It was generally accepted that Highland Avenue was the elite address in Montevallo. College people lived there; prosperous businessmen lived there. The houses and lawns were well-maintained. As much as I loved Shelby Street, I found myself occasionally envying the people on Highland Avenue.
Pete and Sassy Givhan with daughter Gene during her wedding to Bob Lightfoot.
The house on Highland that I knew best was that of Ed Givhan, the son of our former landlord, Pete Givhan. In our many adventures, Ed tended to be the leader and I the follower. He seemed a natural-born teacher. Although the Givhans were higher economically and educationally than my family was, they never seemed to make any class distinction that I could see. I always felt welcome in their home. This was a house in which the life of the mind was treasured, where culture was valued, and I was tremendously affected by the time I spent there. For the most part, my home was not intellectually stimulating. My parents seemed to lack the keen understanding of political and cultural issues that the Givhans had, and I sometimes felt a void when I returned to Shelby Street, feeling I had made a clear step down. My parents cut and washed people’s hair, and at times this seemed faintly low-classed as a profession.
Ed Givhan was always a leader and even commanded his own Highland Avenue militia. The troops, left to right, were his sister, Gene, Forrest Brown, and brother, Peter Givhan.
Although I always put up a good front, I have to admit that while I was growing up I always thought of myself as second-string. I had some evidence to prove it. I played second trumpet. I was the water boy for the football team. Even though I organized the Montevallo Brass Band, I never played first trumpet. Ed, however, was definitely first-string, excelling at anything he undertook. He was a great reader, and in music and academics he was top-notch. I can’t say he excelled in sports, though he did go out for football two years. The other players used to say that Givhan hid behind the huddle. But at least he participated. I never even went out for football.
Gorgeous Joy Holcombe topped the homecoming parade float in 1952 on Main Street. Others in the court included Mignon Dailey, Clara Young, Annette McBurnett, Emily Vest, and Evelyn Anderson. The Baptist Church and Plaza Grill are in the background.
Strutting their stuff, Lois Hoffman and Clara Young.
Vicious Tiger’s head majorette, Eleanor Mitchell, could certainly twirl a baton and spin the heads of teenage boys.
Highland Avenue contributed greatly to the female beauty of Montevallo. Shelby Street of course had lots of attractive girls, but Highland Avenue had us beat, I thought. Joy Holcombe, the daughter of the Mr. Holcombe who drove me home from the hospital when I was born, was a real beauty. We first met at Miss Bickham’s nursery school at Alabama College, and we have remained friends ever since. Joy played in the Montevallo High School band, directed by Victor Talmadge Young (called Vicious Tiger by the students), and she was also one of our majorettes. The gorgeous Eleanor Mitchell was another majorette. Other beauties on Highland Avenue included Marsha Trumbauer, whose father—affectionately called Trummie—was head of the theater department at Alabama College, and Lois Hoffman, daughter of one of Montevallo’s two Jewish families.
Marsha and Joy’s mothers would have parties and invite local boys, both from the town and from out in the country. I reckon they wanted to provide a little culture for guys like me, Weed, Joe McGaughy, and the Pea Ridge boys. I was somewhat chagrined that the Highland Street girls seemed to be more attracted to the Pea Ridge boys than to those of us from town. They seemed to regard us as mere friends, but they were attracted in some other way to the country guys. You could see it in the girls’ eyes.
Also living on Highland Avenue was our other Jewish family, the Klotzmans. Sam and his brother Joe came here from West Blocton to open a general dry goods store, but the two had a parting of the ways, and Joe pulled out, moving down the street and establishing a competing dry goods store. Eventually he relocated to Selma.
Joe Klotzman had two children, a boy and a girl named Melvin and Betty Ann. Melvin was a little older than me, and, due to his age and maturity as well as his forward thinking, Melvin became a hero to some of us, particularly us guys from Frog Holler and Shelby Street. Tall and thin, he was an excellent athlete and was very attractive to the girls. Melvin liked older women, especially the college girls, and everywhere he went the women drooled over him.
Frogging around, Elizabeth Chism and Betty Ann Klotzman.
My buddy, Harry Klotzman, and me sitting on his father’s decked-out Pontiac on Main Street. My dad’s Chevy is behind us and next to it is Harry’s Model A Ford.
Mama Rose Klotzman on Main Street with McCulley’s store behind her.
But the thing that we most admired about Melvin was his independence. We were amazed by his willingness to explore the unknown. His wanderlust was established while he was still in high school. He took hitchhiking to a high art. He would hit the road in the summer, getting jobs along the way to support his travel expenses. About the time school was to start, he would return to Highland Avenue. But Melvin really outdid himself when he headed off in search of Martha Ruth Waldhein, one of the angels from Alabama College who had returned to her home in Colombia, South America. Martha was the love of Melvin’s life, and he could not stand to lose her. Eventually he reached her, but this was not to be one of those “they lived happily ever after” stories. He returned to Montevallo a broken boy. But we were still in awe of his courage and his tenacity, and we were sorry when he and his family moved to Selma, leaving Montevallo with one less fascinating person.
I was much closer to Sam Klotzman and his family than to Melvin’s family. I was quite close to Sam’s son Harry, who was my age, and to his sister Frances, born three years after Harry. I was often in the Klotzman home. I adored Mr. Sam and his wife Rose, whom I called Mama Rose. Maybe I started calling her that because Harry and I were often taken for brothers or even twins when we were boys. This resemblance remains today.
I was fascinated by the differences in the Klotzman house. They had a thing that looked like a thermometer next to the front door, which Harry said was filled with blood and had something to do with the Passover. They fed me matzo balls and other Jewish foods, and on occasion they took me with them for dinner at the Jewish Country Club in Birmingham. This was quite an adventure for me. We often went on Sunday, and Mr. Sam would play golf. Harry and I, wearing our shirts and ties, enjoyed playing on the country club grounds. In turn, Harry would go to Bible School with me. The Klotzmans were devoted to their religion but intended that their children be integrated into Montevallo life.
I remember well when Mr. Sam went off to World War II. We prayed for him at church along with all the Christians who were fighting the Huns and the Japs, as we called them. During the war Mama Rose’s mother, whom we called Mama Magoulis, came from Montgomery to live with her, helping her with the household duties and taking care of Harry and Frances. She also helped at the store. Mama Magoulis was the one who taught me to eat and understand Jewish food. It had to be kosher before the family could eat it. Being from Shelby Street, I didn’t worry about the religious restrictions or whether it was kosher or not. I just loved all her food, particularly her matzo balls.
I remember Mama Magoulis coming out on the front porch, hollering with her very distinct Jewish dialect, “Haddy, Haddy, Francie—come home. It’s time to eat” or “Haddy, Francie, it’s getting very late.” I was sad when she left to go back home when Sam returned from the war. Other regular visitors in the Klotzman home were Harry’s Uncle Leon and Aunt Jo, who ran a dry goods business in Columbiana. I was especially fond of their daughters, Merle and Esta, and I have kept in touch with them though the years. Merle, in fact, has been our family’s doctor for a number of years.
When Mr. Sam returned after World War II, he was warmly received by all. He brought home with him a Japanese sword, a flag, two rifles, a canteen, and other items, all of which he stored in a small room upstairs at his store. He never talked about his experiences in the Pacific, but these objects made me think he had been in some pretty rough battles. I was fascinated with the memorabilia, and when Sam was closing his store in the early eighties he called me in and gave me one of the rifles. Later, not long before he died, he gave me the rest of his memorabilia. I was greatly moved by that, and these treasures are still in my possession.
Mama Rose preceded Mr. Sam in death, and I was asked to attend the Jewish funeral with the family. At the end of the service, family members were asked to come forward and sprinkle dirt on the wooden casket. Mr. Sam motioned for me to take some dirt as well, and I have seldom been more touched by a gesture. When Mr. Sam died, Harry and Frances asked me to join in again in the sprinkling ceremony and again I was extremely moved. Gone was a gentleman whose friendship and generosity I had so often been the beneficiary of, and I knew how terribly I would miss him.
The Klotzmans joined the Givhans and other families on Highland Avenue in enabling a boy from Shelby Street to experience a larger world than he would have otherwise known. I shall remain eternally grateful for that.
Few girls could fill out a sweater better than Emily Vest.
Perhaps I should mention that Highland Avenue had not always been the elite neighborhood in Montevallo. Before the Civil War and during the late Victorian period, the most prominent families lived across Shoal Creek on Main Street. Interestingly, in those days this was a biracial community, and it remains so to this day. In my youth, I was aware that the area was primarily black, but I also knew several white families who lived there, including my friend Emily Vest and her grandfather and grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. Payne, as well as Dr. Acker, who lived in the same house as had his father, who practiced medicine in Montevallo in the later nineteenth century.
Emily’s grandmother and grandfather, the Paynes, lived in the first house on the left after you crossed the wooden bridge over Shoal Creek on Main Street. Her parents lived in the Chicago area, where her father managed country clubs. Emily lived with them, but when it came time for her to start to school her parents decided they preferred for her to be schooled in the small, quaint town of Montevallo rather than a big city. Emily stayed for high school and college. During all those years, she spent summers with her parents in Chicago. In 1955, Emily married my friend Dudley Pendleton, and Montevallo became their permanent residence, where they raised two daughters. Dudley passed away several years ago, and Emily still resides in their home in Montevallo.
Up the street from the Paynes lived the Willard “Milton” Davis family. I thought the Davises were the most interesting family living across the creek on Main Street. I was actually kin to them. Mrs. Davis, whose name was Una (though we all called her Mama Davis), was a Mahan. She was the great-granddaughter of my great-great-grandfather’s brother, Archimedes Mahan, who moved to Chilton County from Brierfield in the mid-1800s. One of his children, also named Archimedes but called Arky, was Mama Davis’s father. Early in her life she met and married Willard “Milton” Davis, who worked for Alabama Power Company. Later the couple moved to Montevallo with three children in tow. Milton and Una regularly added to the family until the children numbered seven. From the first grade through high school, their son Wayne was in my class, and I think there was a Davis at almost every grade level.
The Davis family claimed several firsts in our town. Of course, they had more children than anyone else, and I can remember my parents and their friends asking, “When do you think the Davises will have more children so they can field a full baseball team?” But Mr. Davis was a trailblazer in his own right. He became Montevallo’s first Alabama Power Company executive, and he was also one of Montevallo’s first volunteer fire chiefs.
Milton Davis cut quite an imposing figure around Montevallo.
The Davis kids were impressive, and we all envied their abilities. Each had special talents, including art, music, athletics—you name it. This resourceful family always seemed ready to meet and conquer all challenges. For example, when the cyclone of 1938 came through, it blew parts of the Davis house from across the creek all the way to the backyard of our house on Shelby Street. To the Davises, this was no big deal. They moved temporarily to Wilton, and the Chilton County relatives, who were all carpenters, quickly arrived in Montevallo and with no fanfare just built a new house.
Because the family was so large, money was always somewhat tight. But somehow Mama Davis was able to put fine meals on the table for nine people three times a day, 365 days a year. And if visitors or kids like me showed up at mealtime, this was no problem for Mama Davis. “Pull up a chair, sit down, and help yourself,” she would always say. To this day I can remember the fragrant aroma of the cinnamon rolls and cobbler pie she often served for dessert.
Mama Davis in the kitchen where she spent a great deal of time. One of her sons, Roy, is behind her.
The Davises knew how to have fun. Peggy, an older sister, was the younger children’s leader, and in the summer she often took the family down the street to the swimming hole at Little Springs. The vacant lot next door to the Davis home became the ball field. It didn’t matter who showed up; everybody got to play. In the summer the family would sometimes take their meals out in the yard. But the neatest thing they did for fun was when Mama Davis took all her kids down to the Strand Theatre on Saturdays and sat on the steps that led from the theater to the street so they could watch the people going in and coming out when the movies changed. They themselves usually did not actually go to the movie, but Mama Davis purchased five-cent bags of popcorn for all children present and they stood there eating it as they watched the movie patrons and conversed with their friends. At the time, no one seemed to think this was strange.
When the Davis boys—Wayne, Paul, Roy, and Willard—learned that a coat hanger would bring a penny at the Deluxe Cleaners up the hill on Main Street, they would pick up, beg for, or somehow acquire fifteen coat hangers each, and for a penny for each coat hanger they would each get a ticket to the Saturday double feature and a bag of Mr. Eddie Watson’s popcorn.
When Wayne and I were in the sixth grade, Mr. Davis got a promotion and took a new job in Tuscaloosa. This worked out fine for them, as Alabama College only accepted girls, but at the University of Alabama the boys could also be educated while living at home and thereby have an opportunity to lead rich lives. But their leaving Montevallo was a tragic loss for me, and I missed them very much, particularly Wayne and Paul.