Newspaper Page Text
£he Unties
gainesvilletimes.com
Weekend Edition-December 23-24, 2022
Rachel Estes Features Editor | 770-718-3421 | life@gainesvilletimes.com
HARRIS BLACKWOOD
hblackwood@gmail.com
Friendship, a
cup of cheer for
the lonely hearts
There was a time when we had
equal numbers of Nativity scenes
and Santa and his reindeer in the
front yard of homes and businesses.
I love Santa and the magic he
brings to little folks. But don’t forget
that this is the time we celebrate the
birth of Christ.
My mama died Dec. 8,1996, and
Christmas still has a little bit of dif
ficulty for me. This year, I’ll be with
out family and it’s not my favorite
day. I’m an Easter person.
But I keep hearing more and more
about folks who can’t cope with the
pressures of the holiday season.
A few weeks ago, my phone rang,
and it was a friend from Alabama.
He told me that another friend of
ours had been fighting depression
and had killed himself. It was a gut
punch that I was not expecting on a
Monday morning.
If you don’t read anything else
here, read this: Northing bad, sad or
depressing is worth ending your life.
Maybe that is not the kind of thing
you clip out and put on your refrig
erator, but you need to tuck it away
in your mind (or your heart) and pull
it out every time you feel those nega
tive urges coming on.
Many years ago, I had a Santa
suit. I decided one Christmas Day
to go and visit the nursing home in
full costume. I saw a woman who I
had known before she entered the
nursing home. I called her by name
and she said, “How do you know my
name?”
I said, “I’m Santa Claus.”
She hugged me tight and said,
“Santa Claus, take me with you.”
A nurse told me that no one ever
visited her. I think it helped me have
an appreciation of people who are
lonely.
Loneliness is a cruel thing. There
are some people who live a life in
seclusion and most often it is because
family just turns their back on you.
Some get dumped in a nursing home
and don’t have a friend or visitor to
come by. Some people isolate them
selves when they lose a spouse or a
child.
A hurting heart is awful.
Find yourself a church, a civic
club or a group that gets together for
coffee. We need the fellowship of
others. A friend sent me a note this
week and wrote, “Friends double
our joy and divide our grief.” That’s
the one you should put on your
refrigerator.
I am blessed with an outgoing
personality. But there are so many
people who have a hard time extend
ing their hand and meeting someone
new.
If you had cancer and someone
offered a cure, you would be on it
right away. If you look hard enough,
you’ll find someone who will share
your friendship.
Every year at our church, we
celebrate All Saints Day on the first
Sunday in November. Sometimes
it’s a reminder that we are not alone.
We are not the only people who have
experienced pain or loss.
We need to see more of the true
reason that we celebrate Christmas.
Santa may make us smile, but God
so loved the world that he gave his
only son, our Savior. We need him at
Christmas and beyond.
Harris Blackwood is a Gainesville
resident whose columns publish
weekly.
Doing good for people
Photos by SCOTT ROGERS I The Times
Jambos founder Rebekah Black welcomes volunteers Monday, Dec. 19, to the Jambos warehouse in Buford. The group is preparing donated
new pajamas to be shipped to children in foster care.
Nonprofit uses pajamas to bring comfort to foster care kids
Volunteers sort and fold pajamas Monday, Dec. 19, at Jambos in Buford. The new pajamas are sent to
children in foster care.
BY RACHEL ESTES
restes@gainesvilletimes.com
For children charting poten
tially foreign and frightening ter
ritory, Jambos brings comfort.
Between the walls of a ware
house in downtown Buford,
the nonprofit packages sets of
brand-new pajamas by the thou
sands to clothe children in fos
ter care across 50 states and 14
countries.
Steered by Hall County resi
dent Rebekah Black, the opera
tion brings a lifelong calling to
service full-circle.
“I was 10 or 11 years old when
I knew there was a call on my
life to serve people,” she said.
“I never leaned into nonprofit.
But once I did, it was like, ‘This
is my wheelhouse. This is where
I belong. This is what I’m called
to do.’”
For Black, a small-town girl
hailing from east of Lexington,
Kentucky, it was during a mis
sion trip to serve in an orphan
age in Kingston, Jamaica, at 14
that those seeds first took root.
“I remember sitting with my
mom and another 14-year-old
girl, and she was just like, ‘You
don’t know how lucky you are to
have your mom here.’ And that
pricked something in my heart.
My heart started beating for kids
in foster care, orphan care.”
At Jambos, Black’s team uses
“heartbeat language” versus
“heartbreak language,” she
said, “because where we do
sympathize and we can empa
thize, we believe that when your
heart’s beating for something,
you start taking action and
when your heart’s breaking for
something, you can feel trapped
like, ‘What can I do?’ When your
heart starts beating for some
thing, you move.”
After returning home from
another mission trip in 2017, this
time to Kenya, Black quit her
corporate job and began asking
the Department of Family and
Children Services, Child Protec
tive Services, local clothing clos
ets and foster parents to identify
their most pressing, practical
needs.
“Time after time it was, ‘Paja
mas, pajamas, pajamas,”’ she
said.
According to Black, for many
children in foster care, the
move to a new home can come
abruptly with little warning or
even time to pack an overnight
bag.
“That can be kind of scary,”
she said. “It is our heart as a
family here at Jambos to bring
comfort to those moments.”
In four years’ time, Jambos
has brought comfort to 48,000
children in the thick of those
moments.
This year alone, the non
profit has provided pajamas to
21,000 children, including 3,400
requests that flooded in over
a 72-hour period after Jam
bos went viral on TikTok three
weeks ago.
“It puts into perspective how
big this need really is,” Black
said. “Operationally, we’re
doing more than we have ever
done before.”
Heavily reliant upon volun
teers, Black, a single mother of
three, shares the helm of Jam
bos with fellow moms Mallory
Daws, chief operating officer,
and Kelly Keister, director of
warehouse operations.
Jambos’ website links to an
Amazon Wishlist where donors
can purchase pajamas that will
ship directly to the nonprofit’s
warehouse at 115 E. Main St.,
suite EB1A in Buford.
Local donors can also drop
off pajama donations between
9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday-
Thursday. If no one is at the
warehouse to collect them, the
donations can be placed in a
marked bin by the door.
Jambos also provides materi
als for businesses, churches and
other organizations wanting to
host pajama drives, which gen
erate a sizable chunk of Jambos’
inventory, Black said.
At present, Jambos’ most
pressing needs are pajamas for
infants 0-12 months and adult
sizes XS-XXL. The nonprofit is
also seeking monetary dona
tions to offset shipping costs.
“Going viral on TikTok was
not part of our budget,” Black
said. “It looks like it will cost us
about $30,000 to $35,000 to get all
of those pajamas out.”
Jambos’ vision has never just
been about pajamas, though.
“Yes, we’re using pajamas to
bring comfort to kids, but it’s
bigger than that,” Black said.
“We hope these kids know that
there’s a community around
them, there’s a God who loves
them, we love them. If we can
make (their experience) a little
bit more comfortable, that’s why
we exist.”
As for Black, she’s just a regu
lar girl trying to do good in the
world.”
“Jambos is a place where
good people can do good for
people,” she said.
To learn more about Jambos,
volunteer opportunities or how
to request pajamas, visit jambos-
donates.com.
Author raised by Hall County fugitives recounts strict childhood
Evelyn (Eve) Clontz
was 6 weeks old when
her parents left her
with relatives while
they went to find work
in Chicago.
She grew up in Grif
fin, Georgia, leading a
difficult childhood and
teenage life under the
smothering care of an
adult cousin, Gertrude
Crawley. It wasn’t until
years later, after Eve
had left Griffin and
was 42 years old, that she found
out she had grown up among
escapees from a chain gang in
Hall County.
Among the Crawley family she
lived with were George and Deca
tur Crawley, her great-grandun
cles, sentenced to life in prison
with Blaine Stewart in the killing
of U.S. Marshal Ben Dixon of
Union County. The three convicts
escaped from a Hall County chain
gang in April 1924.
Eve believes the
Crawleys / Crowleys
found their way out
of state before years
later changing their
names and settling
into a seemingly quiet
and cautious life
in Griffin. Though
mostly reclusive, some
painted for a living.
As a child she knew
them as law-abiding
but highly suspicious
people who sometimes attended
Catholic mass.
Eve married Russell Thomas
three days after high school
graduation at age 17 and put Grif
fin and the Crawleys behind for
good. Her husband had joined
the U.S. Air Force, and when he
completed his tour, they moved to
Fayetteville, where she still lives
at age 60.
As a baby, Eve was put under
the strict care of Gertrude Craw
ley. A locked gate at their home
kept the outside world away for
the most part.
When she began school, Eve
made a few friends, but they
could not visit her, and she could
not stay with them. An excep
tion was a girl her age who lived
across the street, but contact with
her was limited.
The Crawleys monitored Eve’s
phone calls and even changed the
phone number if they became
suspicious. She was watched very
closely, the Crawleys wary of
almost everybody. Gertrude kept
her out of school many days for
no reason at all, but Eve’s grades
usually were at the top of her
class.
Eve knew her life growing up
was different from other chil
dren, but she had not the slightest
idea of what secret the Crawleys
were guarding.
She lived in the house with all
of the Crawleys, except George,
one of the murderers, who lived
next door. Decatur, another mur
derer, lived in the house where
Eve lived. Frank Crawley had
dementia later in life and had to
live alone in a cottage behind the
main house. The Crawleys had no
indoor plumbing.
Eve never heard of Blaine
Stewart, the third convict who
was convicted of murder and
escaped from the Hall County
chain gang.
After Eve and her husband
moved back to Georgia, she
decided her story of the hard life
she was forced to live in her child
hood and teen years needed to be
told. She wrote a fictional book
based on her experiences, “Alone
in the Iris City,” referring to
Griffin, known for the iris flower
that blooms there prolifically.
She used fictional names for the
characters.
Still not knowing the secret
background of the family she
stayed with, Eve wrote about how
she felt alone so much of the time,
not being able to interact much
with others her age.
When her book came out, she
had a book signing at Antique
Griffin, an antique store in her
former hometown. A vendor
in the store, Billy Crowley,
approached her and asked if she
had ever heard of the murder
of U.S. Marshal Ben Dixon, the
manhunt for the Crawleys, their
conviction and escape.
Eve answered that she hadn’t,
and Crowley, who turned out to
be a cousin she had never met,
told her all about the Crawleys,
the murder, the manhunt, trial
and escape. He also knew all
about Eve and in-depth about the
secrets the Crawleys had kept
while living in Griffin.
That turned on a light for her.
■ Please see VARDEMAN, 2C
JOHNNY
VARDEMAN
johnnyvardeman@
gmail.com