The women in the black community had fewer opportunities outside the home than did their husbands and like the women in the white communities. However, they did play an important part in making a difference in Powder Springs. Their contributions are often over looked. History does not always tell their stories and importance.
With fewer opportunities, they mostly utilized their traditional homemaking skills. Many would work as laundresses in their homes, sometimes with the help of their daughters. Others cooked or worked in the Lindley Hotel and in the homes of white families. There were a few who worked as beauticians in their homes or in school cafeterias, cooking and selling baked goods to others in the community and as midwives.
Some might work alongside of their husbands in the various jobs they held. Then there were those who were simply homemakers for their families, tended to their own needs and that of their families and raised their children or helped raise others in their community.
Opportunities opened up when Coats and Clark Thread Mill opened in the 1930’s, Bell Aircraft in the 1940’s and Lockheed in the 1950’s. Laundries and Cleaners opening provided jobs for some of those who had been taking in laundry in their homes. Many were then able to work outside of Powder Springs. In the 1960’s after segregation ended, there was much more opportunities for all of those in the black community.
These are a few of those Powder Springs women, listed alphabetically, who made a difference. It is not a complete list, by any means. All the women in the black community made a difference no matter what their role was in shaping our town and community.
Reverend Christine Penn Brooks – (1926 – 2009) was the daughter of Luke Penn and Charity Young Penn. Rev. Brooks was an early
Pastor at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. She was the Great- Granddaughter of Rev. Alec Penn who was a prominent religious leader in Cobb and Douglas Counties.
Ethel Lee Clark – (1912 – 1993) and her sister, Rena, started a business producing pies and cakes from Ethel’s home on Butner Street. Rena taught her daughter Willie G. Watts to make fried pies filled with fruit or sweet potatoes and fried to a crisp in vegetable oil just the way she and Ethel had been doing. Ethel was known locally as “the Pie Lady” because of her fried pies. She was also known for her trademark five-flavor pound cake and her coconut cake. Willie continued this family tradition business after her Aunt Ethel passed away in 1993.
Ethel also helped establish and build the Church of God on Long Street. She was a very integral part of her community, church and was greatly loved and respected.
Minnie Holcomb – (? – 1950). When Long Street was divided into lots, the deed book recorded it as “The Minnie Holcomb Subdivision”. At the time, Minnie was a long time resident there on Long Street and their community, so they named it in her honor.
Charity Young Penn – (1896 – 1962) was the daughter of Sandy Young, a popular barber who practiced his trade downtown in the Lewis Building. She was also the wife of Luke Penn, a long time janitor at Powder Springs Elementary School for 40 years. They were married in 1913 and had 14 children.
Charity was a servant of Emma Camp for 27 years beginning when she was just nine years. She was also the babysitter for Virginia Tapp, the daughter of W. R. Tapp, Sr. family.
Hattie White – (1900 – 1993) was one of the most popular ladies in the community because of her annual “Easter Egg Hunt” Event. This brought family and friends in the neighborhood together who also brought eggs to hide. Hattie would hide the eggs down by the ‘sanctified’ church for the children.
Pocia White and Agnes Mae Waldon Austin – (1876–1953 & 1883-1960) Both ladies ‘gained notoriety’ as midwives who delivered babies for both white and black families. According to family members, ‘Anytime they wanted somebody delivered or something, they’d come get on of the ladies’. Agnes married Isaiah “Buster” Austin. Pocia married James White. Ruthie White – worked as a nurse for Dr. A. J. Griffith at the Powder Springs Hospital for 28 years. She was not a registered nurse. Her daughter said, that everything Dr. Griffith asked of her, she could do it and would do it. She did x-rays and administered shots, anything an RN could do and more. Ruthie was well respected and considered a great nurse and person.
Even though Sallie Hardage (1888 – 1974) was not African American, she made a difference in the black community. Sally was the wife of prominent town merchant, G. M. Hardage. She was an entrepreneur and saw an opportunity to build better housing in the black neighborhood. Sallie purchased lots in the community, beginning in the 1930’s, and began to build four-room, wooden houses to rent to the black families, particularly along Anderson, Butner and Marchman Streets. She would walk through the neighborhood on Sunday mornings to collect the rent. By the 1960’s she began to encourage residents to buy the houses where they lived. Sallie also helped finance the mortgage, often installing indoor plumbing and bathrooms at that time.
The Lindley Hotel: Many community members worked here and remembered having to get up early, some as early as 4:30 or 5:00 am each morning, to do the cooking for daily meals and not getting done until around 8:00pm. Getting up the next day and starting over again! Others helped by washing and drying the dishes – but you had to be careful so none would break! These were good dishes. Then setting the tables with the plates, bowls, utensils, glasses, bread, and pour the drinks. Then cleaning up and start over again when it was time for another meal. This had to be done every day.
Powder Springs did have many women from the black community who worked, raised families, enjoyed providing for the community and did help make it a better place for everyone. A “Thank You” goes to these ladies and their community for living here and helping to shape our town and community.
The information for this article was compiled from various papers, documents, and records that Sara Frances Miller and her volunteers gathered over the years. Other information was taken from “Images of America – Powder Springs” book and the “Powder Springs has Some Deep Roots In It”.
These documents are on file at the museum in the Research Room. Also, from www.findagrave.com