ABOVE Shelly comes from "tough stock." Her mother Frances was one of ten girls who lived on the family farm in Screven County.
Frances spent her last years in Toombs County near Shelly. In 2003 she was named Ms. Bethany Home just before she died at 94.
farm in the little town of Newington.
“After a couple of months of
working the swamp and riding the
rafts, buying the supplies for the year
and riding home again in a mule and
wagon, he’d go on about a month long
drunk. Mama said the children were
told not to bother him during that
time. But when it was over, he would
get up and start it all over again.”
By the time Shelly was born, her
grandmother, Lila Mallard, was a
complete invalid. “She still lived in
the old homeplace.” The ten daughters
each cared for their mother for two
weeks each. “My mother would take
me and my sisters out of school when
it was her turn, and we would stay at
my grandmother’s for Mama to care
for her. She would feed her, change her,
bathe her, and clean house for those
two weeks, and then the next sister
would come. It was just a strong family
bond,” said Shelly. “Since Mama was
the youngest, she was the most able of
the siblings.”
George’s in-laws eventually had a
complete change of heart toward their
Middle-Eastern relative. “My father
saved every penny, but we had more
than enough,” said Shelly. “Whenever
anyone in my mother’s family got sick,
Daddy would go get them and bring
them to our house. He paid for them
to see doctors, and if they needed to
go to the hospital, he paid for that too.
When they got out of the hospital,
they would stay with us, and Mama
would care for them until they were
well enough to go home. They would
be with us for two and three months
at a time going to physical therapy or
recouping from some sickness.”
September 27, 1961. When Shelly
got off the bus from school that
afternoon, her father wasn’t
there with her dog Rusty to meet her
as usual. She ran into the house and
found him lying on the kitchen floor.
She ran next door where her mother
was shelling peas with Shelly’s aunt,
but there was nothing to be done.
George Saba had died of a massive
heart attack at the age of seventy-two.
Shelly was only ten.
From Wednesday until Friday, his
body “lay in state” in Shelly’s home.
“That was the worst part of all of it,”
she said. “There were mobs of people.
People he had given jobs or helped.
Families of the barbers who had
worked for him at the barber shop
that he had taken care of. Everyone
was distraught. It was like something
out of a movie. They kept saying, ‘Mr.
George has passed! I don’t know what
we’re going to do!’”
By this time, Shelly was the only
child still at home. “My mother had left
the farm at twenty-six and now was
fifty-two and had never worked outside
the home. Now she had a motel to run.
She had the properties to look after.
She had never written a check, never
gone to the bank. She had never even
driven a car or had a social security
number,” said Shelly. “My memory of
her was her just struggling to figure
everything out.”
But Shelly’s mother came from
tough stock. She learned to write
checks, taught herself to drive,
managed the motel and her husband’s
other properties. “When I was eightyears
old, my dad had built an
apartment in the motel, and we moved
in after selling our house. We think he
knew that he was ill but said nothing
to anyone. After his death, Mom and
I lived on at the motel with her as
manager.”
Frances did what had to be done
alone for ten years until one night
when she watched her night manager
die during a robbery. “When Mr. Lane,
who had worked for Daddy since the
motel opened, was shot and killed,
I was in Indiana,” said Shelly. “Mom
This is the irony: My daddy never got to go to school,
but he valued education more than anything."
"
118 TOOMBS COUNTY MAGAZINE