Patsy Childs has lived in Clinton all her life and can tell you as much history of the community as most anyone, but the spry 96-year-old also was a worldwide traveler who can tell you a lot about places around the globe.
Anybody who studies history and/or knows anything about Clinton will recognize the name Samuel Griswold, and Childs literally relates to that subject.
“I grew up in Clinton in the old ‘Johnson Home’, built in 1824 and owned by my great-grandfather, Francis S. Johnson,” she explained. “Samuel Griswold was my great-great-grandfather who moved to Clinton from Connecticut in 1820 and became one of the South’s leading cotton gin manufacturers. He and Johnson were partners in many business ventures.”
Childs vividly remembers her childhood.
“Life when I was growing up was very simple,” she described. “There was no TV, only the radio. At night my mother would play the piano, my father his guitar.”
She recalled standing on the street corner waiting for the school bus and getting off in the afternoon with a parent there.
There was also family support for other activities.
“My mother was very full of energy, with dancing and the piano,” Childs praised. “She would take me to Macon – actually my father drove us – I went to dancing lessons every week, tap dancing, ballet. She loved it. And, she was the organist and pianist for the Gray Baptist Church.”
Childs attended Jones County schools and can remember one humorous aspect of the elementary days.
“My mother prepared my lunch every day,” she recalled. “And, I can remember the soggy pineapple sandwiches,” she laughed. “It was nice when she sent it, but by lunchtime … they were good, though,” she added.
Childs worked as a teen in the office of her cousin, Superior Court Clerk Francis Stewart Jr., during the summers. She worked a couple of summers elsewhere as well.
“I also worked at the peach packing shed in Bradley,” she recalled. “That was the thing to do. The boys came from all over to work,” she said with a laugh.
Following high school graduation in 1945, Childs knew where she was headed.
“It was always known that I would go to Wesleyan,” she acknowledged. “My grandmother was the first organ graduate from Wesleyan. She taught music all over Macon. That’s where my mother got her love for music.”
However, Childs never graduated from Wesleyan. She and a friend decided after their second year there that they wanted to pursue another career.
“We were going to go to school to become flight attendants that Fall,” she shared. “Because that was exciting,” she smiled.
However, that never happened, either. A man from the past popped up and changed that plan. Childs explained the circumstances surrounding her future husband, Frank Childs.
“Frank was five years older than me. He was just my best friend’s big brother,” she recalled. “I mean, I knew him, but … Florence was a younger sister and one of my very best friends.”
Frank transferred to the University of Georgia after one year at Mercer, she said. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he left school and joined the Navy and was stationed on a destroyer at one point during the war. He was discharged in 1946.
Childs said the two of them would run into each at social events, such as weddings.
When the future Mrs. Childs was considering leaving Wesleyan for flight attendant school, her choice was neither school.
“Frank came along that summer and we dated a little bit — and I was still in school, in college — he asked me to marry him. So,” she acknowledged, “that was more important to me.”
They got married in January of 1948.
The newlyweds ended up staying in the Gray Hotel for a couple of months. The two-story structure fronted on Madison Street, which runs parallel to Monticello Highway behind the row of stores.
“We rented a room, and it was on the second floor on the front overlooking the bank where Frank worked then,” Childs said. “He would just walk across the street for lunch. They served a big lunch there every day. So, we would just eat lunch there.”
As time passed, Childs later became a charter member of the Gray Garden Club, the D.A.R., and the Old Clinton Historical Society, in which she is on the Board of Directors. In addition, she is now directly involved in a trust fund that was established in the 1950s.
A foundation started by an aunt of Childs has provided scholarships to hundreds of local collegebound students locally. Following the tragic death of 14-year old Morton Johnson, son of Childs’ uncle and aunt, Holmes Johnson and Addie Kate Morton Johnson, Addie Kate established the Morgan Johnson Scholarship Fund. That foundation was set up to provide a scholarship to “a deserving student from Jones County every year,” according to Childs, who became the trustee in 1984.
“This fund has grown tremendously over the years,” she declared. “I’ve made investments, and we’ve done pretty good. We’ve given tons of scholarships for $1,000 a year, and we gave $10,000 a lot of years.”
Childs pointed out there is another connection with Addie Kate Johnson.
“She started the D.A.R. chapter in Jones County,” she said while browsing through a booklet printed by the Daughters of American Revolution, Oliver Morton Chapter. It is entitled “Yearbook 2018-2019” and reflects that the organization was formed Feb. 22, 1922, with Johnson as the Organizing Regent.
“The D.A.R. chapter administers the scholarship funds,” Childs stated.
“The letters from the students would come to me. I read them and tell them what I think,” the trustee explained. “Then, the D.A.R. officers meet and vote on the recipients.”
In addition to that responsibility, Childs was active in the business world in Gray. She and Frank took over the dry goods section of Childs Department Store in 1955. While it had the same name, the store under her direction started selling more trendy merchandise, including some national brand-name clothing.
“I went to the Merchandise Mart in Atlanta to buy. We had cute, not very expensive ladies’ clothes, up-to-date shoes; we had baby clothes,” she detailed. “We had most anything anybody in Gray needed at that time.”
Childs relinquished control of the store in 1988 and focused on traveling, especially after Frank died of a heart attack at age 60 in 1983. She and a very good friend, Carolyn Solana, made many trips around the globe. They visited Hong Kong, China and Korea.
“That set us on fire,” she said, adding that many other trips followed. She was even featured in a 1992 edition of USA Today.
Also, she and another widow and good friend, Elaine Davis, went with a group from Macon to South America one year.
The two of them had already joined the ‘Friendship Force’, a non-profit group specializing in ‘home visits’ to foreign countries.
“There were groups of people interested in traveling and meeting people in other countries,” Childs explained. “There was a group in Macon, and we went to all kinds of places.
“One of my best experiences,” she recalled, “was staying with a family in New Zealand, and you usually stayed by yourself. I stayed on a sheep farm with a most delightful family. The husband got up every morning playing the bagpipes out with his sheep. It was a wonderful experience.”
The former Patsy Johnson reflected on her life as a Childs.
“Frank’s family was one of my special blessings in life,” she shared. “His father had built several small houses on Childs Street in back of the family home, and several of us newly-married couples lived in these homes.
“When the grandchildren began to arrive,” she said, “we spent many afternoons in our back yards, the children playing together and the moms drinking lemonade and enjoying the lazy afternoons. These cousins are still close today,” she emphasized.
“The entire family gathered every Christmas at the Childs family home,” Childs recalled. “After Frank’s parents, affectionately known as Mama D and Daddy D to all of us, died, Alice and Francis Golson continued the tradition, and in the later years we would easily have more than 100 attend. There are 29 first cousins,” she exclaimed. “Wonderful memories.”
Ever think about remarrying?
“No,” she said emphatically. “I definitely didn’t. But,” she said hesitantly, “I did have one date. A guy at Mercer called me several times, and finally I went.
“And, I thought, ‘if I ever get home, I will never…’ I mean,” Childs explained, “I would rather have been here with my music and my TV. I’m just not interested.”
The grandmother of eight and great-grandmother of seven put it in perspective.
“After you’ve had such a happy marriage, you just remember all those things. I didn’t need anybody else.”
