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VOLUME XCIV - NUMBER XXIII
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Complex Already Rented
Apartments Snapped Up
Summerville Garden Apart
ments, the biggest housing facili
ty to be built in the county in re
cent years, has already signed up
occupants to fill all of its 76 units.
“We've rented all of our units,
but most of the residents haven’t
moved in yet,” said Resident
Manager Debra Flemister Thurs
day. The first resident moved in
on June 19, she said, and all the
units should be full in a matter of
days.
The apartment complex,
located on Bolling Road across
from the recreation center, con
tains 22 apartment buildings
fronted by a circular road. The
total cost of the facility came to
$1,234,000, Mrs. Flemister said.
The project is a first for Chat
tooga County because it was
developed through a combination
of governmental and private sec
tor cooperation.
The apartment project was
financed through a 7 percent loan
from the Farmers f^ome Ad
ministration, with interim financ
ing being handled through an
Atlanta bank.
The U.S. Department of Hous
ing and Urban Development has
agreed to provide rent subsidies
for eligible apartment dwellers,
low-and-middle income residents
whose income is below set
guidelines. A welfare recipient,
for example, could live in an
apartment rent-free.
According to Mrs. Flemister,
who as resident manager is living
with her family at the facility, the
apartments have been leased on a
first-come, first-served basis. The
one-year lease can be broken, but
the resident would give up a
deposit of no more than SIOO in
that event. The amount of the
Man Charged
In Break-In
A Summerville man remained
lodged in the county jail Wednes
day in connection with a break-in
of a local car lot office last week in
which items totaling over $l,lOO
were taken.
Authorities identified the man
as John Hamilton Bailey, 35, of
W. Seventh Street. He was charg
ed with theft by receiving stolen
property. He was lodged in lieu of
a $5,000 bond.
According to police reports,
the office of Flood Used Cars on
N. Commerce Street was broken
into sometime last Thursday
night or early Friday morning.
Missing from the lot, according to
owner Kenneth Flood, was a tool
box and tools, a one-half inch
drill, a diesel battery, three car
batteries, two stereo speakers,
four radio speakers, a weed trim
mer, three bumper jacks, four
sets of hubcaps, a gas tank for a
boat, an air pump, and an air
tank. The items were valued at
$1,112.
A warrant at the sheriff’s
department said Bailey sold a
tool box and tools to C. W. Ham
by of Summerville Friday for S3O
fitting the description of the
Flood items. The tools and box
were valued at approximately
$350.
As of Wednesday, the tool
box, tools, two car batteries and
the boat gas tank had been
recovered. The incident is still
under investigation.
®je S>ummerutlle New
deposit is based on the renter’s in
come.
The resident manager said no
racial or age quotas must be
adhered in renting the units,
however, she is required to have
at least 15 percent of the
residents to be in the low-income
• I • - -Ils ’•
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K 111 WB *
One Os 22 Apartment Buildings
School Board OKs Budget;
Hires Jr. High Principal
By PAM PURCELL
The final 1979-80 budget for
the school system was approved
Monday night during a short
meeting of the Chattooga County
Board of Education. Also
highlighting the session was the
appointment of a new junior high
school principal.
Board members approved the
budget in the amount of
$4,767,688.44. This is roughly an
increase of $139,000 of local funds
over last year, said Superinten
dent Bill King, due to higher cost
of maintenance and supplies.
In other action the board:
♦ Hired David Jones as the
new principal of the Summerville
Junior High School. Jones will
replace Lamar Parker, who
resigned at the end of the school
year to relocate in the Rome area.
Driver Issued 18 Tickets
Following a high-speed chase
in Summerville early last Thurs
day morning, a county man was
arrested and charged with 18
misdemeanor traffic violations.
Authorities identified the man
as David Fay Fowler, 23, of Route
2, Summerville. He was released
from jail Wednesday morning on
a $2,400 bond.
Officers Richard Dye and Ran
dy Bailey of the Summerville
Police Department observed
Fowler in town shortly after mid
night last Wednesday, according
to a report. When they attempted
to stop him, Fowler failed to do
so. The chase began and con-
SUMMERVILLE, CHATTOOGA COUNTY, GEORGIA 30747, THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1979
category.
The apartments were
developed by Sanders &
Associates Architects of Atlanta,
built on property owned by Sum
merville Properties Limited, ac
cording to courthouse records.
General partners in the firm are
Jones served as assistant prin
cipal at Chattooga High School
last year. Before that he taught
for four years at a junior high
school in Montgomery, Ala. He
has also taught and coached a
year at Trion and two-and-a-half
years in Charleston, S. C. Jones
received his masters degree in
supervision and administration
from Troy State University in
Troy, Ala., in 1977.
Jones is married to Shelli
Payne Jones, a third-grade
teacher at Pennville Elementary.
He is the son of Mr. and Mrs.
John S. Jones of Summerville,
and the brother of Sam Jones,
also of Summerville.
* Discussed the possibility of
purchasing a trailer-type
classroom to be placed at Penn
ville Elementary for the
tinued for some time on various
city streets before they were able
to stop Fowler's vehicle.
Fowler was charged with driv
ing under the influence, driving
with revoked license, failure to
stop for blue light and siren, at
tempting to elude officers, two
counts of disregarding a red light,
improper turning, three counts of
disregarding a stop sign, im
proper passing, driving on the
wrong side of the road, anti noise
violation, laying drag, speeding
(60 in a 25 zone), speeding (100 in
a 25 zone), speeding (60 in a 25
zone), and speeding (75 in a 45
zone.)
Bill Sanders of Dunwoody and
Asberry D. Snow of Atlanta, both
of whom are connected with the
development firm.
The property, a seven-acre
site, was previously owned by
Summerville attorney T.J. Espy,
according to county records.
relocating of the TMR (Trainable
Mentally Retarded) Center.
Superintendent King advised the
board of a trailer for sale by the
Atlanta Board of Education for
an estimated $3,050. The board
approved for King and Board
Member Ray Hall to go look at
the trailer and if they felt it was
suitable to purchase it for the
center. The two-room trailer,
along with two extra classrooms
at Pennville, will be used at the
center since it was closed at Trion
recently, the board told several
residents that were present for
the meeting.
• Was advised by King that
the school system was low on
funds and needed to borrow an
estimated $75,000. The board ap
proved the borrowing of the
money for two months.
* Discussed the repairs of
numerous rooms at several of the
schools and the re-roofing of the
athletic building at Chattooga
High School. The board requested
Superintendent King to check on
the possibility of any state funds
available to make the repairs. If
funds were received, the board
agreed to request bids on the
various projects at a later date.
* Approved the hiring of
William Murphy and Priscilla
Womble as TMR teachers and
Carl Shealey as a science teacher
at the high school.
* Approved the comprehen
sive plan for the special education
program.
* Approved payment of
$3,171 to Hugh Bohanon for wir
ing at the Menlo School.
Rebate Rollback Softens
Increase On Natural Gas
The Summerville City Council
Monday approved a substantial
increase in natural gas rates, but
• softened the move as a result of a
federally-ordered rebate.
At its regularly-scheduled
monthly meeting, the council
agreed to pass along to customers
most of a recent gas supplier in
crease, raising local rates by 16
percent. Under the decision,
residential rates would be increas
ed to $3.24 per MCF (up 46 cents
from the current rate) and in
dustrial customers would see
their rates go to $2.96 per MCF (a
34'-cent increase).
However, a subsequent deci
sion by the council will result in a
rollback on those rates—lß cents
per MCF for residential
customers and 14 cents for in-
Federal
Workers
Fan Out
Newly-hired local represen
tatives of the U.S. Department of
Commerce will begin fanning out
in local neighborhoods this week,
knocking on doors in preparation
for the 1980 census.
Chattooga High School
teacher Ben Mosley is spending
his summer coordinating the
warm-up for the census, organiz
ing some seven to nine persons
who will be going door-to-door to
gather information from area
residents.
According to Mosley, the cen
sus enumerators, as the door-to
door workers are called, are simp
ly seeking the correct name and
address of each head of
household, not in-depth informa
tion for which the U.S. Census is
well known.
“Ninety percent of the census
next year is going to be taken by
mail,’’ Mosley said, “so the cor
rect names and addresses are im
portant.
“The census is important not
only in determining how many
representatives Georgia will have
in the U.S. House of Represen
tatives,’’ he noted, “but it also
determines how much federal
money we will be having come in
to the county as it is based on
population.’’
So it’s important that we get
everyone to respond and
cooperate.”
The typical census interview
lasts only a minute or two, he
noted. Each census worker will be
wearing a blue and white inden
tification card, he added, which
prominently shows the individual
to be a government worker.
He stressed that all informa
tion gathered by the workers will
be confidential and used only in
statistical measurements. Even
other federal agencies aren't
privy to the specific information
gathered door-to-door by the
workers, he said.
Mosley has been busy in the
past few weeks hiring local
workers, who are paid 46 cents
per mile in travel expenses and 20
cents per house contacted. All
workers must be 18 or be a high
school graduate and have passed
a general written test, he said.
Mosley said he believes he has
enlisted enough workers to com
plete by mid-August the pre
listing of names and addresses for
the upcoming once-every-decade
census.
Walker County residents,
however, are needed for the pre
census work in that county, he
said. Interested Walker residents
can call Benny Richmond at
638-2589 or Judy Lowe at
866-4986 for further information.
DOT Slates
Meeting On
Road Project
An informal public meeting
concerning the reconstruction
and widening of U. S. Highway 27
from the N. Commerce bridge to
Trion will be held Thursday, Aug.
23, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chattooga
County courtroom, the Georgia
Department of Transportation
has announced.
The purpose of the project is
to increase the capacity and im
prove safety conditions on U. S.
Highway 27 between Summer
ville and Trion. The total length
of the proposed project is 4.3
miles.
dustrial customers.
The rollback was made possi
ble because of a $90,817 refund
Southern Natural Gas Co., the ci
ty’s supplier, has been ordered to
give by a federal regulatory
panel. The refund resulted after
Southern began assessing new
rates prior to gaining federal ap
proval on those rates, dating back
to the late 19605, Paul Meek, the
city's natural gas advisor told the
council and Mayor Sewell Cash.
According to Meek, the
rollback is the most effective way
for the city to return the refund
money to local customers. The
other refund alternative open to
the Cißy—issuing refund checks
to residents—would have been
too expensive and time
consuming, he said. The rollback
wilopen to the City—issuing re
fund checks to residents—would
have been too expensive and time
consuming, he said. The rollback
will be in effect approximately a
year, the exact time dependent on
how long it takes for the rollback
to counterbalance the refund
total.
In related news, Meek said
great strides have been made by
the City in recent months to cut
its rate of unaccounted-for
natural gas.
According to the most recent
city audit, just over 9 percent of
the natural gas purchased by the
city was unaccounted for in the
12-month period in fiscal y*ar
L i —/SA
IF 1
Discovers Ancestors' Tombstone
Hughie Majors inspects the recently-
E laced slab of granite which tells a brief
istory of her family dating back to the
1800 s. In the inset, the tombstone of her
Chattoogan’s Efforts Lead
To Ancestor’s Tombstone
Over 100 years after his death a Chattooga Civil
War soldier finally has a grave marker, thanks to
the perseverance of a local heir.
Last week the federal grave marker of Private
James Hamilton Satterfield, who served in Captain
(later-to-be-Major) John Storey Cleghorn's 9th
Georgia Infantry, was set in place at a small family
cemetery in Shinbone Valley.
The belated placing of the stone in memory of
Private Satterfield, who was 20 when he died in the
service of the Confederacy, is the culmination of
two years of research and work by Miss Hughie Ma
jors, a resident of Seventh Avenue in Menlo.
Private Satterfield was Miss Majors'
grandmother’s brother.
The tombstone was secured through the
Veterans Administration National Cemetery
System after Miss Majors secured the proper
documentation for the federal agency. She credits
Sidney Cooper of Lane Funeral Home as being in
strumental in helping to secure the marker.
Miss Majors said the Private Satterfield's final
resting place is uncertain and undocumented, but
that it is logical that he could have been buried in
the Satterfield-Majors plot off the Menlo Highway.
"We don’t know where he was buried, and in order
to get the stone we put it in the family cemetery,”
she explained. “We couldn’t find any records as to
where he was buried ... he was apparently
killed in Virginia, but could have been killed in this
area.”
The placing of the marker is only the most re
cent of projects Miss Majors has undertaken in con
nection with the family cemetery. She recently had
a large granite slab laid at the peaceful plot of land
tucked between Lookout Mountain and Shinbone
ridge which briefly traces her family's roots. It tells
of Edward Hamilton Satterfield, in the 1800 s, who
paid $5 for a 160-acre parcel in a state land grant
lottery, property that had only-recently had been
the rough domain of Cherokee Chief Shinbone.
One of the settler's daughters, the carved stone
relates, married Thomas Lindsey Major, one of a
Virginia family who also lived in the valley. From
that marriage, their second son, James Spencer Ma
jors, (Miss Majors’ father) removed the apostrophe
1978. The loss, apparently the
result of leaks, cost the city
$79,685, and another $17,649 in
projected profits.
But according to Meek efforts
over the past year or so have led
to the repair of several leaks in
the city’s natural gas lines and
the loss rate has been reduced to
1 percent, which he said is well
within the tolerable loss rate for a
system its size.
In other action the council:
* Accepted bids for a new
“ditch witch” and tractor.
♦ Agreed to ask its water
system consultant to investigate
a few residents' complaints con
cerning dirty water. One resident,
according to Councilman Hubert
Palmer, has seen dozens of his
clothes ruined after being washed
in sediment-laden water. Palmer
brought a Mason jar full of water
taken from the man’s home which
appeared to contain rust. Mayor
Sewell Cash said a sample of the
man’s water had been sent to
Atlanta for testing and that it
showed rust was in fact in the
water. But he said because
neighbors weren’t reporting the
same problem it was probably a
problem in the man’s service line
and not in the city’s line. It was
also brought out that at least one
resident had reported that his
water was full of small bits of
what appeared to be tissue paper.
The mayor said all the complaints
would be turned over to the water
ancestor, Private James Hamilton Sat
terfield, is shown. Both stones are
located in a small family cemetery in
Shinbone Valley.
from the name “Major's Mineral Springs” located
atop the ridge, thus evolving the name Majors.
Four generations were born in the original Sat
terfield homestead before the home burned in 1963,
the tribute concludes.
Around the turn of the century the mineral spr
ings was commercialized, becoming the site of a
large hotel. The springs were owned by the Ma
jorses for many years.
In the 1920’5, however, the hotel burned, ending
the site’s attraction as a health resort.
“Many people from Rome came to the springs,
“Miss Majors recalls. “They would ride the train to
Summerville and then take a carriage here.”
Similarly, visitors from Chattanooga came to the
area by train.
The tourist attraction's cool waters were
reputed to offer beneficial medicinal effects for all
sorts of ailments.
Miss Majors has also been responsible for the
placing of a common grave marker for over a half
dozen people whose markers had become worn with
time. “They (the old tombstones) were deteriorating
so fast; I knew somebody had to do something
soon,” Miss Majors explains of her decision to put a
new marker at the cemetery. The new marker says
simply, "Neighbors and friends of the Satterfields-
Majors/ 1820-1920/ Several Cherokee Indians/
Charles O'Shield and Wife/1 AUmon Boy/ 2 Walden
Children/ Lanier Johnson.”
One of the most unusual family stories Miss Ma
jors tells of is that of Sarah Ann Elizabeth Satter
field, whose grave in the cemetery dates her life
fromi March 28, 1840 to Sept. 28, 1859. According
to Miss Majors, the young womAn died on her wed
ding day after her wedding dress caught fire in the
hearth of the Satterfield home.
For Miss Majors, her many hours of working to
get her family burial plot in order are nearly at an
end. She hopes to get the dirt road to the cemetery
where 24 headstones lie improved in the near
future, as well as planting some additional grass.
James Spencer Majors, her nephew, is helping with
that project.
"After that,” she says with a smile, that’s all I
plan to do.”
PRICE 20c
system consultant for investiga
tion.
♦ Bill Kirchner, director of the
Cherokee Regional Library, ap
peared before the council to thank
council members and the mayor
for granting half of the local
library system’s request for the
1980 fiscal year. The council has
promised to review the financial
situation of the city in six months
to see if money is available for the
balance of the library request.
* The council unanimously ap
proved extension of the city's
natural gas line on Bolling Road
(which currently terminates at
Larry Durham’s home) to Radio
Station WGTA. The city's gas
consultant said the project was
feasible, noting that new
customers could be tied on to the
system on the proposed new line.
The 2,200-linear-foot line would
cost the city between
$3,000-$3,500, he said.
* Mayor Cash vowed a full in
vestigation would be made con
cerning allegations made by local
veterinarian Colquitt Black. Dr.
Black charged at the meeting
that a fireman had reported to
police that he had heard glass
breaking the morning that Dr.
Black's office was burglarized,
June 28, but that no policeman
was sent to investigate.
* The council voted to meet
Monday night for a special
meeting to discuss personnel
policies.