From SPSU Wiki

Yes, my father carried his slide rule around with him, hanging on his belt, for quick estimated calculations on the fly! He was very fast with it. But, he told me they give approximate answers, not exact. This was in the days before calculators. Dad taught me how to use his, but I didn't need to calculate things much, as a kid, that I couldn't do with pencil and paper. It was fun to play with!

Who Are You, Anyway?

I'm Dannis, the daughter of Will [later called Bill] and Eloise Spaeth.

Huh? What's a Spaeth Collection?

In 1949, my father, William Olin Spaeth, started school at what was then Southern Technical Institute.

My parents left me a couple photo albums with documents and pictures related to their time at STI, and I refer to it as the "Spaeth Collection".

Why Are You Putting The Spaeth Collection On This Wiki?

Well, for one thing, my nephew got married, and I decided it'd be a neat thing to scan in all these old photo albums and burn a CD for him. But, as I work on the project, a lot of pictures don't have dates. I have a lot of unanswered questions. Dad died in 1988, and Mama back in 1982, so I can't ask them.

But, there are all of you STI alumni who might see the Spaeth Collection and might remember my parents. For all you younger set who never heard of the Spaeths, I want to tell you about my parents so you can share them with me. Some of this stuff might even be interesting to the whole STI community, such as the construction of the Marietta campus.

My collection is small, but I'm still going through old stuff, and might find more interesting items to share as time goes by. You never know...

My Parents - William Olin Spaeth & Eloise Cliatt Spaeth, World War II Veterans

Here's a little background about my parents:

William Olin Spaeth b.9 Nov 1925 Greenwood,LeFlore County, MS

d.16 Sep 1988 Chamblee, DeKalb, GA

Named after his uncle Olin Smart, who died of TB, and his uncle Will Spaeth, who died in a swimming accident. Both uncles died young.

Maggie Eloise Cliatt Spaeth b.27 Sep 1922 Randolph Co, GA

d.16 Mar 1982 Fulton Co, GA

My Dad, William Olin Spaeth

Dad's Early Life

• Nov 1931-Nov 1932 Waterford, Marshall County, MS [in NW MS on highway w/dangerous curve, hwy through middle of town that became a federal hwy.
• 1934 Waterford, Marshall, MS 4 room shack w/front and back porch
• 1936 Waterford, Marshall, MS up the hill from the curve
• Religion: Before Nov 9, 1937 family joined the only Methodist Church in Waterford MS.
• Parkin, Cross County, AR
• 1940's moved to Blytheville, Mississippi, AR where Edwin Booth Spaeth & family built his home.

I remember the steps leading up to the attic bedroom had a varnished polished surface smooth as glass. A dark red stain. The rail was simple, but with the same polish and glass like feel. His grandfather, who immigrated to the US from Wurtemburg before Germany was a country, lived in Cleveland Ohio in the 1850's and was listed in the City Directory as a carpenter and joiner. Dad inherited the family talent and was great at building bookcases and other things. One bookcase he built is still probably attached to the wall of our old house in Cornelia we rented from the Websters. When he had the bottom shelf on it, we both sat on it. At the time, Dad weighed about 200 pounds and I weighed about 150. The shelf didn't budge. After he got it built, he pounded the nails in slightly, filled the holes with wood putty, and varnished it until it had a satin finish. You had to look really closely to see where the nails had been! But, I was sad when he attached it to the wall and it was painted to match the light pink wall of the dining room. I liked the varnish better.

Education

• Parkin High, Parkin, AR

-High School Transcripts

Eng 4, Alg 1 1/2, Pl. Geom 1, Phys 1, Hist 2, Latin 0, French 1, Agri 0, Mil 0, Shops 0, Others 1 1/2, Civics 1, Arith 1, S. Geom 0, Trig 0, Draw 0, Germ. 0, Span.0, Bio 1, Chemistry 1/2, G. Science 1. Total 16 1/2--STI Transcript.

• Southern Technical Institute, Chamblee GA.

26 Sep 1949-8 Sep 1951 [9 Jun 1951]

4th in class of 38.

-College Transcripts

Dad's Life Before the Navy

• Parents Addr. Blytheville AR Father is Insurance Agent
• Aptitude Tests: Minnesota Paper Form Board 8, Bennett Mechanical Comprehension 55.
• IQ Etc: Moore Business & Industrial Decile 60

No transfer credits.

Personality Rating: Slicer Wilkinson rated Dad good on everything

Appearance Excellent on all but 2

Industry Excellent

Knowledge of Subject Excellent

Ability to get along w/others Excellent

Judgment Excellent

Leadership Good

Initiative Excellent

Health Excellent

Enthusiasm Good

Reliability Excellent

Promptness Excellent

• Greenwood, MS Lived by the mighty Mississippi River.

• Other towns in MS while his dad struggled to find work during the Depression. His father worked for Singer Sewing Machine Co., sold wildcat stocks, and joined the CCC and WPA to keep his family fed.

• Parkin, AR where Dad finished at Parkin High School.
• Blytheville, AR where Dad lived when he joined the Navy, as soon as he was old enough, in 1943! His father sold insurance for years there.
• Milsaps College, Jackson, MS 1943

Navy Life

Most of this information comes from my dad's Honorable Discharge and related papers.

• Enlisted : Nov 1943 [He turned 18 on Nov 9]
• Home Addr At That Time: 215 S. 16th St, Blytheville, Mississippi, AR

Dad's Parents, Edwin Booth Spaeth, Sr and Georgellen Smart Spaeth, lived in that house until they died, he in 1972 and she in 1986.

• Aviation Machinist Mate 3rd Class in Navy. WWII.

Flew as plane captain on 14,000 pound PBY bomber w/11 people such as Pilot, Co-Pilot, Navigator, etc.

Served at Great Lakes and met Mama while a patient there sick with cat fever [catarrhal fever]. Mama got him moved from a top bunk to a lower bunk because he had a high fever. They dated three times and got married by a Justice of the Peace in Norman OK, 26 Aug 1944.

• Application For Records 12-2-1988, original request signed 15 May 1988 by WOS. Did not have his Social Security Number. Records between Hubbard, James E and Z may have been lost in the 1973 Fire in the National Personnel Records Center [Military Personnel Records] 9700 Page Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63132
• Dates From Letters -- William Olin Spaeth to his wife Maggie Eloise Cliatt Spaeth [now in possession of Brigham Young University Special Collections] I listed the earliest date from each address:

• 9 Jul 1944 S 2/c AMM Class 46 BKS 61 NATTC Norman, OK.
• Marriage 26 Aug 1944 in Norman, OK. Mama was discharged from the Navy at this time and worked at Mom's Restaurant in Norman as a waitress. When my parents married, Mama didn't know where Dad was born, so he is down as "Grain County, Mississippi" on their marriage license! The place was Greenwood, in LeFlore County.
• 18 Dec 1944 S 1/c AMM ?U Class 3444 NAB Quonset Point, RI

Dad attended a gunnery school in Quanset, RI and was involved in the infamous mustard gas testing there.

He had the red scarring from the burns on his neck and chest his whole life. His death from multiple myeloma, a rare bone-marrow cancer, is common among the testees, from a technical report released from the VA in 1992. I am sad the military thought it necessary to gather this information, but perhaps my father's ultimate sacrifice helped the War effort in ways not shown in the report.

• 7 Jan 1945 Spaeth, William O., 764 74 25, attached to VPB2 as Student, US Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, FL.

During this sad month, they had a baby girl, and she died. She was the first Susan Eloise Spaeth. Mama nearly died also. Her father dropped everything and took his mother on a train from Cuthbert, GA to Jacksonville to see about her because he knew something was wrong. They were farmers and didn't have a phone.

• 10 Feb 1945 S 1/c AMM 2-B-2-45 BKS "C" NAGS Yellow Water, US NAVAL AIR SCHOOL, Jacksonville, FL

Dad's Life After the Navy

• Home Addr at Time of Release: Rt. 1 Edison, Randolph, GA

• Moving to Edison. When Dad got his Honorable Discharge, they moved to Southwest GA where Mama's parents lived. At the time, they lived in Carnegie, a small town south of Cuthbert in Randolph County, and they found a place in Edison, nearby in Calhoun County.

Granddaddy was Edward Thomas Cliatt, who farmed all his life. He taught Dad how to plow, but Dad was left-handed. Granddaddy refused to accommodate Dad's left-handedness, so Dad would wait until his father-in-law went far enough away, and he set the plow for a leftie. But, Dad wasn't a success at farming, so he tried his hand at a variety of occupations.

• Plumber's Helper, Electrician's Helper, Roofer's Helper odd jobs.

I imagine jobs were scarce with the end of the War and all the vets looking for work, in a little place. Cuthbert only had about 3000 people. Edison was even smaller. Dad learned well at his apprentice jobs. Once, with the roofer, they had to work on a chapel with a high, steep roof! He told me about that when he went up on our roof of the 80-year old house in Cornelia to put up a TV antenna. Then, when he got tired of climbing up there to adjust it when we changed channels, he got a rotator assembly from Radio Shack and installed that. Mama by this time was a nervous wreck! With Standard Telephone Co, he had to install a microwave tower atop Brasstown Bald with icy roads driving a truck with heavy equip. Needless to say, we didn't hear much about that, but the citizens of Habersham County are probably enjoying the results of Dad's skills even today. Brasstown Bald is the highest point in Georgia, and the road up there was very curvy and with steep cliffs.

• Dad's Gas Station

Dad earned enough money to buy his own gas station and did car repairs. At one time, he recruited Mama to cook hamburgers for the customers in these pre-fast food days. It was the Sing Oil Station in Edison, GA, and was still standing in 1989 and selling Sing gasoline!

Southern Tech and Tech Lawson Apts.

Finally, Dad heard about STI and decided to move camp to Chamblee, GA. Mama returned to nursing school at Grady when he began there. But, at the time, nurses were required to live in the dormitory, married or not! I have a pass, dated 1 Jul 1950, Mama had to have signed to leave for the weekend to visit her parents in Cuthbert! My older sister, who was three, had to live with her grandparents until her parents finished school two years later; I think she was off to Cuthbert every time they could afford it. Mama finally got pleurisy with effusion and had to quit nursing school because she recovered poorly.

Tech Lawson Apartments, also called Georgia Tech Apartments, were probably located where the old Naval Air Station barracks were, East of Hardee Ave and north and south of Fifth and Sixth Streets. There were two large buildings; the North one was shaped like an I with the base wider than the top, pointing North. The South one was like an E on its back with a tail to the right. My parents did not enjoy living there. Mama always answered my 'whys' with, "Well, they were converted barracks!" Maybe she meant that they weren't quiet, like old apartments where you hear every whisper from next door, or that they were small. Both my parents lived in houses except for when my mother rented a room when she followed Dad from Norman, OK to Jacksonville, FL while she waited for him to be discharged. Mama probably felt very cramped in an apartment after growing up on a farm! She was an only child. Although, Dad had two brothers and surely had to share space with them [he was the middle brother]. Mama often joked that Dad could've lived out of a suitcase. She was a packrat.

Teaching at Southern Tech

Dad finished his coursework in June, 1951, and was recruited as an instructor before he graduated with the Spring and Summer classes in August. His good friend Robert C. Carter also started teaching at this time, and stayed until retirement. Other faculty friends who lived near us in Chamblee and Doraville were Johnny Meintzer, Mr. Goodwin, and many others. I was small when Dad taught at STI and do not remember the names, but as I find them in the family archives, I will add them.

Life After Lawson

Dad bought a house, and a new VW Beetle, what most of the faculty were driving in the early days of STI. Most wore suit jackets with the patches on the elbows, the style back then, and most had crew cuts and bow ties. Most traded their VW's yearly.

One Halloween students played a prank on an unsuspecting faculty member, and hauled his VW up two flights of steps into the gym, and left it in the middle of the floor! Of course, they were required to admit to their misbehavior and get it back down. They often lifted the back bumper, which caused the wheels to dish in slightly, and it looked funny. But especially at Halloween, they had to be on guard for tricks! I guess the students didn't solicit treats, except for their kids, those who had them.

We moved to another house, at 2367 Ridgeway Drive, and Peachtree Industrial Blvd was extended and now runs through our living room. I joked with my daughter that if STI had to move because of the runway extension, DOT ran a highway through our house, and FAA ran a runway through my father's school! But maybe STI moved to Marietta because the military transferred the base from Chamblee to Marietta where there was more space to build, and STI just followed the need for training. This happened at about the same time in the early 60's. I think the date of the transfer was 1959.

Standard Telephone Co.

Dad put a microwave tower up on Brasstown Bald, the highest point in GA. I remember him telling us of how steep the road was and how it became gravel, then mud [weather was deteriorating that day]. He used my grandfather's old 1955 Ford pickup truck to carry it, and had to weight it down with a huge rock so it wouldn't slide as bad! When he got home, he was going to just dump the rock, but my sister thought it was pretty, and he put it at the end of the driveway by the house. We called it "Gunlog Mountain" and it is still at our old house in Cornelia, I imagine, if someone didn't move it.

Southern Bell Telephone Co.--Sept.22, 1969

805 Peachtree St.NE

Dad started his new job on my birthday. For a while he commuted from Cornelia to Atlanta on Greyhound, but in those pre-GA 365 days, it took 2 hours by bus or car. We eventually moved back to Chamblee.

Southern Bell moved Dad's department up to Perimeter Center, where he worked until he got cancer at age 62. He was just short of retirement when he died.

My Mama, Maggie Eloise Cliatt Spaeth

Mama was born in Randolph Co. and went to Cuthbert School, which was still a one-room schoolhouse until she got to high school, and then it became Cuthbert High School. She was first in her family to graduate. The family was against her beginning nurses' training, something 'nice' girls didn't do back then, but finally Mama did go to Patterson's Hospital for school. She continued her training at Columbus City Hospital, then went into the Navy WAVES as a nurse. She got basic training at Hunter College in New York City, and met Dad when he came to Great Lakes Naval Station. Mama had health problems and could not reenlist. She followed him to Norman OK so they could marry, in 1944, and she worked at Mom's Restaurant there. My former father-in-law, who entered the Army after the War, was stationed in Norman and remembered Mom's Restaurant. Dad went to Quanset, RI for a gunnery school, and Mama stayed with her parents until he came down to Jacksonville, FL, where she rented a room from the Lees in a house there. After Dad got out of the Navy, they moved to Edison, GA, in Calhoun Co, just south of where she grew up in Randolph Co, and the rest of their history is in the Dad's Early Life section above. Both my parents are buried in Mt. Hebron Baptist Church Cemetery in Carnegie, GA, with a lot of Mama's family, most of whom farmed down there. At both my parents' funerals, many old friends survived to meet me and remembered my parents well.

Memories

My dad talked about visiting the set of Officer Don's kid show based at WSB-TV in Atlanta. As they were broadcasting, people behind the scenes would scoot around on toilet seats on the floor and perform various antics designed to make Don Kennedy forget his lines! He had a lot of funny stories about that occasion which I can't remember now. That show was one of my favorites as a kid, which had a puppet named Orville The Dragon.

He also worked a summer at Bell Labs and came home with a Speech Synthesizer. He attached a 3" reel-to-reel tape recorder to the thing, which was a cardboard box with transistors looking like tiny golden three-legged UFO's standing all over it, held with neat dots of silver solder. When he started it up, it said "AyEeeEyeOweYou" over and over in a male voice. Quite impressive for the early 60's! The print on the yellow and white cardboard had notes to direct the assembler, and directions for several other projects with the parts. He gave it to me a few years later, but I never could figure out how to alter it for other projects. For a while, I also had a collection of old equipment including 2 40's phones.

Just before we moved from Doraville, GA, our neighborhood had a prowler. Dad built a system using squares of cardboard, insulated wire, aluminum foil, and wrappers from cigarette packages to make the pressure switches waterproof, and buried these sensors in the yard in various places. Wires ran to a cardboard box top with Christmas tree lights installed, to light up when someone walked on the sensors. Our own burglar alarm system, powered by a battery! It didn't catch the bad guy, but Mama hit him between the shoulder blades with a Coke bottle. That didn't slow him down, so Dad took her with him to learn to shoot guns, and bought a .22 pistol. Though Dad tried to get him, it was Mama who shot him in the leg. He still got away. Finally, police caught him, and all our neighbors breathed easier. My parents were quite a team, even without catching a crook.

When we moved to Cornelia, GA in 1965, Dad built a UHF antenna. He had us stand in various poses with a finger on the antenna screw in the back of our TV, then used coat hangers and foil on a wood frame to construct what resembled a bat, which he put on a cup hook in the ceiling. It got great reception. I can also remember the time he took apart our 1964 color Sears TV to fix it. There were HUNDREDS of vacuum tubes of various sizes which took over the dining room table for about a month until he figured it out. Dad did get it fixed so we could watch Star Trek in color again. As he worked on it, he told me he always warned his students to keep an arm behind their backs as they used a screwdriver to touch the back of the cathode ray tube [the picture tube] to discharge the 20,000 volts stored there, before working on a television! I got to see him doing what he taught students to do in class. When he required his students to take the FCC Radiotelephone Operator First-Class License, he went and took his, first, even though he didn't need one.

Dad constructed a cabinet for speakers that brought great sounds from our phonograph and hi-fi amplifier at home. Back in the days before stereo sound, the hi-fi had vacuum tubes [so did the TV], and speakers had to be hooked up just right or you got an ear-splitting whine! Dad belonged to Columbia Record Club and so we had many classical record albums. Records, the 33 1/3 RPM variety, played on a turntable where you carefully lowered the phonograph needle onto the vinyl disk about twice the diameter of a CD. These were analog recordings. We had 78's of 40's music Mama bought, of the old, fragile charcoal discs a little smaller than 33 1/3's, and the 45's, which had bigger holes. You had to carefully press an adapter into the big hole to slip it over the spindle on the phonograph. As the record played, the grooves led the arm with the needle in a spiral from the outside of the disk to the middle. CD's and the hard drive in your PC have concentric circles that don't touch or spiral. A few records we had were red, but most were black. Besides classical and 40's, we also had some more modern tunes to enjoy, and Dad's stereo system made them even better.