Willie Mae Weaver was born in Pickens in 1921 and has since attained an almost saintly, matriarchal status. She has fostered 50 children, adopted six, and has spent 30-plus years molding young minds as an elementary school teacher in North Georgia. Here Weaver talks about why she can’t stand a quiet house and what life was like as a black woman in a predominately white county.
You’ve always lived in Pickens. How did your parents come to live in the county?
My dad lived in Lumpkin and they were farming and it just happened that somebody found out about the Georgia Marble Company. They didn’t have a car or bus at that time so they would walk from Lumpkin to Pickens to work at Georgia Marble Company. What Mr. [Sam] Tate did was he built a big boarding house called Lower Whippoorwill. That was where the men that came from out of the county would go there and board. My momma’s mother and step daddy ran the boarding house and that’s how my momma met my daddy.
Where did your family live in Pickens?
What they call Upper Whippoorwill, where the Head Start is now in Tate. My dad, when he got married, he could have found a home in Smokey Hollow but he didn’t like it. He didn’t want his family raised in Smokey Hollow.
Why not?
It had a bad name so he chose a place out there in an isolated area. (Laughing) When dad had nothing but girls people would tease him. They said he knew what he was doing, isolating the girls from the boys. But it was a quiet neighborhood.
Your father worked at Georgia Marble. Did your mother stay at home?
Yeah, but my daddy wanted her to stay at home. He said you got these girls here and you stay at home and I’ll make the living. (Laughing) And all girls, all six of us. Good gracious alive. No man in the house but my daddy.
Where did you attend church and school?
I went to church at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church and I went to school at the Pickens County school at Tate. At that time when we went to school of course you know that the schools were not integrated.
Was that also called the Tri-City school?
Yes. It became Tri-City when Jasper did away with its school and Nelson didn’t have a school, so Nelson and Jasper came to Tate. They called it Tri-City instead of Tate High School. I went to college. My daddy wanted that. He went to school as much as he could and he enjoyed it and he insisted that we go to college, too. I went to Morris Brown and in the summer I would go to Fort Valley so I could finish college in three years.
Pickens County has such a small black population. Can you describe what it was like growing up in a county that was primarily white?
It was good. It was really good. I heard my mother say before she died, she said, “I can not understand what has happened here in Pickens County.” She said when they moved here things were different. She said there were white people living fairly close to black people. She said they became friends and whatever their problem was we cried with them and whatever our problem was they cried with us. She didn’t understand how people grew so separate with races. She didn’t grow up that way. Race didn’t keep people from being neighborly or friendly back then.
I’ve heard you fostered quite a few children. You must enjoy having kids around.
Lord yes. Growin’ up with all those girls and all that noise and I missed it. And that’s why we adopted children. My husband went to DFCS and put in for foster children. (Laughing) Later on that lady, the caseworker, told me that he said if we don’t get some children in that house I was either going crazy or going to leave him one. (Laughing) The house was too quiet. I don’t like a quiet house.
How many children did you foster?
It was 50 and I adopted six out of the 50. Two girls and four boys. With those we adopted the parents were losing custody of them and rather them being sent off to an orphanage we adopted. It’s hard to keep a child in your house for a year or two and not get attached.
That’s unbelievable. Why did you enjoy it so much?
(Laughing) I guess it’s the noise, and there’s always something happening to keep you on your toes and make you laugh. It’s an enjoyment. It makes me happy to be around young people.
Being a teacher both before and after integration, can you describe the classroom environment after desegregation?
When I went to Fairmount the schools were integrated. I taught 30-plus years at elementary school and it was just a natural thing where I was. Gordon County was the first place I taught at in an integrated situation and those children were so nice. You couldn’t help but love them and they didn’t cause any trouble.
Now that you live in Nelson, not Tate, do you enjoy the community? I’ve heard you ran for mayor of Nelson at one point.
I did. It was several years ago. I was on the city council and I ran. (Laughing) It was an adventure for me. But Pickens has always been good for us. I like Nelson even though I didn’t want to move here but housing got bad up there in Tate. After Mr. Tate died they didn’t add to the housing like they had done when he was there. So when we were getting foster children we decided we couldn’t stay there in that little two-room house.
You lived in company housing in Tate as well?
Yes in Tate. Nelson would sell houses, but you couldn’t buy a house in Tate. It was all marble company housing. You had to pay rent. None of the black families bought houses. But Mr. Tate tried to treat everyone equally. At the Fourth of July celebration he would buy a sheep and a hog for the Masons to barbecue for the black people in the morning. After twelve o’clock they would all go down to the ballfield and have a double-header ball game. At Christmas [Mr. Tate] would furnish things for children for the Christmas tree. People would give him a bad name but in his way he was good to people. He treated his workers good and thought about the children.
Can you describe a pleasant girlhood memory you have of Pickens.
(Laughing) You know, all my memories of Pickens are pretty much good.
What things are most important to you now?
How you treat people and how people treat you. And if people don’t treat you right then you can’t hold that against them. You just have to think if they knew you better they would treat you better. You don’t let that hang over your head like a cloud. You just pray for it.
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| PHOTO BY ANGELA REINHARDT |
| MOTHERING PICKENS, ONE CHILD AT A TIME - Willie Mae Weaver was the youngest of six girls growing up in rural Pickens County. Her father, who worked at Georgia Marble Company, encouraged his daughters to pursue education. Weaver taught school for over 30 years but her love of children extended well beyond the classroom. In her lifetime Weaver has opened her home to 50 foster children, six of which she adopted. Read her story online. |
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