Children of Calhoun
Three Calhoun natives share their experiences growing up in the small town that they have come to love.
Though many are born in small towns, it’s becoming rare that children born and raised in such places stay there when they grow up. The Calhoun Times recently sat down with three individuals who were born and raised in Calhoun during the 1930s-1950s.
Mignon Ballard, Jane Powers Weldon and James “Jim” Lay were all born within four years of each other, and grew up when Calhoun was a bit different than it is today. Throughout their lives, they have been able to experience Calhoun through what it was and what it is now, observing the many changes that have taken place over time.
Family histories
While Ballard, Powers Weldon and Lay each have detailed histories with Calhoun, these natives were not the first in their families to be born in the area. All three of them were preceded by ancestors who moved to the town long before they were born.
“My kin folks got here in 1832, and my Aunt Bea Hall started the Calhoun School system in 1902,” said Lay, pointing to a wall in his house that displayed years of family photographs. “One of her nephews, Jim Hall, was one of the editors of the Calhoun Times.”
Lay, who was born in the house he still lives in, the Stoneleigh House on Fain Street, has an endless amount of stories regarding his parents, grandparents and extended family members living in Calhoun. One of his favorite stories to tell is about his Great-Great Aunt Mary who was living in Calhoun when the Yankees marched through town following the Civil War.
In fact, some family stories from these three even intertwine. Ballard’s mother and Lay’s father went to kindergarten together in 1898 at the city schools. And just like Lay’s family, Ballard’s parents and grandparents were also born and raised in Calhoun.
“My family has a lot of roots here,” said Ballard, similarly to Lay and Powers Weldon’s genealogy. Ballard, like Lay, was born in her childhood home, and though that house has since been moved, she has fond memories growing up in her family home.
The house Powers Weldon grew up in was built by her grandparents when her mother was an infant. Since its construction, the house on College Street has stayed in the family. Powers Weldon currently lives there with her husband, Ed Weldon.
Growing up in Calhoun
With extensive family histories in Calhoun, Powers Weldon, Ballard and Lay all remember their childhood distinctly. All of them agreed that in such a small town, everybody knew everybody, and that was part of Calhoun’s charm. They recalled memories of walking to the elementary school (which was located where the current First Baptist Church is at 411 College St.), playing in the streets of the town and living during a simpler time.
“It was so easy to grow up here, times were not as divisive as they are now,” Lay said. “We all just had a good time.”
The youngest of six children, Lay remembers his childhood being “wonderful,” and he said it seemed like the sun was always shining. Ballard recalls things similarly, and said the children would always ride their bikes everywhere.
“We had unlimited freedom,” Ballard said. “I met my best friend, Tommye, on my tricycle when I was five. She lived on the next block and we weren’t allowed to cross the corner at Fain Street. We would stand on the corner and talk to each other. We’ve been friends for 79 years now.”
Both Ballard and Powers Weldon can remember their favorite Saturday morning activity: watching Western movies at the GEM Theatre. Ballard said the movies cost a dime.
“We went to the movies every Saturday morning to see the cowboys,” Powers Weldon said, laughing at the memory. “When we would go, our feet stuck to the floor of the GEM. It’s what Calhoun was like.”
Though Powers Weldon was four years younger than Ballard and Lay, she remembers things quite similarly.
“Calhoun was idyllic in my childhood,” Powers Weldon said. “We roamed everywhere and played until dark or until we were called home. We were innocent; we didn’t know how to get into trouble. We’d just play and build forts all day.”
Lay agreed that there wasn’t much to get the kids in trouble at that point in history.
“Really there wasn’t much to do except go to Sunday school and play in the yard,” Lay said. “We never talked about politics and there wasn’t any liquor in Calhoun. That wasn’t a part of our lives.”
Lay recalls during their childhood there were three primary churches in Calhoun — the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches — and said churches and schools were extremely significant to social aspects of the town.
Lay, who worked as a special delivery boy for the post office when he was young, remembered hand delivering mail and earning 9 cents for each letter. When asked if 9 cents was a lot of money during that time, he responded with a laugh and said it was nine cents he didn’t have before.
“My favorite memory in the world, on Sunday mornings, I would ride down to town at seven in the morning as the sun was coming up to get the special delivery mail. At that time, everybody was still asleep. The town was quiet,” said Lay, smiling while recalling that time in his life. “The town was mine.”
Ballard admits that while her childhood was wonderful, there were also some challenges to growing up in the midst of a major war.
“I was a war child; I grew up during World War II. It started when I was in the first grade,” Ballard said. “If you had a bike, you were lucky because you weren’t going to get another one or anything out of metal. We were lucky to get that playground before Pearl Harbor. We wouldn’t have had it otherwise.”
Ballard also remembers how each person had to have ration books and stamps for shopping for groceries. She said sugar was rationed during the war, as well as butter and gasoline, and if you didn’t have enough stamps to purchase those items, you went without.
And with Calhoun being smaller than it is now, more trips had to be made to Atlanta or Chattanooga for what can easily be found in town today.
“We went to Atlanta for everything,” Powers Weldon said. “We went there to get a haircut, and it was two hours there and back. We went to Atlanta for movies and for shopping. When I went off to college we went there to buy all of my clothes.”
Powers Weldon recalls what Calhoun was like when it had a mere 5,000 people in its city limits, as opposed to today’s 16,000. Taking a major field trip that lasted hours, simply for basic supplies, was just a part of their life.
Approaching adulthood
Lay and Ballard were in the same class, and often spent time running in the same group of friends. And although Powers Weldon was four years younger, through school and church, she still knew the other two well.
“Mignon and Kim Lay and a couple other people, I just thought were wonderful,” said Powers Weldon, admitting she looked up to her older peers. “Jim was like a big brother and Mignon was funny and witty. I tagged along with them when I could.”
Ballard, the elder of the two women, said she knew Powers Weldon from church and school, and even though they were four years apart, they would sometimes attend the same parties once they got older.
“Once in a while we would walk home from school together because we lived in the same area,” Ballard said. “I didn’t know her very well then but I always liked her.”
Ballard said gaps in ages made a bigger difference in high school, looking back on that time in her life. They would go off to college at different times, experience trying times separately, and go through various stages of adolescent life during different years.
Yet, the irony of the history of that relationship is that Ballard and Powers Weldon are currently closer friends than they ever were in high school. Lay said he also knew Powers Weldon fairly well, but similar to Ballard, he currently knows her better now.
When he attended Calhoun High School, Lay remembers being the captain of the football team — but only because he owned the football, he laughed. To this day, even after serving in both the Army and the Peace Corps, he still attributes his hardest days as when he had to go to those football practices.
“My standard joke is that you may feel bad but it’s not as bad as football practice at Calhoun High School for three years. That was the hardest work I did my whole life,” Lay said. “LP Owens, Robin Collins and I all played football, everyone did things together. We were lucky to grow up when we did.”
Lay also claimed that the introduction of cars to society really changed Calhoun. When Lay was in high school with Ballard and Powers Weldon, most of the cars parked outside the building belonged to teachers.
“Cars were not important and neither were clothes,” Lay said. “Society was a lot calmer then. Life just wasn’t complicated then.”
Approaching college, each of them went their separate ways — Lay went to Emory at Oxford, Powers Weldon went to Wesleyan in Macon and Ballard went to Brenau. Yet, as time would tell, neither one of them would stay away from Calhoun for too long.