Shirley Beck has proven all her life she is not afraid to try anything, and the results have almost always been successful. One of her early ventures, however, didn’t work out.
Beck, 89, was born in a house in James and grew up in the community. She was one of 13 children born to Maggie Hawkins and John Henry Burnette. She was around 8 or 9 at the time of one of her very few unsuccessful ventures.
Beck’s father had planted cotton, and on one occasion she saw him paying the laborers the same day they worked. She thought that was a good way to make money.
“I tried it the next day, but I had to give my cotton basket back,” she chuckled. “I couldn’t do it. That was my last day. I couldn’t do that.”
There was actually one other ‘venture’ Beck didn’t complete. She didn’t quite finish school.
“I went to Jones County until I was 16,” she recalled. “I was in the 11th grade. I met my husband, and we got married. That ended the school.”
Shirley Burnette met Harold Beck while working in the dining hall of what formerly was known as The Blue Mirror, a combination filling station/ dance hall with tourist cabins on Macon Highway in Jones County. Her father owned the business, and Harold was a frequent customer. Harold and Shirley purchased the store after they were married and changed the name to Johnny’s Place.
After dating for several months, Burnette and Beck were married New Year’s Day, 1951, in Barnesville. She was only 16 and 10 years younger than her new partner in life.
“Mama didn’t know about it,” Beck said. One sister was aware of it, her daughter, Joann Seabolt, interjected.
“They called to verify it, and Myrtle (a sister) answered the phone,” Seabolt related. “She said, ‘Yeah, they can get married.’ They had permission to get married, but it wasn’t mama who gave it to them.”
Beck didn’t share the news with anyone then.
“I didn’t care what they thought,” she pointed out.
The newlyweds took a trip to Florida, and Beck was the driver.
“I was 16 and didn’t have a license when I drove down there,” she acknowledged, but added, “I was driving crazy, but I always did. When I would see a car on the road, I had to catch it so I could pass it.”
Beck didn’t just try to pass other cars. She wanted to – and did –outrun an airplane in her car. Harold Beck owned a small airplane and flew it all over Middle Georgia.
The couple at one point lived in Bradley, and he kept his plane at the Milledgeville airport. They raced from home to the airport.
“He took off. He had to run the road,” Beck recalled. “I was in the car, a Cadillac, and I beat him to the airport. I was sitting in Milledgeville waiting for him when he got there.”
Beck said her husband, who died nine years ago, had fun with his airplane while they were still living in Bradley.
“We would go get the plane, come back, and land in the road right in front of the house,” she remembered. “And, there would be people in their garden, hoeing, and he would swoop right down on them. We came in one day, and there was Holmes Hawkins (sheriff). All he said was, ‘good airport, good landing.’” Beck took up flying herself, but she didn’t get as far as she wanted.
“I would get to the point where it was time for me to do the flying,” she recalled. “I would get the keys, check all the nuts and bolts, and the instruments inside, and call and tell them I was ready to fly, to solo. I hate to say this,” she went on, “but he made me quit. He didn’t want me to do it. I never got to fly solo.
“He’s dead and gone, but he always wanted to tell me what I could do and what I couldn’t do,” Beck commented.
Beck recalled that, prior to their marriage, Harold would use his airplane in a very unusual way.
“He used to come over in his plane. He would put a letter in an envelope, attach it to a gas cap, and drop it out to tell me when he was coming. During that time, people were on (telephone) party lines, and you couldn’t get through, so he would drop it down.”
Beck for a few years was able to use her passion for passing other cars for more than just fun – she did it on a racetrack. She went one night to the Figure Eight Raceway on Macon Highway across from Greene’s Water Wells, and she was hooked.
“We went one time, and I said, ‘that’s what I want to do,’” she recalled. “Harold and my brother, Billy, fixed me a race car. And, Billy knew how to make everything run fast.
“It took me a few times because the man said I was going too fast. Try not to pass on the first lap, or something. I got used to it, and every time I was number one.”
According to her daughter, she never lost.
“T-99 was the car number,” Seabolt said.
Beck’s success attracted so much attention that Harold stopped going to the track and, in fact, one night, after she had gotten home with the race car, he showed how unhappy he was.
“I backed my car up where I parked it,” Beck revealed. “And, Harold came out of the house, went right in front of it, and he emptied his pistol right through the radiator.”
Beck commented that she didn’t say or do anything.
“I didn’t do anything. I just had the radiator fixed for the next Saturday.”
Donald Greene, a member of the family that owned the track, remembers Beck’s abilities.
“She was the queen out there,” Greene commented. “She pretty much dominated the Powder Puff.”
In addition to the racing and flying exploits, Beck learned to water ski at Callaway Gardens.
“I skied all over Lake Sinclair,” she said with a smile.
The talented middle-aged businesswoman also bowled.
“I bowled with her in a league for about three years,” Seabolt shared. “She was very good and has several trophies from then.”
The Becks owned a monkey for three or four years, and the mother and daughter believe he likely saved their lives. Their house caught fire one night, and Seabolt is convinced the monkey helped the family escape the blaze.
“He was jumping around and making monkey noises,” she commented. “The noise woke up mama and daddy. We barely got out. We had to climb through a bedroom window.”
Beck, thanks to her husband, was not able to get a job outside the home, but it is a well known fact in Jones County that she has worked hard most of her adult life. Rather than fight her husband for the right to work, she decided to go into business for herself.
“He wouldn’t let me go out and work,” she said. “I decided to buy some trailers. I kept on doing it and been doing it for over 50 years now.”
She purchased five mobile homes at the outset and believes she has bought 17 altogether. Ten are in place now, and they won’t be replaced, Beck stated.
Beck got into the mobile home business in the late 1960s, and in 1975 she assumed the care of a grandson.
“They didn’t expect him to live when he born, so I took him on myself,” she said.
The couple eventually adopted the grandson.
Beck said that, even though she was not working outside the home, she stayed busy. Her duties included handling the business of the trucking company, taking tickets from drivers and paying them.
“I was taking care of the kids, taking care of the trailers, taking care of the trucking, and I took care of the house, too. I stayed busy.”
Seabolt reminded her mother that she did work outside the home one time at a shirt factory. However, Harold did not want her working and refused to help around the house, Beck recalled. One morning, after about six months on the job, she was headed to work when she remembered that she had forgotten to ask her husband if he had repaired the brakes on the vehicle. She found out the answer.
“I almost ran over a man crossing the street; I said it’s time for me to quit. So, I did.”
Beck may have quit that job, but, despite her age, she has not quit working.
“No one helps me manage the trailers today,” she said emphatically. “I take care of them myself. I do have someone who works on the trailers when I need something done. But, I manage them myself. It’s my way or the highway.”
