Reflections of a Dean’s Son
by Virgil Y. C. Eady, Jr.
Transcribed from an interview on June 24, 2014
Virgil Eady is the son of Virgil Eady, Sr., who was a professor and later dean of Emory at Oxford, and Susanne Eady.
After Emory moved to Atlanta, in 1919, Emory College in Oxford became Oxford Academy, which taught high school courses. My mother took advantage of Emory being a high school and attended here starting in 1919-20 to 1925. She graduated as valedictorian.
My Great-Aunt Emma, daughter of G. W. W. Stone, Sr., had married Howard Palmer, who became a well-to-do man. They lived in Atlanta. They paid to send two of their nieces to Agnes Scott College, a woman’s college in Decatur. One of their nieces was my mother; the other was Polly Stone Buck. So, my mother spent from 1925-29 at Agnes Scott. This was unusual because all of the previous women in the family had gone to Wesleyan. She came back to Oxford to teach at Palmer Stone after graduation in 1929, the same year my father came to Oxford to teach at the college. In 1929, the trustees decided to open it back up as a junior/community college. My dad was then hired to come to Emory and teach college courses. He was engaged to a woman in Arkansas at the time, but he fell in love with my mother. She said she wouldn’t get serious about him as long as the woman in Arkansas had his ring. So, he wrote to the woman and asked for his ring back, but she refused. He had to go to Arkansas to get it. This was difficult because travel cost a lot of money – money he didn’t have. But he went after the ring, which he gave to my mother.
My Great-Aunt Emma, daughter of G. W. W. Stone, Sr., had married Howard Palmer, who became a well-to-do man. They lived in Atlanta. They paid to send two of their nieces to Agnes Scott College, a woman’s college in Decatur. One of their nieces was my mother; the other was Polly Stone Buck. So, my mother spent from 1925-29 at Agnes Scott. This was unusual because all of the previous women in the family had gone to Wesleyan. She came back to Oxford to teach at Palmer Stone after graduation in 1929, the same year my father came to Oxford to teach at the college. In 1929, the trustees decided to open it back up as a junior/community college. My dad was then hired to come to Emory and teach college courses. He was engaged to a woman in Arkansas at the time, but he fell in love with my mother. She said she wouldn’t get serious about him as long as the woman in Arkansas had his ring. So, he wrote to the woman and asked for his ring back, but she refused. He had to go to Arkansas to get it. This was difficult because travel cost a lot of money – money he didn’t have. But he went after the ring, which he gave to my mother.
My dad played the trumpet and he played in a jazz band. Most people who knew him, think of him as a man who is very proper, always in a suit and tie – but there was this other side to him. His nickname in this band was “Hot Lips Eady.” He was very good -- could triple tongue jazz. He also had a good singing voice.
My mother and dad married in 1933 and I was born during a snow storm in December of 1935.
My mother’s father was Harry Harlan Stone, a college professor here at Emory for many years. He was the son of George W. W. Stone, Sr., who was a member of Emory’s first graduating class. So, the Stone family is very closely intertwined with the college from its beginnings.
During its time of being a high school, Emory Academy had some pretty high-spirited guys. It was close to being a school for delinquents. So what the school did was to place a professor and his family in each of the sections of the dormitories to live there to keep an eye on things. My father was assigned to A Section-Haygood Dormitory and brought his bride back there to live. We lived there until I was five years old. I poked around everywhere on campus. I found all of the cracks and crannies of the school, including the tunnel that goes all the way from Haygood Dormitory to the science building. No one believed that there is a tunnel there. I’ve been in it, but I’m not going to tell anyone where it is. I’ll bet it’s still there, too. Back then they had about three big furnaces and had to pipe in all that hot air across campus and those pipes came through the tunnels.
My mother and dad married in 1933 and I was born during a snow storm in December of 1935.
My mother’s father was Harry Harlan Stone, a college professor here at Emory for many years. He was the son of George W. W. Stone, Sr., who was a member of Emory’s first graduating class. So, the Stone family is very closely intertwined with the college from its beginnings.
During its time of being a high school, Emory Academy had some pretty high-spirited guys. It was close to being a school for delinquents. So what the school did was to place a professor and his family in each of the sections of the dormitories to live there to keep an eye on things. My father was assigned to A Section-Haygood Dormitory and brought his bride back there to live. We lived there until I was five years old. I poked around everywhere on campus. I found all of the cracks and crannies of the school, including the tunnel that goes all the way from Haygood Dormitory to the science building. No one believed that there is a tunnel there. I’ve been in it, but I’m not going to tell anyone where it is. I’ll bet it’s still there, too. Back then they had about three big furnaces and had to pipe in all that hot air across campus and those pipes came through the tunnels.
When I was about six years old, we moved up to the house on Wesley Street, where my son Jonathan lives now. It is the house that my grandfather, Harry Harlan Stone built next door to his father’s house on the corner. Harry’s house burned down in 1937 and my aunt and mother helped their mother rebuild it. My great-grandfather had bought the house next door from Edward L. Thomas, the town surveyor. Thomas picked that lot because it was the highest point in town. When my grandfather’s son, Harry Harlan Stone, was going to get married in 1880, my grandfather gave him the lot next door to build a house on. It was a big Victorian house, and was quite an interesting house. It is very sad that it burned down. They rebuilt immediately, so the house that’s there now was built in 1937.
After my daddy moved us from Haygood, I grew up in my grandmother’s house. We had pretty much half the block up there. What that did is to open up a whole new territory of Oxford for me to explore. I worked out a deal with my mother; I got out of school at 3:00 p.m. and I could do anything I wanted to do until 5:00 p.m. – which gave me two hours to explore anywhere I wanted to in the town.
I went to Palmer-Stone School for the first through third grade. My mother wanted me to study the piano, so she sent me to Covington Elementary school and I took piano. I never did learn but one song. “Here we go, dressed so neat, to a party down the street …” Anyway, I stayed there for fourth through eighth grade. There was no public transportation, so my mother had to take me to school every day and pick me up. The school was located where the Covington Police Department is today.
At that time, some parents in Oxford who could manage the transportation, sent their children to Covington Elementary School. Many of the Palmer-Stone students from rural areas were less advanced than the city children. They worked on the farms. One time, a teacher noticed a odd kind of smell on one of the boys and asked him what it was. He replied that he had been sewed in for the winter.” His clothes had actually been sewed on so that he couldn’t take them off.
Anyway, I went to Covington High School and while I was there, I joined the band. My dad wanted me to played the trumpet, like he did, but I wanted to play the drums, so that’s what I did. My father persuaded me to come back to Emory at Oxford because they had a program where you could take 11th and 12th grade, and then the first two years of college right there on the Oxford Campus. So I did that. I moved to Oxford College in 1952 and stayed until 1956, when I went to the Atlanta campus.
After my daddy moved us from Haygood, I grew up in my grandmother’s house. We had pretty much half the block up there. What that did is to open up a whole new territory of Oxford for me to explore. I worked out a deal with my mother; I got out of school at 3:00 p.m. and I could do anything I wanted to do until 5:00 p.m. – which gave me two hours to explore anywhere I wanted to in the town.
I went to Palmer-Stone School for the first through third grade. My mother wanted me to study the piano, so she sent me to Covington Elementary school and I took piano. I never did learn but one song. “Here we go, dressed so neat, to a party down the street …” Anyway, I stayed there for fourth through eighth grade. There was no public transportation, so my mother had to take me to school every day and pick me up. The school was located where the Covington Police Department is today.
At that time, some parents in Oxford who could manage the transportation, sent their children to Covington Elementary School. Many of the Palmer-Stone students from rural areas were less advanced than the city children. They worked on the farms. One time, a teacher noticed a odd kind of smell on one of the boys and asked him what it was. He replied that he had been sewed in for the winter.” His clothes had actually been sewed on so that he couldn’t take them off.
Anyway, I went to Covington High School and while I was there, I joined the band. My dad wanted me to played the trumpet, like he did, but I wanted to play the drums, so that’s what I did. My father persuaded me to come back to Emory at Oxford because they had a program where you could take 11th and 12th grade, and then the first two years of college right there on the Oxford Campus. So I did that. I moved to Oxford College in 1952 and stayed until 1956, when I went to the Atlanta campus.
Meanwhile, I was in the Boy Scouts. They didn’t have a Boy Scout troop in Oxford, but I went to the one in Covington and obtained the rank of Eagle Scout. I had a lot of fun doing that. I loved the outdoors and camping.
I used to work on the college maintenance crew during the summertime from the time I was about 14. I worked for a dollar an hour under Billy Mitchell, and he taught me an awful lot.
One of the things you could do as a young person in Oxford was go down to the Rock Store, which was the Harwell Store. One of the Harwell brothers had the store and the other brother was the postmaster. We could go in there where he had a big potbelly stove. The old men in town would gather there and tell their stories. The younger folks came in in the afternoon and Harwell always had some candy he would give out and we’d listen to their stories.
I used to work on the college maintenance crew during the summertime from the time I was about 14. I worked for a dollar an hour under Billy Mitchell, and he taught me an awful lot.
One of the things you could do as a young person in Oxford was go down to the Rock Store, which was the Harwell Store. One of the Harwell brothers had the store and the other brother was the postmaster. We could go in there where he had a big potbelly stove. The old men in town would gather there and tell their stories. The younger folks came in in the afternoon and Harwell always had some candy he would give out and we’d listen to their stories.
As a teenager, I got interested in horses. So, I persuaded my dad to get me a horse and I fenced in an area behind the house. I had a friend in Covington named Homer Sharp, whose father was the high school principal. He became my best friend; we both achieved Eagle rank in the Boy Scouts at the same time. He had a horse also and we would get together on weekends and ride our horses. There was no pavement at all in Oxford at that time and we discovered that the road around the Quadrangle at the college made a good race track. So we’d hold horse races on weekends and the kids of the Oxford neighborhood would come and get all excited.
One summer, Homer and I went to Bert Adams Boy Scout Camp, which, at that time, was up in Atlanta in the Vinings area. Something happened then that was kind of funny. We met and got to be friends with a guy named Plato; so, there we were, Homer Sharp, Virgil Eady, and Plato Ryan.
My dad became dean in 1944, but we didn’t move over to the President’s Home until 1953. I spent my college years there.
One summer, Homer and I went to Bert Adams Boy Scout Camp, which, at that time, was up in Atlanta in the Vinings area. Something happened then that was kind of funny. We met and got to be friends with a guy named Plato; so, there we were, Homer Sharp, Virgil Eady, and Plato Ryan.
My dad became dean in 1944, but we didn’t move over to the President’s Home until 1953. I spent my college years there.