Grandpa George Hamilton Waldrep

Remembrance of George Hamilton Waldrep

By Alae Risse (Waldrep) Thomas

2^nd Granddaughter

Some early remembrances of Grandpa Waldrep were his evening visits to our house, across the road from the homeplace on Ridge Road, while we were having our evening meal.  We could see him coming slowly with his hands clasped behind him.

On Saturday mornings he would load the back end of the car, which was a “T” model, I believe, with sacks of shelled corn to carry to town and the corn was ground into corn meal for bread, etc.  He would always take Douglas and Roger with him.  He said the grand girls couldn’t go.  We would always beg him to let us go, too.  A year or two later, he finally let the girls go.  It was interesting to watch the corn grinding into corn meal.  We found out that Grandpa would take Doug and Roger to a cowboy movie, but they were not to tell.

Grandpa was a Supervisor with the Pacolet Mills in New Holland, Georgia.  He was responsible for the morning shift in the Spinning Department.  Richard and Avie, my parents, worked in that area.  On April 6, 1936, Daddy was looking out the window (5^th floor) towards Gainesville when Grandpa saw him and told him to get back to work.   Daddy said he was looking at a bad cloud in the distance towards Gainesville.  A few minutes later, Grandpa saw Daddy looking out the window again, and was angry with him.  Daddy said, “Look at all those birds flying around in Gainesville”!  Grandpa yelled, “It’s a tornado!”  “Get everybody off this floor!”  Grandpa had a very shrill whistle and he and Daddy started yelling at everyone to get downstairs.  The top floor was hit.  There were some deaths, but many lives were saved.  My Mom was 2 months pregnant with me!