Lives are so different today it is hard to imagine what it would have been like to live around 1900 in a busy little town like Warm Springs. Spielberg could recreate a visual Warm Springs for a movie, but places like it was no longer exist. It’s unlikely the people who live there today would recognize the town or the life.
Without air conditioners people rock away early evening hours on the veranda.. Often a swing would lazily move back and forth with the hypnotizing creak of the chain rubbing against the hook it hung from. Large trees provided shade around the home. The rustle of leaves plus the clucking of chickens, frogs croaking and crickets chirping provided a quiet background of sounds for conversation or daydreams. Dirt roads, wagons, a stage coach and the train were the transportation. Church or the women’s club were the big social outlets for ladies. The men gathered on benches in front of the large general store to catch up on news while waiting to pick up their supplies. Meals were prepared from scratch with produce picked from the garden. Ice came from an ice house. The fried chicken for Sunday dinner probably had been scurrying around your yard on Saturday.
This photo of a hay ride was in Grandmother's wedding album.
A few years ago I found a small out of print book "The History of Warm Springs, Georgia" on Heritage Quest Online. The book was more about life in Warm Springs than in the history. I thought I would share some of my favorite sections. Mother didn’t like book perhaps because the author’s experiences included less idealized memories. Mother led a very protected life.
Warm Springs was after all named after the very warm waters that people enjoyed for swimming. Public pools were a big attraction. Swim wear was quite different from today’s.
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“Even Venus, herself, would have attracted little notice in one of the bathing suits of that day. There was nothing romantic about them and the feminine form divine was entirely lost to view.
These alluring garments were voluminous affairs of heavy blue serge. A full blouse of this carpet like fabric was surmounted and adorned by a sailor collar of double thickness trimmed with three rows of white braid and a “shield” of the same guaranteed strict privacy to ones collar bones. Long sleeves completed the dainty upper portion which was attached to a pleated skirt … which reached the knees and beneath it bloomers and stockings – heavy black cotton ones.
“The public pool was surrounded by an unattractive frame building containing the dressing rooms, giving it somewhat the appearance of a stock yard. There was a chute at one end and a spring board at the other and any one who would use either was daring beyond all words.
The private pools were more popular with the rank and file then, for “mixed bathing” was looked upon askance by many, with tolerance by some and completely denounced by others.
Indeed, more than one minister in the village church used to grow red in the face on occasion, drip perspiration all over the ;pulpit and sprain his tongue enumerating the evils of its malign influence and, then, after a protracted meeting, take his converts to that same pool that he had so vilified and baptize them. The amount of sin washed away in that pool, already stained so black, according to the well-meaning pastor’s version, would surely have ruined it for posterity had not its free flow enabled it to empty itself each day.”
Many bathers going into these pools went armed with a goodly cake of soap. Mothers often went down on Saturday afternoon accompanied by their entire broods who were scrubbed and shampooed. It certainly beat getting out the old tin tub, drawing numberless buckets of water and heating it on the kitchen stove."
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Years later my grandfather built a public swimming pool. A cement pond… well almost. Water spilled from Parkman’s Pond into the very large pool; so there were also fish. Occasionally the pool would empty as a snake swam through. There was a very large sliding board at one side of the pool. A “peninsula went out to the center of the pool.
Dressing rooms were downstairs and upstairs guests could buy snacks, etc.
Yes there were still baptism’s there. I missed the occasion, but once Bobby,my almost cousin, was trying to get a better view by squeezing past someone and caused a lady to fall into the water. I can only imagine the excitement that created.
Years later the poolhouse was remodeled and became a home for my cousin’s family.
Picnics were most popular in pre-automobile days and Warm Springs was the ideal place in which to have them. Churches, schools and societies never thought of trying to go through the summer without one.
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"Special trains would take Sunday school and Fraternity members and often almost the entire population of some small town there for the great day. Great doings! For instance: the Red Men or Firemen, or Policemen from Atlanta and Columbus would be scheduled for a picnic on a certain day. Grocery store keepers and dispensers of soft drinks would be up betimes, sweeping and dusting, and laying out extra supplies of commodities and often enlisting the services of the entire family to take care of the rush. There would be tension and excitement in the very air at the depot. Often people from the country would drive in with fruits and melons to sell or just to see the sights. The hour would arrive and an expectant hush would hover over most of the establishments. Presently a long drawn out “T-o-o-t, t-o-o-t” in the distance would send everybody in the neighborhood who was not bed-ridden to a window or door or to the very depot itself.
Another toot, a column of black smoke, a huge bulk rushing from around the curve (there was a curve coming from either direction), a whistle, a screeching of air brakes and the monster would come to a panting standstill, every aperture bulging with eager, expectant faces. A deep sigh from the engine, loud shouts from hundreds of throats, a few rat-tats from a drum and men, women and children, laden with boxes, baskets and various and sundry impediments, would pour from every opening like so many mice let loose and make a bee-line for the springs or the woods…. Or the old picnic platform.
On splendid days the latter was the usual center of amusement, especially with the crowds that took along their own bands. This platform, a huge floor containing at least twenty-five hundred square feet of floor space, stood in the beautiful oak and hickory grove that lies like a big slice of mince pie between the roads that divide just below the railroad station, one fork going to the pools and one to the Inn on the “crust” side connecting the two near bath houses. There was a seat all around its outer edge and a flight of steps going up from three sides. On the other was a raised dias for the dance orchestra.
Generally, the day before the outing, an arbor of green boughs would be erected over the platform to give it a sylvan aspect and, more important still, to protect the dancers from the sunlight. Suntan then was shunned along with leprosy.
The high spot of the day would be a plunge in one of the pools, just which one depended upon a number of things. And, although the smaller pools were not exactly neglected, the public pool would come into its own on such occasions and the ticket seller and towel woman have a busy and remunerative day.
The woods and surrounding countryside would be explored for flowers and ferns which have long abounded in them – no more beautiful wild ferns are found anywhere – miles and miles of steps taken, vast quantities of food consumed, barrels of water drunk, dancing and swimming enjoyed the day long – Carefree abandon from the usual things of everyday home life.
Sometimes an adventurous male, determined to get the very most out of his day, would make a surreptitious trip to the “Grocery” and have to be looked up before train time. Once in a while one of these adventurers would resent interference with his “constitutional rights” having attained the bellicose stage, and there would follow a little slicing or target practice.
…But to get back to the picnic. The main objective of each individual was to get the very most out of the allotted number of hours, for they might not have another day like that for another year. After swimming, dancing, eating, tramping, looking for misplaced children, attending to red bug bites, killing snakes and trying to see how much warm water they could drink, a tired, wilted, bedraggled, but happy mob would begin to settle their hats and gather up their debris.
Then, at a series of warning “toots” from their train, they would drag themselves wearily toward the station, leaving a trail of paper, cracker boxes, sardine tins, soda water and beer bottles in their wake, and drop into the first seats available.
Presently, a puff from the engine and a loud “all ‘bord,” from the conductor would send the last dawdler scampering for a seat and, in another minute or two, a cloud of smoke above the little platform and the forementioned trail of debris would be all that remained of that picnic from Atlanta except the nickels, dimes and quarters that were being counted and deposited in many tills. For all concerned, a great day.”
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