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EDITOR'S NOTES
Athens Is Honored
To Be Remembered
With These Sketches
Some books, as soon as you open them,
are filled with light and clarity and speak with
the voice of a person whom you soon come
to know as a delightful and engaging pres
ence. Remembering Athens captures this com
munity and assorted
characters over most
of this century with
the bright, lovingly
wry tone so charac
teristic of Susan
Frances Barrow Tate.
This book is a
treasure, for it con
tains unique glimpses
of Athens and the
University of Georgia
going back to the First
World War and even
to the War Between
the States, still living
history when Mrs.
Tate was a girl. (Indeed, when she first heard
the word “war,” in connection with the over
seas conflagration, young Sue Fan could only
assume that it meant the Yanks were coming
back to the South, rather than going to Eu
rope.)
Remembering Athens is storytelling at its
best. Each short vignette involves us in a scene, !
as if we’re being shown snapshots, sitting be- j
side Mrs. Tate as she leafs through a family al
bum on a Sunday afternoon on the sofa,
warmed by sunlight and tea. Here are her eight
great-aunts quarreling over Shakespeare and
the one who assured her that it’s far b^ttei in
the long rur' to be sweet and smart than to have
curls and dimples; Dekle, the cat who destroyed
many mice and saved four humans; the last
Christmas of her uncle, Captain Williams, who
left his wife and baby daughter and went off to
die that the world might be safe for democ
racy; Joe Keno, the town lamplighter, whose
w ife’s late liberation put an
end to her weekly beat
ings; the time as a little girl
when Sue Fan declined
tea with Mrs. Herbert
Hoover and the time her
aunt’s Victorian propri
eties prevented an inter
change with the young
woman for whom King
Edward later left his
throne; the naming of
Athens’s streets; her
grandfather, who was
Chancellor of the Univer
sity of Georgia; Miss Louie
Lane’s one-woman wel
fare; Miss Puss, the first li
brarian at the university;
life at Lucy Cobb Institute,
the only school she attended other than the
University; and all the Childses, Barrows,
Lucases and others who made up her wide
spread family, including occasional glimpses of
the young Bill Tate, who had the great good
fortune to become her husband.
Many of these sketches are of necessity told
through the eyes of tire child Mrs. Tate was
when she witnessed them. There is, for in
stance, her account of her visit in 1913 with a
black woman midwife, where the accumula
tion of innocent observation renders a world
of human relationships. Mrs. Tate did not lose
this unflinching eye even after childhood, and
her tales of family and community are con
stantly informed by this penchant for the freshly
telling detail.
Read this book and see Athens as a pal
impsest enriched by the past places that shadow
the present scene —
the mansions 'hat
stood along Thomas
St., her family home
that was tom down
for thr construction
of the university li
brary, the struggles
and peregrinations of
the public library,
fundraising for Me
morial Hall in re
membrance of all
those UGA boys
whose stars on the
big service flag in the
Chapel during World
War 1 changed from blue to gold, the houses
where she lived, the Y Camp, Lucy Cobb,
Seney Stovall, where she studied science in the
basement and made friends with Archibald, the
skeleton who was not all there; the “The Home
Place.” where her grandfather, Chancellor Bar-
row, was bom into a family still attended by
“our people.”
Many of these sketches appeared in The
Athens Observer when that publication was un
der different ownership, in Flagpole Magazine. Ath
ens Kiagxzme and The Alumni Record, now Geor
gia Magazine. Those of us who gladly included these
pieces among our pages should be reminded that
when we accept such contributions we may be
entertaining authors unaware.
Little did we suspect while we were publish
ing Dean Tate’s weekly columns of reminiscences
— later to be collected into Strolls Around Athens
—that yet another author waited at home, sat
isfying the word for the time being through her
sparkling and witty conversation, delighting all
with the same voice that
now lilts off these pages and
resonates in the mind’s ear.
Editors George and
Charlotte Marshall and the
Athens Historical Society
have given us a profoundly
humane, eminently read
able gift that can be enj oyed
as the history J a time and
place and as die outline for
an autobiography of a
woman many might not
otherwise ha' e the pleasure
of knowing. This hand-
same, clothbound volume,
complete with 266 pages,
66 black-ana white photo
graphs and index is a joy to
read that will prove a wel
come gift and a constant companion.
Pete McCommons
Editor, Flagpole Magazine
Remembering Athens is available for $25 from
Athens-area bookstores and can be ordered direcdy
from the Athens Historical Society, P.O. Box
7745. Athens, GA 30604-7745, adding $2 for
handling.
J/tro
Not bad...
now light my
creme bralee, baby.
546AVEST (DOlOTNi • 5464240 (IPTOWNi
351 BROAD STREET
FLAGPOLE Mcvewcpeye. zd,