Toombs County, Georgia History and Genealogy Project

Toombs County, Georgia

Sometimes "Marrying Up" Can Ease Career Choices

ATLANTA — Gary Pomerantz, a one-time colleague of mine in the sports department of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, became well-known as an author of books after leaving the paper.

     One of the books he wrote was Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds, an exhaustively researched account of the people involved in the crash of an American Southeast Airlines passenger plane near Carrollton in 1995. The book and a condensation of it appearing in Reader's Digest magazine helped make a national heroine of Robin Fech, the lone flight attendant on the plane and a step-daughter of Matalice Spivey Fech, who is my across-the-street neighbor at my part-time home in Vidalia.

Though critically acclaimed, Gary's books were not huge money-makers, and some of his colleagues wondered how he managed to survive without a paycheck during the years he spent researching that book and Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, a history of race relations in Atlanta.

     Now we think we know. It turned out that Gary's wife, Carrie, is the daughter of Charles Schwab. Yes, that's the Charles Schwab, who founded and is C.E.O. of the giant stock brokerage firm bearing his name. If Schwab isn't a billionaire, he probably isn't far from it.

     Although Gary was already married to Carrie when be worked at the Atlanta newspaper, some of his colleagues there were not aware of her family background until the recent publication of a personality profile on Schwab in The New York Times. Commented one of those who did know, veteran AJC sports columnist Furman Bisher, "Gary didn't make a big deal out of it."

     Added Jeff Schultz, another AJC sports columnist, "Yes, he did marry up." Or, as we in the South are prone to say, he did marry well, didn't he?

Gary and Carrie now live in California.

Faulkville by Cycle

Mr. Williams lives in Blackshear and owns The Blackshear Time in that town, as well as five other newspapers throughout southeast Georgia, including The Telfair Enterprise in Vidalia's neighbor town of McRae. He also is a former president of the Georgia Press Association and has been an occiational "op-ed" columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"I grew up in Effingham County, but way, way over on the other side of that very large county from Faulkville," Mr. Williams said by e-mail. "I remember, as a 16-year-old, riding my little 90-cc motorcycle all the way from Springfield (the county seat) to Faulkville one day just so I could see a pretty little blonde who had just moved there from California.

"Faulkville, then, was barely more than a wide spot in the road. Effingham has since blossomed from around 16,000 people to about 50,000. I suspect Faulkville has grown, too, even though it's still not incorporated."

That First Lottery

I mentioned in a previous column that Vidalia native Jim Barfield of Macon acts as a guide on tours of historic Rose Hill Cemetery in that middle-Georgia city, where he has lived for most of his adult life. I commented that the grave of long-time Vidalia merchant Herman Bailey, who died a few months ago and is buried in Rose Hill, is not among those (mostly of famous or well-know people) Jim points out to visitors on the tours.

But now it will be. After reading the column, Jim told me by telephone that beginning with the next scheduled tour, which will be the day before Halloween, he will point out Mr. Bailey?s grave to tour members.

After Sanderville?s Jack Brooker (his name was misspelled Booker in an earlier column) quoted a friend as saying that one good thing about senility is that you get to meet so many new people, Walter Geiger of Barnesville added another good thing: You can hide your own Easter eggs.

E-mail: raytapley@juno.com

The Advance, Wednesday, September 21, 2005, Page 2L.

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