As motor courts began cropping up in Florida, George
saw an opportunity for expanding his own business, so
he opened Savannah's first motel.
HOMETOWN LIVING AT I TS BEST 117
attention now turned to the motel and
his other business endeavors, George
gave the barber shop to his brother
Simon.
By this time, Simon had two
daughters from a marriage that had
ended in divorce. “The mother of the
children did not want them,” said
Shelly. “It was a terrible situation.
Understand, this happened in the
1940s, when a war was going on. It was
typical at the time that if a father had
daughters to raise on his own and he
didn’t have immediate family to take
them in, the girls would go into the
convent to be cared for by the nuns.
“Uncle Simon went to see his
daughters often. Coincidentally, Sister
Marian, the nun assigned to Tina and
Sadie’s care, and Uncle Simon fell in
love. Sister Marian left the convent
and married my Uncle Simon. I always
knew her as Aunt Marian, and I loved
them all very much.”
Shelly’s mother was born in
1909, the tenth girl born to
a farming family in Screven
County. “My grandparents had ten
girls and adopted two boys,” said
Shelly. “There was tremendous poverty
on those farms. Most everybody was
growing cotton. The reason you had
ten children was because you needed
children to work the farm.”
Shelly’s grandfather was also a
logger. During the winter months,
he cut trees in the swamp and
lashed them together in Brier Creek,
“Savannah’s only major tributary
south of Augusta. The confluence
marks the beginning of the lower
Savannah” (georgiaencyclopedia.org).
When spring rains came, he lashed
the trees together and floated them
down to Savannah. With the money
he made from the trees, he would buy
a mule and cart, flour, sugar, coffee,
and enough fabric for his wife to sew
clothes for the kids. Then he would
ride that mule and wagon back to the
FROM FAR LEFT Shelly's father learned to speak
English in the barber shop he worked at. Eventually
he applied U.S. for citizenship. Shelley's father in
front of the Seacoast Motel he opened. Shelly's
mother and sister. RIGHT Shelly's father also added
a gas station and a restaurant near the motel.
/georgiaencyclopedia.org