Remembering my father

 Louis Ernest “Lep” LaMont

Louis Ernest LaMont was born at his grandparents’ home in Montgomery, Alabama, on Feb. 17, 1892.

An only child, his mother was 37 when he was born. His mother’s family had deep roots in the South and his father was a relative newcomer from the North.

Montgomery was the capitol of the state, a major river shipping point for  crops from the Black Belt region and at the time proud to have been “The First Capitol of the Confederacy.”

The South in this era was caught between memories of the Civil War, which most of the adults in the family had lived through, and the worst of Jim Crow years that followed. The 1890s were relatively prosperous, and peaceful.

Ernest was christened in the Methodist Church where his grandfather was a lay leader. He wore a long white dress made by his mother from a
pattern she found in a popular magazine.

Their lifestyle was “old fashioned” even a bit Victorian.  Men worked in trades in town. Entertainment centered around socials and theatrical and musical performances, often at church or in the home.

The men in Ernest’s extended family were printers and union supporters. Ernest’s grandfather had been a foreman at the Montgomery Advertiser since before the Civil War, and his uncles had worked there or at the Paragon Press, a local printing company. His  parents, Roswell DeEstra LaMont and Mary “Mollie” Barry LaMont, had met when Ernest’s father (known as R.D.) was working as a printer with his grandfather.

The home Ernest was born in was built before the Civil War. It was a log cabin that had been added to over the years  until it had a shaded porch on the front and planked outside. It looked like a frame house, facing Whitman Street, rather than a cabin.  A garden was planted out front, and they had a milk cow in a shed. The home was located on a hill above downtown Montgomery, what was then the edge of town. It is now called the Cottage Hill historical district.

Ernest’ parents had lived briefly in Birmingham, where his father was working for the Birmingham News, but returned to the Barry home in Montgomery for the birth.

His father Roswell had moved south from Michigan in the 1880s. Ernest’ mother Mollie was a native of Lowndes County southwest of Montgomery, where her grandparents and cousins (named Pruitt) still lived.

Ernest always considered Montgomery his home even though the family moved away briefly. When he was eight years old they lived in Geneva, Alabama  long enough for him to take part in a Sunday School pageant. But Ernest attended public schools in Montgomery and lived in the Barry family home for most of his childhood.

The Barry family was reasonably prosperous. They lived in town, owned their own house and acquired some symbols of success: a large piano, custom-built furniture, a library of classic books, oil paintings and needlepoint on the wall and a Tiffany lamp in the parlor. They traveled to the Gulf Coast for fishing trips and vacations, and owned some land outside Montgomery at a place called Mountain Creek.

No LaMont relatives lived nearby, having remained up North.

Ernest was raised in town. Social life centered on the family, church and school. He was an only child, born relatively late in his parents’ lives, and was surrounded by Barry family members. His three aunts remained single and at home. He had numerous Barry cousins his age nearby to play with.

Early photos of him show thin hair, a narrow face, a prominent nose, and
stiff formal collar.


His life began in the oil lamp and horse and buggy era, but evolved to include  radio, electricity, telephones and automobiles.

People moved around by walking or riding horse-drawn streetcars. Cotton bales were brought to the market in the heart of town by black men, many the sons of former slaves, in mule-draw wagons.

As a teenager he saw  the first automobiles drive through town,
and watched his first airplane fly overhead.

At about 18 years old Ernest and a friend built a crystal receiver radio set and were able to listen to radio signals for the first time. The event was written up as news in the local newspaper.

While he was a child his parents and grandparents rebuilt the family home. The original log home sat facing Whitman. They built a new Victorian-style house on the same lot but facing 508 Clayton Street. Builders incorporated the original log building into the back of the new house. The old log house served as the kitchen of the home.


Family photo albums include pictures of what his mother called “the old home place” and the new home built around 1905. (She sold that home in the 1930s. The current owner discovered the old cabin section and stripped away the interior walls that hid the logs in the kitchen to reveal the history of the home.)

Ernest attended an all-male school called Boys High School. The curriculum included Latin and Greek and every student was trained in formal penmanship and studied classic literature.

In a school play he acted the part of a leopard, and was given the nickname “Lep.” His friends called him that for the rest of his life.

Around 1910 Ernest briefly attended college at Auburn University.

Around that time he and several friends plotted to get rich by going to Central
America, then known as the Banana Republics, to make their fortunes.
He claimed they saved enough money for passage, but spent it all when
they got to New Orleans and never got on the boat. They were forced to come
home and go to work.

Ernest worked at a variety of jobs in Montgomery. He worked at a local
florist shop, loaded gold and silver coins at the Fourth National Bank,
and became an accounting clerk.



When World War One began he was a florist, and then joined the Alabama National Guard. He then worked as a civilian for the Adjutant General of the State of Alabama as disbursing officer for the state’s military department, responsible for delivering supplies and troops being moved to training posts and to ports bound for Europe. He was paid $4 a day.

He then went to work for the state draft board office while waiting to go on active duty in the Army.

Ernest formally enlisted in the Army on July 4, 1917, and was assigned as a PFC in the Quartermaster Corps. But he was not called up for duty until December. While waiting he ran the state’s draft board office, replacing his boss, an Army officer who had been reassigned.

Late in 1917 the Army sent him to train with the Quartermaster Corps at Camp Joseph E. Johnson in Jacksonville, Florida. He was paid $30 a month.

In early 1918 Ernest was on a troop train heading for the port at Newport News, Virginia, to sail on a troop ship to Europe.  The railroad  tracks were blocked by a derailment and his unit was pulled off the train and put to work cleaning up the mess left behind.


By the time his unit was ready to go new orders caught up with him ordering him home.

The Army was told by state officials — including his old boss — that he was “irreplaceable” at the draft office in Montgomery, and he was released from the Signal Corps and sent back to Montgomery and formally appointed  Adjutant General of the state.

He returned a few days before his birthday in 1918 and took over as executive of the draft board He was in charge of the military draft for the entire state, with the Army rank of Major.

That summer the Butler Alabama Choctaw Weekly Banner weekly newspaper blasted him in an editorial, “A Call to Americanism!!”and attacked “this Frenchman Monsieur LaMont  ” for sending American boys off to war.
The newspaper did not know his Scottish ancestors had fought in the Revolution, he had enlisted and served in the Army and was a native of Alabama. He found the fiery editorial amusing, and kept a clipping in his papers.

That summer a severe flu epidemic swept the nation, killing thousands, and threatening every city. A photograph of Montgomery’s Fourth of July celebration shows crowds of people wearing protective face masks to avoid spreading infection. He stayed healthy.

Ernest remained at the Draft Board job until Spring of 1919, closing out the office after the end of the war. His mementoes of the Army were commendations from the state and the Army, a Colt 38 Special revolver which had been his sidearm in the service, and photos from the training camp in Jacksonville.

When the Roaring 20s began he was a 27 year-old bachelor from an “acceptable” local family and knew everybody in what was then a small but prosperous town. He was a 32nd degree Mason and joined the American Legion. One of his classmates became Montgomery mayor. Another became a U.S. Senator. Another a judge. His best friend owned a jewelry store downtown.



He kept several photo albums from that time filled with pictures of social
events, summer camping outings at Mountain Creek and fishing trips with his family to Perdido Bay and Pensacola, Florida.
           At the wheel at a fair with friends in the 1920s

He kept a notebook of poetry, some copied from things he liked and some apparently that he wrote. He shared poems with friends, and joined book clubs and began to build a library including Dickens and the complete works of O. Henry.

Ernest was a charter member of Montgomery’s Beauvoir Country Club. Though he never cared much for golf, he enjoyed the social life. He attended, as did his family, the local Methodist church on Court Street that his grandfather Barry had helped establish in the 1800s.

He was arrested once during Prohibition for drinking from a flask at an Auburn Football game. He laughed about it when he told the story later.

A good friend in the 1920s chided him in a letter for a lack of ambition, encouraging him to “do great things.” Ernest always worked in the years following the war, but never seemed ambitious. People who knew him in the 1920s and 1930s remembered him as a man with “perfect manners,” honest, a charming companion and good friend. He was “dapper” in a way that people understood in the 1920s and 1930s.
My mother said that that during the Roaring 20s he “knew everybody” in Montgomery and Atlanta. He was acquainted with people like Zelda Sayre, whose family lived nearby. Zelda later married F. Scott Fitzgerald, a frequent Montgomery visitor during the war. There is a photo in his papers of Zelda, about age 16, along with young adults all in their 20s, at a creek-side swimming party with Ernest’s friends.

Social life in that time and place included a lot of social drinking-- he preferred Four Roses blended whiskey -- and at least two of his close friends died alcoholics. Social events called for cocktails, but drunkenness was considered unfortunate or bad manners.

Photos show him to be neat and precise in appearance and dress, and unmarked by age. He was 5 foot 7 inches tall, and was thin his entire life. Photographs of him from that era resemble photos of the dancer Fred Astaire.
Letters to his mother indicate he enjoyed being single, traveling and working at different places throughout the South.

By 1927 he lived in Charlotte, N.C., and worked for an insurance company traveling the South. He wrote his mother regularly and visited Montgomery in a brand new 1927 Chevrolet Coupe which he bought for $540.

He left Charlotte when his father had a heart attack in Miami. When his father died that Spring, Ernest corresponded the details of the burial and the small estate to his mother and then visited her by train before returning to Charlotte. He liked the climate and surroundings in the Miami area. He never forgot that lure of South Florida.



Around 1930 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to live and work. Three of his best friends from a Montgomery family lived there -- Richard, Ed and Sanders Hickey.  Ernest had been particularly close to Sanders, who died young, and he eventually named his son for him. He became good friends with Richard during the early 1930s, the last years of prohibition. (Richard later became my godfather.)

Ernest shared an apartment during Prohibition with Richard, who was an attorney, in the Cox-Carlton Hotel , near the corner of Ponce DeLeon and Peachtree streets. Friends stored kegs of illegal whiskey in their big cedar closet in their apartment, a service they were willing to render for a small “evaporation tax.”

Ernest traveled the South for insurance companies, auditing claims and payments from firms, including the coal industry.  A pattern of work was established that was followed for 25 years: traveling constantly by automobile throughout the South; staying in business-oriented hotels, and always keeping his roots in Montgomery. (When I was a child I thought my father knew every hotel manager and desk clerk in five states.)

Ernest was 40 and living a happy bachelor life in booming Atlanta when he met Dorothy Strickland, a 20-year-old nurse from North Georgia. They met through a mutual friend who had a detective agency and whose girl friend ran
the women’s boarding house where Dorothy and her sister Elizabeth lived, not
far off Peachtree Street.

Dorothy described Ernest, whom she always called “Lep,” as “charming and good looking” an  said he had almost courtly good manners.

They went back to the Barry home on Clayton in Montgomery for the wedding on April 8, 1933, the height of the Great Depression. Times were difficult all over the country but they survived reasonably well. Dorothy always had work at local hospitals.
Ernest changed jobs several times in the 1930s, but was able to work despite the Depression. He continued to travel.



They moved several times. They rented an apartment on Peachtree Street,
and then moved to a rented house in Decatur in the late 1930s.

Money was an issue for Dorothy, but the lack of it never seemed to bother Ernest. He once wrote a letter to his mother that he would come to visit here when he could raise enough money for a $5 train ticket.

During the late 30s they dealt with big changes in their new lives together.
In February 1937 their first child, Mary Elizabeth LaMont, was born in Atlanta.

Then Dorothy’s much-admired older brother was killed while training pilots at the Atlanta Air Field south of town. Her father had an severe heart attack after hearing the news, and ended up living with them during his recovery. He died within a year.

Shortly after that Ernest’s mother Mollie, in her 80s, sold her Montgomery home and moved in briefly with Ernest and Dorothy in Atlanta. She died in their home.

That year Ernest bought a Plymouth Coupe for business and family. That car stayed in the family through the war years and beyond and he called it “Old Betsy.”

In November 1940 I was born while the family was living in a small house just off the golf course near East Lake Country Club on the outskirts of Atlanta.

As World War Two began to reshape the country Ernest and Dorothy moved the family to Mobile, Alabama in 1942. He continued to work and travel for Bituminous Casualty Company, but in a different territory. Dorothy took a job working as a nurse in the county welfare clinic.

The family lived in an area known as Spring Hill in a development built to handle the crowds of war workers that flooded the town. The rented house was small, wood-framed, in a hilly area covered by pine trees. Most neighbors were young couples who had come to town to work for war industries. Single men lived in dormitories near war plants, or rented rooms in crowded homes downtown. Mobile at that time was one of the fastest growing towns in the country.

The housing area the family lived in provided outdoor movies on summer
nights, sitting on blankets under the pine trees swatting mosquitoes.

Entertainment included going down to the shipyards for the launching of
Liberty Ships. Mardi Gras, a weeks-long festival more family oriented
than in neighboring New Orleans, was a major annual entertainment.

In 1944 the family moved closer into town, to a downstairs duplex  carved from a large home on the main street of town. They lived at 1214 Government street, the east-west thoroughfare which also served as U.S. Highway 90. The big pale yellow house had a large front porch, giant oak trees, azaleas in the front yard and pecan trees and collapsed servant quarters in the back. Rent was $40 a month.

Ernest traveled constantly, and was seldom at home. Money seemed to be an constant issue between husband and wife.

One day in 1948 my father came by my elementary school to tell me that he and mother were getting   divorce and he would not be living with us anymore. He was full of reassurances, but was clearly unhappy. The marriage was over, and a new lonesome chapter in my father’s life began.

 Neither Ernest or Dorothy ever explained exactly what happened, if they understood it. The legal reasons for the divorce were “irreconcilable differences.” She acknowledged later that she had expectations he could not meet. He never talked about it.

He also never changed his lifestyle much. He still was traveling, living in hotels and eating in restaurants. He was caring, kind and loving, but we did not expect him to show up for scout outings, formal dances at school, swimming lessons or baseball games. We got encouraging letters and brief visits instead.


In 1948 Ernest moved his few personal belongings, including an Army trunk
filled with family papers and photo albums, to the basement of his cousin John Barry’s house on Cherry Street in Montgomery 200 miles away. That remained his base for travel and work for the next few years.

He visited Mobile frequently and wrote letters constantly, making sure my sister and I knew of his attention and affection. He and Dorothy were cordial but distant. Both insisted that my sister and I respect and obey the other parent. He never spoke an ill word about my mother.

The next few years were difficult for him, because of declining health and finances, but he always worked hard to remain in close touch with my sister and me.

He wrote at least one letter every week to both of us children for almost a decade. He would often tell funny stories or relate small events from his life. He reported on a trip to the race track, where he lost on a two dollar bet, and he wrote us about fishing in the Florida Keys. He made up bedtime stories for us, in which we played starring roles, all typed meticulously onto hotel stationary on his Royal portable he used for business. He planned trips we could make together to interesting places. He monitored our progress in school. Sometimes he wrote lonely letters asking us to write more often, wanting to know what were we doing and why we didn’t let him know what was going on. Once in a while his frustration would show and he would threaten, gently, to withhold our $1 allowance until he heard from us.
(We were both poor letter writers.)

During the first few years after the divorce Ernest would travel often to Mobile
and stay at the Battle House Hotel, and we children would visit or stay with him there. He insisted on being filled in on details of my sister’s increasingly active social life, and approved of most of her boyfriends and all of her school activities. Once when he did not approve of a boyfriend he wrote her a long thoughtful letter acknowledging her right to choose her friends but firmly stating his reasons for concern.

He taught Mary how to drive, and showed me how to to shoot his Army
pistol. He bought me a shotgun for hunting and taught me how to use it
safely. He rented a small boat so we could go fishing.

In the summers my sister and I took turns spending several weeks with
him while he worked, and we got to see a lot of the South from his un-air-
conditioned car. We would travel with him, piling up in the back seat of the car with comic books and a candy bar. We waited in the car outside the offices of coal mines near Birmingham, and plants in Tennessee and Georgia, while he did audits inside.

We would ride down the highways with the windows wide open, summer heat blasting through, loudly singing songs he had known from his youth. When we would approach a town he would suggest we quiet down a bit so we would not shock the local residents.

My father made travel fun. We got to see Rock City, Ruby Falls, Civil War battlefields, Silver Springs, Seminole villages and large public swimming pools all over the South. He showed us a Confederate flag his aunts had sewn for
the burial casket for Jefferson Davis in a museum. If there was a beach nearby, we would detour for a quick visit.

He introduced us to his friends along the way, people he had known from decades of travel, or family friends from Montgomery and Atlanta.

He was lonely outside the summers, and his health grew steadily worse. Even in the South the wet cold winters were brutal on his arthritis. Doctors kept trying different treatments and medicines that did not ease the increasing pain. One doctor told my father the source of his pain was his teeth, and so he had all of his teeth pulled. He got no relief. He tried numerous strong medications, some of which made him ill.

In 1952 he announced to us in a letter that his “prayers had been answered”
and he had been able to find a job in Miami, Florida, where it was warm, he
had friends and little travel would be required.

His health had not been good for a decade. He smoked Camel cigarettes constantly, and the years of constant travel were wearing on him. He was in pain much of the time. He had rheumatoid arthritis, was underweight and he was almost completely bald.

But he wrote hopeful cheerful letters about finding an apartment in Coral Gables that was near his work, close to fun things to do when we visited and not too expensive. The Florida job provided a regular salary, with a company car and benefits.  The winters were mild, he had good friends who lived nearby, and he had a place to call home after living out of hotels for years.


During the years he lived in South Florida my sister and I spent summers with him and would see him on some holidays during the school year. He could not see us often because of the distance and expense. But he kept up the steady stream of letters reporting on his life and asking about ours. Long distance telephone phone calls were used only in emergencies in the early 1950s, and travel by airplane was a luxury affordable to few.

During Christmas breaks my father would drive 800 miles to see us, or we would take an overnight train trip to Miami via Jacksonville for a quick visit.

Letters were our primary connection, and my father was faithful and consistent. Every week brought a personal letter, often detailed. Every accomplishment or concern brought a quick response, by mail. My sister and I were not good letter writers despite encouragement from our mother, but our father never stopped writing to us no matter where he was. I have more than 200 letters from those years.

Summers together in Florida were fun for us and for him. The beaches were not far away. We explored the Everglades and the Florida Keys, places my father had been with his father in the 1920s, and much of the rest of Florida. He knew how to catch fish.

He took us to the Methodist Church near the University of Miami on
Sundays. He read a Bible chapter aloud to us every night at bedtime, and marked each chapter off with a Number Two yellow pencil. He had read through the entire book several times, and the marks were adding up.

He took us to every big tourist attraction in the state: Silver Springs, Monkey Jungle, Gatorland and his favorite, Ross Allen’s Reptile Institute where we watched “explorers” milk rattlesnakes for venom. Every Fourth of July we vacationed at inexpensive motels on the north end of Miami Beach, where the rooms were affordable, and we spent the long weekend in beach-front bliss.

My sister and I were able to help my father with household tasks during the summers, but his health continued to fail.

In the Spring of 1955, while we were back in school in Mobile, my father wrote asking for help. His health was getting worse, and he could barely work part-time. His arthritis was crippling him to the point it was very painful to dress or shave or bathe.

My sister, Mary, a senior in high school, decided that she should attend college at the University of Miami and help our father manage.


I spent that summer in Florida with my father, and then my sister arrived and enrolled as a college freshman at the beginning of Fall semester.
By the time Mary moved to Florida to help, our father’s health was so poor he was no longer able to work much. He had little or no savings. She became his caregiver and a full time student.


I joined them in Florida in January of 1956, transferring to Coral Gables
High School for the second semester that year. The three of us got along
well.

Late that Spring my father decided he wanted to move back to Montgomery.
He was 64 years old, unemployed, emaciated, crippled to the point he could no longer type or put a shirt on by himself. He needed medical care and felt he could get it easier at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Montgomery.

He was stooped, frail, and tired. He looked 20 years older than he was.
He told us frankly that he wanted to go back to Montgomery “to die at home.”

His ex-wife who had divorced him almost a decade earlier and had since remarried, then offered to do whatever was necessary to help.

My sister Mary gave up college and started looking for work in Montgomery.

Our father -- we always called him Daddy -- accepted what he could not change and looked forward to getting back to his home town.


Mother drove to Coral Gables and picked us all up in May, and drove us the 900 miles to Montgomery. My father and sister moved into an apartment a few blocks from where he had been born. She went to work.

My father’s health never improved. Every two or three months his doctor would put him into the Veteran’s hospital. The staff would build up his strength and send him home.

By December 1956 he had been in the hospital multiple times, but was unable to regain his health. It was painful to walk. He was sick most of the time,
and his weight dropped to 100 pounds, sometimes less. He would gain a
few pounds in the hospital, then lose it immediately when he came home.

He was no longer able to drive. Lost his appetite. He stayed inside the apartment most of the time, and was unable physically to reconnect with the friends from his youth.

My sister had a job, kept house, and did what she could to make him
comfortable.

He went into the hospital for the last time on Christmas Eve 1956.

By then his ex-wife had moved close to Montgomery to help the family, and I was newly enrolled in a military school not far away. We spent a
cold wet holiday in an old house rented at Mount Miegs, not far from the VA
hospital.

January was spent waiting. I visited every weekend. He did not
get better.

In late January 1957 he wrote a list of items he needed on the back of an
envelope, and reminded himself of questions to ask my sister: “When I
am going to get out of here?” was at the top of the list.

He died during the early morning hours February 25, one week after his
65th birthday.

The cause of death on the death certificate was listed as “general
debility.” He had developed tuberculosis and his weight was about
80 pounds.

He didn’t leave a lot of material possessions. Most of the things he owned were contained in one small suitcase-- he called it his “ditty bag.” He also left behind a few items of furniture that remained from the Barry home, and a life insurance policy that eventually helped pay my way through college.

He was buried at Montgomery’s old Oakwood Cemetery in the Barry-LaMont family plot.  A Methodist minister was assisted by a military honor guard and representatives of the local Masonic Lodge. Pall bearers were Barry relatives and old school friends, included his boyhood friend the mayor. The small crowd was mostly made up of Barry cousins, and a few old friends from the early days in Montgomery.

Within a hundred yards of his grave is a hillside covered with graves of
unknown federal soldiers from the Civil War, some who died in a prison his grandfather had helped guard.  Across the railroad tracks on the
next hill is the popular grave of country music star Hank Williams.
In later years my father’s daughter and ex-wife were also buried in the family plot.

Louis Ernest LaMont’s 65-year life included a comfortable childhood in a secure family; a strong sense of home; an exciting era of change;  a good education; a love for books and poetry and music; a strong Christian faith; a sense of optimism; a wide circle of friends; traveling and developing business skills and contacts throughout his native region; marriage and children, and living in a warm and comfortable place he loved.

There were challenging times as well: World War One and
the Great Depression; the uncertainties of World War Two and the postwar
recession; constant travel; the challenge of having a young family as
an older man; ill health for the last 30 years of his life; divorce;
maintaining his role as a father from great distance and economic
uncertainties.

He was an honest man.
His work was meticulous, even when he was more interested in doing other things.
He served his country well.
His entire family -- grandparents, parents, numerous cousins and his children -- loved and respected him and enjoyed his company.
He did what he felt was his duty, without complaint.
He was never hesitant to express affection and gratitude and respect to the people around him.
He had very good manners.
And he spent his last days in home town he loved.

Journalism -- almost heaven

Clippings from my first paid newspaper job in Atlanta

By Sanders LaMont
May 2020

 My journey through pandemic isolation included unloading lots of boxes that stored memories of my life. Turned out to be a fun trip.

The first batch of boxes included mostly photographs;  more than 60 years of pictures of old friends, long-dead relatives and once-new babies.  That took several weeks.

The best boxes were a mix of personal letters, photos, and newspaper clippings  that remind me I am one of the luckiest people on earth.

In addition to the blessings of wife and children, I was able to work at a profession -- a job if your prefer -- that I loved, for almost 50 years: a newspaper journalist.

The seeds were planted in high school, specifically on the staff of the "Skirmisher," the newspaper at Marion Military Institute in Alabama. In my junior year I joined the staff as a writer in the 1950s.  It was fun and challenging to get information, get it right, and get in down on paper.

The next lucky step was when I transferred after junior college to the University of Alabama and decided to try journalism as a major. As a transfer student, I did not know many classmates so I wandered into the campus newspaper office of the Crimson and White looking for something to do. I was instantly recruited to write and report stories, none of them earthshaking but all of them providing me a license to go anywhere, be nosy and ask questions. Every day was a learning experience.

Within months I was a managing editor mostly because I had little social life outside the newspaper, worked hard and the paper was fun. I was even paid -- an unexpected bonus -- $28 a month, enough for beer and steak dinner on Friday nights. By the time I ended my junior year I had found my place, the kind of people I liked to hang out with and my career.

And then things got better. Based on the recommendation of my classmate Patricia Potter,  later a successful  romance novelist, I got a letter from City Editor Harold Davis of the Atlanta Journal, then the largest newspaper in the South, accepting my application for a summer internship as a reporter in 1961.
A real job.
A real daily newspaper.

Interns at the Atlanta Journal newsroom 1961. The only name I can remember -- a very Southern name -- was Stark Sutton, standing with his back to the camera. He later worked for Coca Cola.

I was one of four students brought to Atlanta from all over the country, paid $50 a week ($10 more than minimum wage), and promptly assigned to learn the basics by writing obituaries.

We interns became friends, connected by poverty and ambition. I quickly moved out of the local YMCA's barren room because the $60 a month rent was way too expensive. I moved to the Sigma Chi fraternity house (where I did not belong) for $50 for the entire summer. My roommate from Minneapolis and I ate at the school cafeteria, cheap but filling, and took the bus downtown to work. We drank beer together, and even attended a weeklong Shakespearian Festival on the Emory campus, our idea of fancy culture. We ran around in a group that included three guys and one girl.
(It turned out later that I was the only one that stuck with newspapers as a career.)

As you would expect,  interns on a newspaper are the lowest form of life in the newsroom. Even the "copy boys" were held in higher esteem. The first week we arrived all five of us had to read and sign a notice that "whistling  in the newsroom" was known to bring bad luck and strictly forbidden.
When things were quiet we were required to assemble  what we called "books," consisting of three elongated sheets of typing paper (made of cut up newsprint to save money) with two carbons inside, so that every reporter had one original for the editor, one copy for the writer, and one for the Associated Press office upstairs just in case it was interesting. These books were stacked on every reporter's desk.
Editing was done with heavy pencils, and scissors and a glue pot. Filling the glue pots was another chore for anyone who did not look busy.

The newspaper editors in Atlanta believed that everyone had an interesting story, and it was up to us to find out what it was.

The city editors were the kings of our domain. The copy editors sat around a circular desk, scowling once in a while in our direction, and fixed our rookie mistakes. They played bridge on their lunch break.

The senior editors in the newsroom were so far above us we rarely even saw them. The managing editor Pat Waters welcomed us the week we arrived. The executive editor Jack Spalding worked on another floor in the building and we met him once in passing.

We initially were  assigned to write obituaries.
We were required to verify every bit of information provided by funeral homes by personally interviewing a family member, and then find something that told the story of the life of the deceased. It was an education to pick up the phone within hours of a death and speak to the widow or family member of the person who had just died. One lesson I learned: almost everyone, even when grieving, wants to tell a story. Another lesson: just because I had learned the person died did not mean the people on the phone knew that.
Obits were usually short but if you got a really good story you had a chance to achieve every intern's ultimate goal: a page one story. It never happened that summer.

Once a week I was assigned to cover the cops beat, which meant multiple daily trips to Atlanta's police headquarters where I plowed through reams of reports looking for stories. As I began to know the cops and secretaries, they would tip me off to better stories.

Part of that beat was the fire department. One night I found myself standing on Peachtree Street in the heart of downtown watching a multi-story building burn. A fireman suggested I step back, and as soon as we did the front of the building collapsed onto the street near where we had been standing.

Another time a detective asked me if I wanted to meet a murderer  He allowed me to watch as he interviewed a tearful and pathetic woman who had stabbed her lover. She admitted it, and said she really did not regret it because he beat her.

Still another time I watched in the emergency room at Grady Hospital while a detective tried to revive a gunshot victim long enough to identify the person who shot him. The man died on the gurney while I stood there watching.

And then there were the bank robberies.

A page one story, every intern's dream. And yes, covering bank robberies was fun.

Being a street reporter in a big city I saw more life and death in a few months than in my entire life growing up. I learned quickly that poverty and ignorance and crime were part of life, and that power corrupts.

After  more  experience the city editor would send us out on special assignments. 

Depending how trusted you were the assignments included stories like  "Brother Saves two-year-old Sister from Drowning," which was my first page one byline story.  After congratulating me the next morning, my editor explained with a smile that the story probably landed on page one because the photographer had captured a very cute picture of the two-year-old sister with her cat.
We were not allowed to take ourselves too seriously.

Looking across a reporter's desk in the Journal newsroom to the City Desk in the summer of 1961. Harold Williams was the City Editor and Reese Cleghorn was his assistant.  The pneumatic tubes carried stories down to the composing room, and the wire service machines lined the back wall.

We had no permanent desk assignment, using any open desk with a decent manual typewriter and a phone, moving away when a veteran showed up.

I finally got one out-of-town assignment, covering a historical re-enactment of a wagon train from the North Georgia gold fields to Atlanta, riding wagons during the day, and staying at company expense in cheap motels at night. Big stuff.

But it was the daily news that we thrived upon. Cops. Fires. Local government meetings. Conventions. And even man-on-the-street interviews which were a staple.

We took pride in being the paper people read every day.

The Journal -- "Covers Dixie Like the Dew" -- was the largest paper in the state, far larger than the Constitution which seemed to be modeled  after the more conservative-looking New York Times. The Journal published in the afternoons  and had multiple editions with deadlines starting as early as 9 a.m. and running until about 1 p.m. for the big street sale editions.

So we had to learn to show up early, move very fast, work the phones or the offices of newsmakers, and file a first edition story by  9 a.m. If it was a big or developing story we would have to collect more information and rewrite it for later editions. The writing style mirrored that of the Associated Press: most important stuff on top, short punchy sentences, and supporting information followed. If it needed to be trimmed they did not have time to rework a story . The editors simply cut off the bottom few paragraphs. It was called "the inverted pyramid" style of writing, common in journalism and hated by really good writers.

Ernest Hemingway was our hero. Short sentences. Action verbs. A punchy style. He apparently said he quit newspapers before it ruined him.

Our work days started at 6 a.m. and often ended by 3 p.m. Our social life was   drinking beer after work with colleagues at a place called "Journal Alley" across the street. Once in a while the interns would move on to a tavern in Buckhead that had a piano, cheap beer and a colorful hostess. One beer-influenced night we tried to drive to the Georgia coast for a seafood dinner, discovered it was several hundred miles away, and showed up late for work tired, hungover and embarrassed the next morning. The editors were amused.

Toward the end of the summer Atlanta was facing the biggest story since the movie premier of Gone With The Wind,  taken by a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, who had once been an Atlanta Journal reporter.

The summer was marked by racial tension and unrest, and the Atlanta Public School System was going to integrate for the first time in history. The South was generally in turmoil.

No one could predict what would happen, so the newspaper staff prepared as if for war. 

The city fathers -- including the major business owners and elected city politicians -- had spent a decade selling the city as the "New South," friendly to business and all newcomers and they did not intend to let that get away.
The police were trained well, and the city leadership made it clear they would not tolerate violence from any source.

But we did not know what might happen and the Klan was still active in the state,  so the game plan for the newspaper read like a military planning document with troops everywhere.

Interns showed up at the bottom of the assignment list: "other work."  I was assigned to work with the state desk editor, helping round up news from the rest of Georgia.  It was a minor feather in my cap.

The stars of the newspaper were spread all over town, people whose bylines recorded history: Margaret Shannon, Walter Rugaber, Fred Powledge, Raleigh Bryans and John Pennington. 
(Our daily competition at the Atlanta Constitution, in the same building but fiercely battled every day for big stories, was led by Ralph McGill and Gene Patterson, both Pulitzer Prize winners. They dropped by for a chat one day, and it was a thrill.)

The biggest story of the year in Atlanta turned into a win for the community: there was no violence and the city that bragged it was the leader of the South quietly stepped into the future.

The biggest newsroom argument that day was between the top reporters and the editors: should the story of a peaceful integration of schools justify a really big top-of-the-page headline, or not? The editors won, and the transition was reported almost as if it were commonplace, with routine headlines and no big splash.

Within a week  I was back on the college campus, working on the campus newspaper there, and looking forward to spending the rest of my life on a newspaper.
Next: Growing in Atlanta, and moving onward.

Update during Coronavirus lockdown

One month ago we stayed at a B&B near Santa Cruz- our last big outing

Happy to report the LaMonts are well. Aging in place during the pandemic.

The weather is a California Spring delight. The tulips have already peaked, and the redbud is just beginning. My major chore of the day was to refill the bird feeders and hummingbird feeders, and then sit and watch the little critters fly back and start eating.

We have been in semi-lockdown mode for almost two weeks, and do not expect it to end for another few weeks. Our county has been lucky so far, only three know cases and no fatalities, but we know how it can explode if folks get careless.
Everyone is nervous, or should be.

Pretty much everything we normally do is shut down. No music. No poker. No travels. Even routine trips to the grocery store are off for a while as our daughter insist on shopping for us. She is the queen of disinfectants, and gets very upset if we do much more than take a walk.  Our days have a routine which is pleasant: we get up slowly, eat late, take a walk or do Tai Chi, and then find a chore or a task before lunch. Lots of time spent on the phone or computers. The afternoons are similar, but usually include a nap. We signed up for Netflix so at night we watch TV shows we have never seen before or read. So far that includes Crown, The Derry Girls, and lots of NCIS.

Chores recently included making the birds happy, cleaning out a closet, unpacking boxes of 50 year old photographs, moving furniture around (that is Pat's favorite thing) and short walks to the post office and paying bills. Probably sounds familiar.
I find I am spending about 20 or more hours each week working remotely with the non-profit at the state park, trying to keep things intact and staying in close touch with the state folks about what we need to do to support them.
Pat is closely engaged in looking out for other people by phone and computer. She is part of our parish care ministry which normally helps with rides and food and comfort. These days it is making sure no one is isolated and their needs are being met.

Our church is providing services via Zoom, and we stay in close touch with neighbors and friends by phone or yelling from the front yard. It is a major advantage to have good weather and a front porch to sit on.

We get along well so obviously, this is not a hardship on us.

Our son Zack is in Spokane, and was laid off his job, but he manages.
Daughter Ruth closed her toy store, and the town is shut down, but she keeps busy at home. Her son came home from college to finish his sophomore year on his computer. Her husband telecommutes, and has been very busy because his job is to help corporations set up ways for people to work from home en masse, as in call centers in India.

Granddaughter Delaney lives with her fiance in the Bay Area. She works from home at her job doing genetics research for Lawrence Livermore and her fiance is working at an emergency room helping screen patients.
We worry about them, though we know they are very careful.
They have a rigorous drill about disinfecting and both are okay. They may be headed for the Boston area next Fall for graduate school. 

Zack's daughter Katie is living near him in Washington state with our great-granddaughter Jamie and all are staying healthy. 

The largest impact so far on our family is that Delaney's wedding, which was to be next week, has been postponed, but everyone is taking it well.

The weather is good. The family is good. And our friends all are good so far. 

(The only bad/sad news is that our long time friends Ed and Hellen Willhide's son died this week, not related to the virus, and they are heart broken as we all would be. Keep them in your prayers.)

Life and death are with us all now and at all times.
Our lives continue in a quiet path.

Can't ask for much more good news for us personally.

Love to you and yours

Road Trip 3 -- Friends in Beautiful Places

Murphys, Ca. -- From Coos Bay north along the Oregon coast is an endless encounter with beautiful beaches, ocean, cliffs, trees and a great place to visit old friends.
The next few days of our journey in our white VW van "Snowflake" took us to a reunion with a former Bee colleague after almost 20 years, and a graduate school classmate we first met in Michigan 40 years ago.
Getting there was half the fun.

Just another beautiful stretch of coast

The drive along the coast continued to stun and entertain us. Oregon is truly a wonderful place, exactly as I pictured it when I wrote a sixth-grade paper on "Oregon the Green State."
Near Winchester Bay we diverted briefly to see the Umpqua Lighthouse, tucked inside a state park and next door to the Coast Guard Station. Every one of these picturesque lighthouses has dramatic stories to tell of storms on the ocean, boats in danger  and people lost or saved by the efforts of the keepers. 
Being a lighthouse keeper was much like the military. Uniforms were required, and inspectors could show up at any time to make sure the  cap was on the head properly and the requirements for precision were met.

But we just looked,and drove on. Past Florence, Yachata and Seal Rock.  Tourists and retirees and people who avoid big cities live in these places today. Once in a while we would spot a lumber mill on a river, but the dominance of logging has given way to a new economy based on multiple endeavors, particularly tourism, and the company towns are disappearing.

Dave and Cheri Hill at home

The "welcome mat" was out

Our destination was the small town of Gleneden Beach, near Lincoln City, where a former newspaper colleague Dave Hill has retired with his wife Cheri and his carefully kept Porsche.   Dave held various editor slots at The Modesto Bee, eventually became the editor of the Merced Sun-Star before retiring a couple of years ago.
Always lovers of the northern coasts, they found their dream retirement home on a ridge overlooking the ocean in a resort development called Salishan.
The Hills had just finished hosting a large family reunion, and we got to meet family members recently retired from the military, ready to head off on a one year adventure touring America in a motor home with their children. The first stop would be Alaska, a dream we share.
Their niece is skilled at doing facials and skin treatments so she provided one for all the women and girls, which provided a good evening of entertainment. The men declined.

A special treat: a facial

The Hill's new home is pretty awesome. Perched on a hilltop near the ocean, surrounded by big trees, and part of the Salishan  Resort complex that includes a golf course and clubhouse with a restaurant and bar and  anything else you might want.


  Dave took me  downstairs in their home where they have a big room for entertainment, pulled out his guitar and started serenading me. It turns out he has taken guitar lessons in retirement, loves folk music, and was happy to share his new skills.



Showing us the area the second day they took us straight to a nearby town where the sidewalk edges the bay, which was active with  whales. It was a first for us, standing within 50 yards of these wonderful animals, rolling and blowing while they found food among the kelp.

There's whales out there - somewhere

I could not capture the whales on camera, but I got one of Dave, Pat and Cheri looking for more whales. (I violated a rule not to take butt shots, but it was all I could see.)

After two great days and nights with the Hills we loaded up once more, and drove north heading for more friends. The destination was Seattle and I was worried about how lousy the traffic there would be.
Then we ran into Portland. We had managed to drive around the south side of town and avoid some traffic, but when we got on the freeway just into Washington state everything came to a stop. It turned out that the highway department was working on a  bridge on the freeway, routing bumper-to-bumper traffic off the road onto a long slow detour. After almost two hours edging along, and just before reaching the detour, they reopened the road and we drove fairly easily through downtown Seattle during rush hour.





Our destination was the home of Warren and Marsha King, both former writers at the Seattle Times newspaper, now retired. 

LaMonts and Kings in Seattle

We first met when Warren and I were National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows at Michigan in 1977. It was a program actually initiated by the university and  federal government to provide mid-career journalists with a chance to go back to school for a year. We were lucky enough to win the competition along with 12 other American fellows and two international fellows. (The program continues today with private foundation financing.)
Warren was for many years the senior medical writer for the newspaper, one of the first to cover the AIDS epidemic. Marsha developed one of the first assignments at any metro paper specializing in the interests and needs and lives of older Americans.  Both did ground-breaking work that helped people, enhanced the reputation of their newspaper and were "award winning" as the papers like to say.

We became good friends in Michigan, sharing a lot of classes and seminars and spare time together. At the time Pat and I had our seven-year-old daughter Ruth and one-year-old adopted baby Zack, and they were investigating adoption. Like good reporters, they made an appointment, interviewed us throughly, took notes and then went home an adopted their beautiful oldest daughter. 
Since those years we have visited each other, watched the children grow and the grandchildren arrive, sailed in the San Juan Islands and San Francisco Bay, and shared lots of good meals and stories. Warren tells tales from his brief Navy career, and Marsha is a compassionate person and story teller.

We shared a meal with their younger daughter ( recently returned from social work in Sudan) and her beautiful baby, went off to a motel to get a good nights sleep, and took off together for sightseeing the next morning.
We went to the locks that connect Puget Sound to Lake Washington, watched the parade of boats for a while, and then visited the salmon ladders nearby. From there you can see the salmon as they work their way through the man-made ladders to get to spawning ground upstream. It was sort of a chance to invade salmon privacy, up close and real.
We discussed returning the Pikes Place Market where we had been together in years past, but decided watching fish fly was not enough incentive to test the traffic.
A day of visiting and checking out their home area ended with dinner on the waterfront where we were joined by the younger daughter and her child. A perfect ending, sunset and all, to a happy visit.
As we were getting ready to leave they delivered a couple of bottles of wine as a parting gift. Wine and good friends get better with age.

Warren likes to point out that I am  older than he is -- by three days.  I cannot deny it. He's taller too.

Next on our journey: Heading east through Washington and Idaho into Montana.

Road Trip -- Coasting Oregon toward Seattle

Murphys, Ca -- We ended our   week of camping on the North Coast of California on a Saturday and headed north following Route 101 along the ocean.

The trip took us past California's Prairie Creek State Park where we first met Banana Slugs 30 years earlier, and we spotted a few herds of elk grazing in fields along the roadside.
As we left California we could see off to the South dark smoke moving out over the ocean, a sign of the fires that were just beginning to ravage the west coast. It was the last time we would see that for the next two weeks.

Saturday is not the best day to look for a motel room on one of the busiest vacation weeks of the year, but we landed in a soft bed in a clean room in Gold Beach, Oregon, just a block or so away from the Rogue River and about 40 miles above the state line.

Gold Beach is not close to any major population area, but it is popular for fishing and camping, jet boat trips up the river and great scenic views.

We like it as a good spot to clean up, take care of some minor restocking of food supplies for the camper van, and good places to eat.  On our last trip through town we ate dinner at an all-you-can-eat fundraiser for the local high school, but we missed that this year.

We stayed in a 1970's-styled motel, refurbished, clean and available, just off the main drag. The place we stayed before, right on the river, was booked solid. The new/old motel had the added charm of a fenced-in backyard just outside our window filled with chickens. The people were courteous. The room was ample and not too expensive. Just right.

We are particularly fond of a breakfast cafe and bookstore we found on an earlier trip on this route. You can get fresh brewed coffee, bagels or burritos and a big variety of books and other readables all in one place. The customers included us, a few other tourists, fishermen and a Sunday school class of teenagers getting ready for church.

Books and coffee in Gold Beach

We headed north, primarily because there was no room in the inn for a second night in town, so  we took our time along the spectacular Oregon coast. It's hard to describe how each turn in the road brings another spectacular cliff over the ocean, or a sandy strip of beach, or a turnout to a park or a lighthouse.

It is a glorious part of the U.S. that everyone should see. Oregon loves visitors, and treats visitors and residents to an amazing number of parks, large and small, scattered along the coastal road. It seems there is a chance to stop and look every mile or two, and a campground or state park every ten miles or so. Even so, it was peak vacation season and the road was busy and the stops fairly busy with people -- not crowded, just busy.

Out by the rocks is a marine sanctuary

There are so many lighthouses along this coast, maintained primarily as historical sites now that GPS navigation rules the waves, that you could spend a week and never see them all.

We stopped briefly at Umpqua Lighthouse where our in-laws had served as volunteers, but stopped and explored at Cape Blanco which showed on the map as being on a point out over the ocean. It probably was, but when we got there a blanket of fog had rolled in, the wind was howling off the  cold ocean, and we only had the sound of waves crashing on the cliffs below to assure us the water was there. It did not matter, it was still spectacular.

Pat walks to the lighthouse at Cape Blanco

The docents were well-informed and helpful, full of history and enthusiasm for their beautiful part of the world.

The coast is thinly populated in this area, but towns such as Sixes, Langlois, Bandon and Port Orford offer anything a visitor could want.

We took our time and arrived in Coos Bay, a larger and somewhat industrial town, in the afternoon, found a motel room and settled in.

Here a happy surprise caught up with us, thanks to Facebook. We discovered that old friends and colleagues from The Modesto Bee -- Bob and Becky Bazemore -- were in Oregon working at their jobs for the Good Sams Club.  Basically, they travel in their very large RV all over Oregon and evaluate Recreational Vehicle Parks for the organization. Their "home" near Coos Bay was right on the beach at a town called Charlestown, and they just happened to know of a good place to eat seafood.
A meeting, as they say, was quickly arranged.

The place, Jack's Crab Shack, was closing soon so they went ahead, got a table and arranged for beer while we drove over to meet them. We were the last customers in the place, and the hosts were gracious and the food delicious. Bob ad I both had Dungeness  Crabs and Becky and Pat had the Crab Cakes. It was the real deal, a great meal and a great reunion.

Bob and Becky love what they do, traveling much of the year, some for work and some for pleasure. They live in a giant 45 foot motor home with their happy dog. They spend part of the year working in Oregon, part traveling to see daughters and grandchildren, and part hanging out with friends in the Florida Keys. They both look 20 years younger: trim, fit and tanned. They took an early retirement from The Bee more than 20 years ago, and have clearly been living the good life on coasts, ski resorts and Alaska -- wherever the spirit moves them.

The dog in Becky's lap was eating Bob's ear -- no damage done

Back when Bob was a city editor at The Bee, and Becky a reporter, he gave me the best ski lessons I ever had -- all in one weekend day. I never became an expert -- he had been on ski patrol -- but he helped me move from novice to comfortable intermediate as a skier and I always will be grateful.
It was a great mini-reunion, which we hope to continue in the Fall.

After  a big seafood dinner, a lot of catching up on families and friends, we got another night's rest ad headed north again.
Next: More coasts, more friends waiting.

Road Trip -- Part One

Pat in our van "Snowflake"

Murphys, Ca -- If you can temporarily cut the ties that hold you down, you could take a road trip.
Pat and I did that and enjoyed almost every one of the 3,000 plus miles traveled in 24 days through seven states of the beautiful  Northwestern U.S.
The trip started with a week on the California north coast, then easing along the Oregon coast and on to Seattle.  Then to see family we turned east for a few days and ended up in Montana, then back south toward home through Yellowstone and the Tetons, and smoky Utah.
We made the trip in our new-to-us 2002 Volkswagen Eurovan, and camped about half the time and stayed with friends and family or in motels along the way.
The good news: all went well. It was a real vacation.

There is no bad news.



Here is what we saw for a week:

The ocean is never far away

One of many hiking trails

Cynics might suggest that retirees do not need a vacation. Au contraire, my friends. We get just as married to our calendars and schedules and meetings and obligations as we did when working every day. Not to mention the every-present computers and iPhones that seem to suck our brains out. But then, there is a beach.

A view of Agate Beach from our campground

The journey began with a reasonable travel day from Murphys to Garberville, a small funky town just into the edge of the Costal Redwood territory of the north coast. If you have never been to Garberville,  check it out. It is welcoming, consistent and a little strange.
The strange part is the mix of people on the streets, actually one street carrying Highway 101 through town.  It is a town that sees a lot of travelers, and many of them have dirty backpacks, rumpled clothing and look as if they just stepped out of the woods. They hang out near the grocery store, sitting in the shade, waiting for something. They are mostly young, non-threatening, not too clean and  sometimes a little on the strange side. The old joke "They are not like us'" probably should be turned around to "We are not like them" to be fair. Are they just happy travelers with a backpack and a friend and a yen to see the world, or maybe part-time employees at a local pot farm? We'll never know.
The good part of Garberville is plenty of moderately-priced places to stay (plan ahead in peak season) and a great little restaurant that we found, for the second time, that provides good Italian food and has a fiddler on the balcony overhead playing every tune he knows, Local color, plus red wine.

Our destination for the first week of travel was Patrick's Point State Park, one of the gems in the California park system.
Perched on a high bluff above the Pacific Ocean, it offers a variety of campsites (sunny or shady, warm or cold), a perfect climate (fog in the morning, sunshine the rest of the day, and temperatures in the 70s),  and great hikes and interesting towns nearby.

Tidal pools a few steps down the bluff

We always camp near the trail down to Agate Beach, a gorgeous stretch of beach known by gem lovers and those who simply want to look at the ocean. (Note to non-Californians: people do not generally swim in the ocean here. It is too cold and somewhat dangerous unless you know where exactly to go.)

The trail south along the coast

We were lucky enough to join our daughter, her family and in-laws (Grays and Todds) for a week of family, outdoor living, good food and great companions. At least 24 people made up our band of relatives.
The hikes along the park's bluff are spectacular, with  views of the ocean every few steps, side trails to tidal pools, and no crowds.
The small closest coastal towns  -- Trinidad and Arcata -- provide everything you need, obviously at tourist prices, but are well worth a visit. It is also a short drive to a park with a resident elk heard, and not far from an Indian casino so there is something for everyone. There is  even a local brewery nearby.

Reliving my past in an Aracata music store

I did not take notes, or many pictures, because the whole point of our week was relaxing.
With extended family surrounding us we spent a lot of time visiting,  catching up, playing cribbage, eating other people's food, playing games, hiking, sleeping, reading and just being.

A "chain gang" is required when one of the Todd family shows up with a load of firewood

For us it is a big family event, one to which we feel welcomed by all my son-in-law's family. One night a relative we had never met showed up, grilled burgers, and fed everybody. Our son-in-law cooked fritatas for breakfast while his dad grilled linguica. His mom cooked Portuguese beans for everybody. We cooked salmon over the fire.
On our final day Uncle Bob Todd  came through the campground collecting everyone's leftovers, cooked them into a great camp stew for the final night's dinner. He flavored it with Bloody Mary mix which was the perfect touch.

Uncle Bob insisted everyone play "Old Fart Baseball"

It was an absolutely lovely week, touching base again with people we care for but do not see very often, visiting a place that is beautiful and cool and welcoming, and relaxing.

The  best thing we did? Stayed in one place for a week so we could really unwind.
There was no  worst part.

Next: Travel along the coast of Oregon to see old newspaper friends, and then to Seattle for a reunion of sorts with  classmates from graduate school.

Remembering my sister Mary LaMont Richardson

Mary Elizabeth LaMont Richardson b. 1937 Atlanta, Georgia
d. 1991 Jamison, Alabama
Mary Elizabeth LaMont was born Feb. 2, 1937, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her parents lived in a rented house in Ansley park, an old Atlanta neighborhood a few blocks off Peachtree Road and about two miles from downtown. She was named after her grandmothers.
Both parents were working. Her father Louis Ernest LaMont traveled for insurance companies as an auditor. Her mother Dorothy Strickland LaMont was a nurse at Piedmont Hospital where Mary was born.
She was the first child. Her Grandfather Fred Strickland lived with the family briefly. Grandmother Mary Barry LaMont came to visit from Montgomery and had their picture taken while sitting in a rocking chair made for the family in the 1800s. . Mary’s nearby family included numerous Barry cousins in Montgomery, her mother’s two sisters Sarah and Betty, and Strickland, Arrington and Looper cousins across North Georgia.


Atlanta was the booming center of the “New South,” Southern in character but more progressive. The novel “Gone With the Wind” had been published the previous year, written by a reporter for the Atlanta newspaper. Nostalgia and romanticism, tempered by concerns about war in Europe, were the order of the day.
By 1940 the family had moved to Decatur in the suburbs, to a small house owned by a family friend on the edge of the golf course belonging to the Atlanta Athletic Club.
Mary started kindergarten in Atlanta, but the family relocated in 1943 to Mobile, Alabama. Mobile, on the bay near the Gulf Coast, was an old seaport city. At the time they moved there World War Two was underway and the town was booming with military-related industries including ship-building.
Mary spent most of her public school days in Mobile. She attended Leinkauf Elementary School, a short walk from their rented duplex at 1214 Government

Street, then Barton Academy, and graduated from Murphy High School. During the middle years of elementary school her parents divorced, and later her mother remarried.
Mary was popular, a good student and active in a wide range of activities. She was a “maid of honor” in the Mardi Gras Court in
elementary school, a member
of the precision swim team and a cheerleader in high school. She joined a sorority and was active in the youth group at Dauphin Way Methodist Church.
The family owned one car when she was in high school, a huge pale yellow 1952 Packard. She learned to drive in the parking lot of Ladd football stadium, and on special occasions during her senior year she was allowed to drive the car to school — if she would give her brother a ride. Four years separated us, and we were not close friends until later.


Mary had a good time in high school. She made good grades without working too hard, was pretty, had a busy social life and was popular with the boys.
When she was about 17 she had a boyfriend she really liked a lot. Robert was a nice guy, well liked, but Mary’s father felt they were getting too serious. He was particularly concerned because Robert was a a Catholic, and the LaMont family had a long history as Protestants and the older members were somewhat suspicious of Catholics, a not uncommon prejudice in the South. He wrote Mary a very carefully worded letter in which he acknowledged Robert was a nice boy, but gave Mary a long-distance lecture on why being serious with a person of ““another faith would create problems if they ever decided to get married. In the 1950s Protestants who wanted to marry a Catholic had to join the Roman

Catholic Church and be a practicing member. Catholics were also expected too have large families. The discussion never got angry.
The matter was settled when graduation came in 1954, and they both went away to different colleges.
Mary graduated from Murphy High in 1954 and moved to Coral Gables, Florida, to live with her father and attend the University of Miami as a freshman. She liked Florida, the “rich Yankee boys” who went to school there and the university classes. She briefly joined a sorority, but dropped out when she discovered they blackballed Jewish girls.
During that year she attended college full time, kept house, took care of our ailing father and had a part

time job at a clothing store in Coral Gables.

Her father was in failing health so after the end of her Freshman year she quit college and the two of them moved back to Alabama.
He was no longer able to work, and Mary—then19 —wenttoworkin Montgomery and took care of her dying father throughout that Fall and Winter. It was a hard time. He

was in and out of the VA hospital. She changed jobs, briefly working as a sales clerk in a department store and at a
printing company. She ended up working for an insurance company at better pay and more hours.


Her father died in February 1957.
The day of his funeral cousin Dan Stanford brought his Auburn University roommate Roy Richardson with him to the house when he dropped by to pay his respects. They had been on a fishing trip, but Roy made a good impression, despite coming straight from camping.

Mary moved to a rooming house for working women, where she joked her roommate was “a Yankee girl,” but her life was about to change significantly.
She and Roy, who was still in college, started dating in that spring. They were engaged almost immediately.
Mary married Roy that summer on the August day he graduated from Auburn. It was a small family wedding held in the basement of a Methodist church in Auburn.
Roy went to work as a management trainee with the phone company and they moved to a small apartment in Birmingham. They immediately got a dog, named him Bo, and got into the young-married lifestyle of barbecues on weekends, watching football games (particularly Auburn). Roy took up golf. His job required frequent moves around
the state. In the next five years they lived in Decatur in North Alabama and in Anniston in Eastern Alabama, before moving back to
Birmingham.
During this time Mary and Roy, convinced by doctors they could not conceive children, adopted a boy, named him Ben, and then adopted a daughter named Beth.
Mary stayed home and took care of the children as Roy rose in the management ranks of the Southern Bell phone company. His job took them to a temporary assignment in New York City, and they moved to Berkeley Heights, N.J., outside New York City, in the early 1970s. It was the first time Mary had lived outside of the South. Much to their surprise, while in New Jersey Mary became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Philip.
Judging from her letters to me at the time, it was one of the happiest years of her life.
She wrote one 15 page letter on stationary she brought back from a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth 2 — she called it the “Q E 2” — full of details of life just after Philip’s difficult birth. She covered the details of Roy’s work, furniture needed for the new baby, and her six-week post partum medical exam, including details about a surgery planned “on my bottom.”

“If the doctor can convince me that I have a good chance of successful pregnancy next time I really want to have another baby. Philip will need a playmate and I’m too young to retire.”
She encouraged the possibilities of adoption to others, including her sister-in-law who had a back injury., She was all for adoption when people could not have a baby on their own. “The mixed racial child is the big thing here in N.J. but would not go over too well in North Florida.”
She bragged on her children: “Ben is up to my shoulder...and grows while I look at him. Books are his thing.” She described how he tried to like horses, but didn’t, and she gave him permission to stop riding lessons. “Beth loves horses and enjoys every minute of riding... I think she does real well for a five year old.”
And Beth was so eager to start school she woke everybody up at 4 a.m. the first day.
Philip, as the baby, got lots of attention. “The Rooster is the apple of everybody’s eye. The nurses from the hospital even call to see how he is doing.” He had been small and premature, but by then Mary wrote, “He’s fat and round, has square feet and sausage fingers.... He started smiling yesterday and it is beautiful.”
The family was completed with three
children, and when the New York
assignment ended they use the profits
from the suburban house in New Jersey
to by buy a house on a 85-acre ranch in
Chilton County, Alabama, halfway between
Montgomery and Birmingham. They were to become country folk.
Mary loved it. She settled in and ran the ranch, including cows and chickens and one pig named “HamFat,” while Roy commuted to jobs in Birmingham and elsewhere in Alabama.

The ranch had fenced pastures and woodlands. The house sat in the middle of a pasture, with great views all around. There was a small well house and a shed, and on the hill above the house was a large old barn and a garden.
Mary got into the farm life. She wore boots and jeans, joined the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association, and negotiated a deal with a neighbor to use the pasture, bale the hay and keep up the fences.
Her favorite aunt, Elizabeth Gill or “Aunt Betty,” moved to the closest town, Jemison. Mary kept her Birmingham city contacts, including going with friends to the symphony.
For a woman who had never lived outside a city, she reveled in country living, pickup trucks, and horses and cows.
Shortly after moving there she became active in the Episcopal Church in nearby Montevallo which served townspeople and students at the local University. That’s where their youngest child Philip was baptized. She eventually became a member of the vestry, and loved her little church and the formality of its services.
Life seemed idyllic, but it was not always easy. There were money problems, and the challenges of keeping up a large piece of property that did not generate any income. Roy worked long days, and when he was home he was almost always working somewhere on the ranch on his tractor, or drinking too much and parked in front of the television on football weekends. They saw less of each other, and began have disagreements about money and how to raise the children.
Mary was stubborn, and so was Roy.
By the early 80s Mary decided that because it had been left up to her, she would run the home and the children. Roy was absent a lot, so she started making independent decisions about the home and their finances that Roy did not always agree with. Her attitude was that if he was not there to help make decisions and do the work at home, he would have to accept it.
He was constantly spending week nights in Birmingham, whether for work or to play cards with friends, and they grew more and more estranged.
The marriage fell apart. They never really discussed all the reasons, but Roy moved out to an apartment in Birmingham and they divorced after 25 years. It was a hard time for everyone.

About this time Beth was in college at Auburn, Ben had finished high school but due to learning disabilities unable to hold a regular job, and Philip was just beginning high school.
It was a severe blow to Mary and everyone in the family, and something she never expected to happen. She struggled to hold things together. She agreed to accept the house and half the acreage as a full settlement in the divorce, giving up claims to Roy’s retirement and Social Security. That left her with no income.
But she knew how to work.
In the first year after the divorce she tried to make a living by increasing the house garden to almost an acre and selling produce through farmer’s markets in the area.
She used her quilting skills to make pillows and decorative items to sell through craft fairs and local stores, but it was never enough to live on.
She had some financial support from our mother who was retired in Atlanta, and close family nearby in Aunt Betty. Both older women doted on Mary, but also tried to give her advice she was not eager to hear. For a while she became isolated, trying to figure out how to survive, raise her children and hang onto the farm.
During this time her church in Montevallo became increasingly important to her, and she became more and more active in the leadership..
When Betty died shortly after the divorce Mary inherited her home and turned it into a small rental house. Money from the inheritance from Betty helped pay the bills for a short while.
Even in the hard financial times Mary believed people needed to have fun, so she would still put away enough for a trip to the symphony or a short vacation at the beach at Gulf Shores.
In the late 1980s she gave up on farming for a living and applied for a job in Clanton, managing a furniture store for the owners. She had never done anything like that before, but she was smart and worked hard and initially liked the job. It was a classic small-town furniture store, selling mostly to poor farm families and share croppers. One of her jobs was to collect monthly or even weekly payments from the poor people who could not afford any other way to buy furniture, after

working out a schedule and a price. She joked it was “a dollar down and a dollar
a week.”
Mary on the farm, her happy place
She stayed active in the church, and working at the furniture store even when the owners turned out to be difficult.
It took a while but she got over the shock of the divorce. She began to find new friends, even dated once or twice, and focused on helping her children get through school to adulthood.
Around late 1990 Mary decided the farm was too much to deal with. She liked Montevallo — it was a college town with an interesting population — and began exploring making a move. Beth was away in college. Philip was close to finishing high school, and it looked like Ben would need to live at home with her. The farm was too much work.
She found an attractive old Craftsman bungalow house near the edge of the college campus, arranged to sell the farm, and was in the process of buying and moving in to the Montevallo house when she died. The boxes were still being unpacked at the “new” house.

She was at work one day at the furniture store, walking away from a soft drink machine, when she collapsed.
She died instantly.
She was at a good point in her life, 54 years old and in control and seeing a better future for her family.
The cause was never known for sure. She had been seeing a doctor for cholesterol problems, and was a life-long smoker, but put off doing anything about it. She had too many other things to take care of.
The funeral service was held, with the High Episcopal service she had wanted, at her little church. She was buried next to her father in Montgomery in the family plot in Oakwood Cemetery.