Newborn House Restoration

Report #2 from the annual Newborn School Reunion:

We were very pleased
today to have Mary (Pitts) Formo as one of our special visitors during the tour
of homes that was part of the annual Newborn School Reunion. Mary Formo lived
here for several years with her grandmother, Mary Pitts (aka "Aunt Mamie"). Mary
knew that we are interested in the history of the house and shared some old
pictures with us.

Above,
the Newborn House as it appeared during Christmas-time in 1929 (notice the
garland strung between the front porch columns. The basic shape of the house has
been maintained through the years. One key feature we noticed is the railing
around the top of the front porch and above the bay window in the dining room.

At left, Mary (Pitts) Formo is shown in the late ’40s or
early ’50s riding on a wheel barrow being pushed by
her father, Garland Pitts, the youngest son of Dr. J.T. (Julius Thomas) Pitts and Mary Pitts. In this photo, you can see that the stairs went all the way cross
the porch and there is a shed roof sticking out over the well. We replaced a
later, smaller (and more rickety) version of the wooden back steps with a set of
brick steps. Otherwise, the back porch back then seems very similar to the back
porch now.

Below, the picture shows one of the Pitts boys (J.T., we think) being held by
one of the tenants who worked for the family. The photo shows a good view of the
flower pit that was used to store plants through the winter and to start the
seeds for the early garden. The basic structure is still standing, but all of
the woodwork, roof and windows are missing. This photo will be very helpful when
we get around to restoring the flower pit.

The Newborn School opened in the early 1920s and served the local
community through the mid-1950s. The school house, which had only four class
rooms for all 11 grades, still stands just a stone’s throw from the house we are
restoring. Each fall, former students of the school return to the old school
house to socialize and reminisce. This year, the former students and family
members are invited to tour our home to see how it has changed since their
school days.

Here’s the first report from this year’s Newborn School Reunion. Al
Fleming, who now lives in Dahlonega, attended the Newborn School in the early
1940s. When he learned that our home would be open for a visit, he sent us the
following e-mail:

"In the early 1940′s when I was 11 or 12, my younger brother
(about seven) and my older brother (Julian) was 15 or so, we were ‘boarded’ at
the Pitts’ house – my wonderful ‘Aunt Mamie’s’ – during the week while our mother
taught school at Porterdale, GA. (This arrangement was necessitated because
there were no teaching jobs available for my widowed mother in Newborn’s
four-room school.)

"Living in the Pitt’s home where we were treated as her own
kids, we did chores and had responsibilities. Aunt Mamie had a cow in a shed on
the property, and I regularly churned the milk to make the most delicious butter
imaginable. Aunt M. had butter molds with fascinating designs like cows and
trees and flowers. But when I went there the cowshed had no electricity and in
winter the cow had to be milked by lantern – so I strung a wire, hung a light
and put a switch on the back porch to illuminate the shed. OSHA, EPA, and child
labor laws were far in the future.

"In the side yard below the dining room window was a ‘pit’
where potted plans were stored in winter. It was a brick structure with glass
roof with tiers of shelves for the flowers. Seems to me I spent more time toting
water to Aunt M’s ‘pit’ than I spent in school!

"The Pitts family boys – four of them – were all older than
we, but were in and out of the house frequently. At Christmas, we all engaged in
stringing lights on a large cedar that grew in a stone-surrounded space beside
the front walk. When adults were not watching, some of the elder Pitts boys were
getting lit, too. Their father, Dr Pitts, was .a very vocal prohibitionist and
anti-tobacco firebrand years in advance of his time. He once offered to buy
‘Cokes’ for every body on the bus he rode from Atlanta home, if they would
refrain from smoking during the trip.

"On the side of the house toward town at that time, there
was a big tree with limbs reaching out over the porch. We slept in the second
bedroom from the top of the stairs on that side. When my older brother and his
pals would gather ‘downtown’ some nights after my curfew, I’d climb out the
window, down the limb, shimmy down that tree and sneak down to join the group. I
wasn’t always welcome, and got ratted on.

"Your home was a showplace when built around the turn of the
twentieth century, with perhaps the first stained-glass fan window above the
front door. In winter it was colder than an igloo except in the always-warn
kitchen, where two stoves and the fireplace kept us cozy. I’m so glad that you’re
interested in it’s long history. We look forward to visiting your home and the
Gay-Chupp house where my grandmother Leila Gay (Stowe) and Aunt Mamie were
raised."