffic increases
since at least 1971, with the
exception of a slight falloff in
1974. the year of short
gasoline supplies.
Traffic counts are made by
a network of 47 electronic
count stations at strategic
points in the state. These are
linked to a computer in
Atlanta for instant readings
on traffic information.
From February 1976 to
February 1977, the traffic on
urban interstate, rural inter
state and rural non-interstate
roads was up, but non-inter
state urban roads had a
traffic decrease of 0.5 per
cent.
A continuing trend is the
decrease of traffic on 1-75,
particularly at the reading
station near Perry; this has
gone on for three months now
and is down by 1.9 per cent
for the month, compared
with February 1976. Mean
while, 1-95 traffic continues
to grow, showing a 19.4 per
cent increase over February
a year ago. This road is
almost completed and is
popular with tourists.
dients of the first filling. Two
large packages of creme
cheese are not equal to four
small ones. I checked.
Cream the ingredients of
the second filling. Pour each
layer into pie and refrige
rate. A nice touch is chopped
pecans sprinkled on top of
pie.