There’s No Place Like Home
by Grace Budd Spradley
Transcribed from an Interview on July 15, 2014
I wasn’t born in Oxford, but I was born in Newton County. When we moved here, we lived in the house right across from where City Hall is now, where the big tree was [the Yarborough Oak] and I went to Palmer-Stone. That’s where we lived in the 1930s, when I went to school. We used to sit out on the porch under the shade of that huge tree. It was so beautiful.
When I was a little girl, we didn’t have a single paved road in Oxford, except for the one road that went to Covington [Emory Street]. Of course, there weren’t many cars around back then. There were one or two people who had cars and if someone saw us children walking to Covington (we used to go to the Monday afternoon matinees at the movie theater in Covington), they would stop and pick us up and give us a ride.
In those days, the houses weren’t numbered, so there were no addresses and I didn’t know any of the street names. We never used them and there were no street signs – so if we were to tell someone where someone lived, we could only say it was next to so-and-so’s house. All the houses were known by the name of the family that lived there. If you didn’t know anyone else on the street, you were out of luck. Mail was delivered to the post office, so everyone had to go pick up their mail.
I remember the Marlow Family living at Orna Villa. They had several boys going to Palmer-Stone School. They played a lot of basketball, which was very entertaining. That’s what we did for entertainment back then. We watched basketball games at Palmer-Stone School.
The store we used was Harwell’s Store in the big stone building that is still there. There was Moss’s Store and the Stone’s Store too.
It was so quiet back then. We didn’t have any noise problems. We had one policeman. I think his name was Kitchens.
I remember the girl who lived in the house next door, the Thompsons, who had two daughters. The older one married Webb Garrison, who was a Baptist preacher. He became famous writing books and things. The younger sister, Mable, went to school with me at Palmer-Stone and we were good friends.
Robert [Budd], the boy I would later marry, was the youngest of nine children. His father, who we called “Papa Budd,” was a minister and had graduated in 1894 from Emory College. Emory College taught him to preach. He didn’t go to seminary; there was no seminary to go to. When you graduated, you were a Methodist minister. He married a girl from Atlanta after graduation. They went to Brunswick and he preached in the South Georgia Conference. He’d been a district superintendent in Macon and so didn’t have a parsonage. He had Methodist churches all up and down the coast then. There was an outbreak of malaria at that time, so they moved to Oxford.
Papa Budd rented a house here and moved his family here. The Budds lived in a house behind where the post office is. It was the only house on that street [George Street], where Sarah Davis’s house is now. But this was before her house was built. The Ellis’s were the Budd’s neighbors. Robert used to always be over at the Ellis because there were boys over there for him to play with. There was Snake (Leland) Wales and Jack and Charles.
Wilbur Harwell was the postmaster and his brother was called “Cotton.” His real name was Branham. He was a good friend of Robert’s. They used to read books all the time together, which was a great source of entertainment back then.
We had a very active church program. All the young people would meet in the big auditorium at the church. It was called MYF [Methodist Youth Fellowship]. We met on Sunday nights and everyone went. We’d sing and have a little program. We’d sit on the steps of the church and visit. We’d also have a “pan party.” Everyone was supposed to bring something, like a pot luck. We’d have a lot of those on Friday and Saturday nights. The basketball games at Palmer-Stone School on Friday nights were very popular too – until the gym burned down. The fire started in the middle of the night. No one knows how it started.
When I was a young teenager, the Budds lived here but Robert had graduated from Oxford College and had gone to Florida, so I didn’t know him, but I knew his family. I knew his nephews, Billy and Wesley and Alfred, because they all went to Palmer-Stone School at the same time I did. When Robert came back, he started coming to MYF meetings. One day I was sitting on my front porch and he was walking over to the post office. He saw me and walked over and started talking to me -- and that was that. I was just 17 when we got married. We would have four boys, Robert, then Joe, then Michael and then Gary.
After we got married, Robert and I lived in the house that sat where the post office is now [the Stewart House]. Robert [Jr.] was born there and then I had another little boy, Joe, in November. It was 1941. We had a cold, cold winter that year. The Ellises, lived across the street. One day, Wales Ellis came to our door and said, “Grace get your babies out of the house. Your house is on fire.” I didn’t even know. We had no fire department back then. When there was a fire, the college would dismiss all the classes and all the boys would run to help put out fires. You know, when our house caught fire, they got every stick of furniture out of the house. The house burned down, but all our furniture was saved. They couldn’t get anything from the upper floors, because it was burning, but they got all of ours out because we lived on the first floor. There was an apartment upstairs, but the woman who was staying there was gone, so we never found out how it was started. Mrs. Floyd owned the house, but she was away in Atlanta. That’s the real tragedy in our history. The history of Oxford is houses burning. We’ve lost so many beautiful old houses. All the beautiful old homes … lost to fire. Even years later, I’d often wake up in the middle of the night thinking, “can I get out of this house? If there’s a fire, can I get out of this house?” Back then, there wasn’t any insurance. I don’t know how people recovered. When a house caught fire, it burned down. There was no saving it.
Robert and I lived with his parents on George Street after the Stewart House burned. In fact, when we rushed out of the house when it caught fire, I took my babies to my in-laws’s house and watched the Stewart House burn from the upstairs window.
Robert and I lived with his parents on George Street after the Stewart House burned. In fact, when we rushed out of the house when it caught fire, I took my babies to my in-laws’s house and watched the Stewart House burn from the upstairs window.
The Budds traded that house for the big stone house down at the end of the college football field [on the corner of Stone and Haygood Street]. That’s where they lived for many, many years.
Mother Budd was a real character. She was a typical minister’s wife. She had all her training as a preacher’s wife in South Georgia. She had “happy hour” for all the little children where she told Bible stories using a flannel board. She said, “They don’t teach Bible stories in Sunday school the way they used to.” She always had something in the kitchen cooking that smelled wonderful, like cookies, or something, that the kids just loved. She carried on with those “happy hours” until she was 94. And you know, on the Sunday night before she died (she died the following Saturday), she walked to Covington to play the piano for service. She was a marvelous person. She had nine children and they grew up, scattered all over the southeast.
Anyway, World War II started right after Joe was born. Robert had already signed up and had passed the exam, so I thought I was going to lose him, but he went to work for a company building airplanes; he was in a testing division. They sent him to Niagara Falls for training and my two little boys and I stayed with my mother until he came back and had a place to work.
When they finished building a big airplane plant in Marietta, Robert went to work there and we moved up there for the rest of the war. We just rented a home up there because we knew it was temporary. I didn’t know anyone up there and it was a quiet, lonely time. I was busy as a housewife and young mother, but we weren’t involved with the church or anything. It really wasn’t home for us. We were there for two years, but it wasn’t the best time for us. Michael and Gary were born while we were up there, but then we came back to Oxford and lived at 608 Emory Street until all our sons had graduated from high school.
After the war, Robert went to work for Lockheed for twenty years. He had graduated from Emory-at-Oxford College with a two-year degree and had one year at Emory in Atlanta before the war, so he enrolled in Georgia State and got his teaching degree. He then taught school for ten years. I started teaching kindergarten as an assistant teacher and then was hired as head teacher in 1964 at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Covington. I taught there for over 20 years. Back then, public schools didn’t have kindergarten. When the public schools did start a kindergarten program, I went to Georgia State University and got my degree in early childhood education so I could teach in public school. I then taught kindergarten at Social Circle Elementary school until I retired in 1992.
Robert and I built a nice big brick house just outside of Oxford, but he passed away in 1992, about a year after having a stroke, and I didn’t want to live in that big house all by myself. My kids were all grown by then.
All four of my boys graduated from college. Robert graduated from Georgia Southern and was teaching. Joe graduated with a two-year degree from Oxford College and then went on to graduate from University of Georgia. He then joined the Air Force. When he got back, he went to dental school and became a dentist. He has a home in West Virginia and one in St. Petersburg, Florida. Michael graduated from Georgia State and then got a graduate degree from Georgia Tech and became an engineer. Gary got one degree from Georgia Tech, but he got restless and quit college and joined the Marines. He then went over to Viet Nam and was exposed to “Agent Orange.” When he came back, he returned to Georgia Tech and got his degree and then got a job with Continental Can where he stayed for ten years and then retired, but he has had health problems.
I married again, a man named Ernest Foster. He had been married, but his wife had passed away. They had a ceramics business after they retired. He had heart trouble, though, and we were married only two weeks short of two years when he passed away during heart surgery.
Mother Budd was a real character. She was a typical minister’s wife. She had all her training as a preacher’s wife in South Georgia. She had “happy hour” for all the little children where she told Bible stories using a flannel board. She said, “They don’t teach Bible stories in Sunday school the way they used to.” She always had something in the kitchen cooking that smelled wonderful, like cookies, or something, that the kids just loved. She carried on with those “happy hours” until she was 94. And you know, on the Sunday night before she died (she died the following Saturday), she walked to Covington to play the piano for service. She was a marvelous person. She had nine children and they grew up, scattered all over the southeast.
Anyway, World War II started right after Joe was born. Robert had already signed up and had passed the exam, so I thought I was going to lose him, but he went to work for a company building airplanes; he was in a testing division. They sent him to Niagara Falls for training and my two little boys and I stayed with my mother until he came back and had a place to work.
When they finished building a big airplane plant in Marietta, Robert went to work there and we moved up there for the rest of the war. We just rented a home up there because we knew it was temporary. I didn’t know anyone up there and it was a quiet, lonely time. I was busy as a housewife and young mother, but we weren’t involved with the church or anything. It really wasn’t home for us. We were there for two years, but it wasn’t the best time for us. Michael and Gary were born while we were up there, but then we came back to Oxford and lived at 608 Emory Street until all our sons had graduated from high school.
After the war, Robert went to work for Lockheed for twenty years. He had graduated from Emory-at-Oxford College with a two-year degree and had one year at Emory in Atlanta before the war, so he enrolled in Georgia State and got his teaching degree. He then taught school for ten years. I started teaching kindergarten as an assistant teacher and then was hired as head teacher in 1964 at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Covington. I taught there for over 20 years. Back then, public schools didn’t have kindergarten. When the public schools did start a kindergarten program, I went to Georgia State University and got my degree in early childhood education so I could teach in public school. I then taught kindergarten at Social Circle Elementary school until I retired in 1992.
Robert and I built a nice big brick house just outside of Oxford, but he passed away in 1992, about a year after having a stroke, and I didn’t want to live in that big house all by myself. My kids were all grown by then.
All four of my boys graduated from college. Robert graduated from Georgia Southern and was teaching. Joe graduated with a two-year degree from Oxford College and then went on to graduate from University of Georgia. He then joined the Air Force. When he got back, he went to dental school and became a dentist. He has a home in West Virginia and one in St. Petersburg, Florida. Michael graduated from Georgia State and then got a graduate degree from Georgia Tech and became an engineer. Gary got one degree from Georgia Tech, but he got restless and quit college and joined the Marines. He then went over to Viet Nam and was exposed to “Agent Orange.” When he came back, he returned to Georgia Tech and got his degree and then got a job with Continental Can where he stayed for ten years and then retired, but he has had health problems.
I married again, a man named Ernest Foster. He had been married, but his wife had passed away. They had a ceramics business after they retired. He had heart trouble, though, and we were married only two weeks short of two years when he passed away during heart surgery.
I met Grady, my husband now, through AARP. I was a retired school teacher and wanted something to do. Several people told me about AARP, so I joined. I met Grady on a trip we all went on. He lived in Covington. He had worked on the television show, In the Heat of the Night as the stand-in for Carroll O’Connor. Grady was married at the time, but his wife passed away some time later. The next trip we went on, we got to know each other. Then AARP disbanded, so we didn’t make any trips anymore, but he started calling me on the phone and we’d get together. Then we married in 2003 or 2004. Grady’s a Baptist. He goes every Sunday to his church and then comes back and goes with me to Allen Memorial. He’s not actually a member of our church, but they accept him gracefully.