In 1942 Fred and Waive were excited for their church friends Luther and Doris who told them they were moving to Atlanta where Luther would study for the ministry.  Fred to begin to feel the call to become a Baptist minister and after talking about it with Waive they decided to follow their friends to Atlanta so that Fred could study at the Atlanta Bible Institute.  Not knowing how they would move their belongings to Atlanta, they knew it was the will of God when, as Waive tells the story, “A man rang the doorbell and asked to use the phone as his big truck broke down right in front of our house and he needed to call his boss.  She talked to him and found out he was going to Atlanta, Georgia and his truck was empty and would be glad to haul our stuff to Atlanta.” Their prayers were answered and a week later they were in Atlanta.

    On the way to Atlanta the Junior’s stopped in Cartersville, Georgia and spent the night with Waive’s aunt and uncle McKinley and Lea Simmons who lived on a farm.   Their oldest daughter, Barbara was surprised that they had no indoor plumbing, got their water from drawing buckets up from a well and even worse, they had an outhouse behind the house. Barbara said she could hardly understand that they were saying with their southern accents. One thing Barbara did remember was McKinley telling her the red clay in Georgia was from the blood of the confederate soldiers who had died there during the Civil War.

Arriving in Atlanta, they went to the Bible Institute who had told Fred they would find them a place to live but when they checked in, the Institute told them that no housing could be found due to the War but they could stay in the Institute’s dormitories.  With all their belongings in the truck, nothing else could be done so they moved into the dormitories, putting their furnishings in one of the school’s storage rooms.  Not having their own place, they ate their meals at the Institute’s dinning room with the students.  The kids found the food to be strange, never had heard of much less eaten southern food.  They had for the first-time grits, black eyed peas and corn bread, nothing like the food that their mother made.  One night the kids were really happy when they served what looked like chocolate pudding and they all dived into it only to find on the first spoonful that it was actually prune pudding.  Being brought up with “manners” they couldn’t spit it out and managed to get it down.  Waive new something was wrong when she saw all their faces, what a sight.  Waive took one bite of her pudding and did show a slight surprise but proceeded to eat more.  The children said they wouldn’t eat any more which embarrassed Waive for her the school was giving them free room and food.  Waive then told the children they had to sit their and eat it all or they would get a spanking when they got home.  All the kids took the spanking except Sue who ate all of her pudding.  

After a few months staying in the school dormitory, Fred found a two-story house on Peachtree Street a few blocks from Georgia Tech University.  The kids were happy to have their own home again and their mother’s cooking.   The house was a two-story house, the family all lived on the second story while the first floor was used for a business selling chenille products.   After attending bible school during the day, on nights and weekends Fred would run his chenille business.  Fred would buy large bolts of raw chenille sheeting wholesale and have them turned into bedspreads, house coats, rugs and linens by a Jewish friend Abe Bressler that ran a tailor business.  

While Fred was busy with bible school and his business, Waive took care of the kids and when she had time, studied bible scripture with Fred.  Wanting the kids to learn music, Waive chose instruments for the girls to play and arranged for lessons, Barbara the marimba, Sue the saxophone, Dixie electric the Hawaiian guitar, Carole took piano lessons and Gary played the trumpet. 

Updated: 11-30-2021

1943