(Continued from Part II…)
Were you interested in politics as much as you were interested in history?
Yes indeed. I couldn’t help but be interested in politics, being from my family with Daddy’s fame and newspaper knowledge. My grandfather, Alfred Colquitt Newell, had been a big newspaperman himself before he went into the insurance business. His grandfather was governor of Georgia—Alfred Holt Colquitt.
We would talk politics at home all the time. It was just inevitable.
Do you remember the first presidential election that you got to vote in for?
No, I don’t really, but I think at that time, Georgia had just become one of the first states if not the first to let eighteen year olds vote. Was the age twenty-one before? Yes, but then Georgia changed all that, which was significant.
Do you have a favorite president from over the years?
Probably Eisenhower. Daddy knew Eisenhower in the war. Really? Oh yes, he did. He went to his press conferences, so he met him and knew him. I was at Sweet Briar when Eisenhower was inaugurated, and Daddy got me tickets to the parade, which was wonderful. I could go up and had good tickets to sit up on the parade route to see Eisenhower’s inauguration, so I think I would say Eisenhower. I took a friend of mine from Sweet Briar, and we went up on the train early in the morning (probably at 5 or 6am) to spend the day in Washington. Daddy was already there. That was when Daddy was the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, so I think he had an even more special place to sit than we did. Still, he got us a good seat on the parade route. That’s exciting! Oh, it was thrilling!
Then, Eisenhower awarded my daddy the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest award a civilian can achieve in this country. Wow! Was there an event that happened that was the reason it was given to him? I think it was mostly for his war correspondence—his bravery, his war correspondent career, and being captured by the Germans. He wasn’t even in the military.
He could’ve been in the Army, and he hoped and tried to do that. However, there was some minor health reason that kept him away from that. You see, Clemson was a military school in those days. He was a Second Lieutenant when he graduated from Clemson. He kept that up (his Second Lieutenant title), but for some minor health reason, he couldn’t join the Army. That was when he persuaded his boss to send him to London as a war correspondent, which really made his fame.
What about your career after your year of teaching at Westminster?
I guess I taught there for two years; it was wonderful. Then, I went up to Cleveland in the summertime to be in my sister’s wedding, and I met Brent Tozzer and fell in love with him. I met him in Cleveland; he was from Cleveland. He was much older than I—sixteen or seventeen years older depending on what time of year it was. He had been in World War II and had a wonderful record in World War II.
He was very handsome and was working for Kenyon College, the Episcopal school. I had always said that I wanted to marry someone and live in a college town. I met him through friends of Mary Lane and John’s on a blind date and fell in love with him. That was between the two years of teaching at Westminster.
We decided to get married, and after I taught just half of the second year, I went to Dr. Presley and told him. He said, “Well, I think you need to just go on, and I ‘ll get someone else to fill in the rest of the year for you.” That was a hard thing to do… So I got married and moved to Ohio!
Do you remember your wedding day and what it was like? Was it a really happy day?
Oh, it was a beautiful, happy day. Unusual for Cleveland, the weather turned good. It was April, and it can be snowy in April in Cleveland, but the weather turned pretty. I woke up that morning, and all of a sudden it was going to be a beautiful day, which was incredible.
We were having a small wedding at home, which Mary Lane had had, too. Mine was a little bit bigger than Mary Lane’s, but still. (We laugh…) There were certain people I wanted to be sure were invited, like my mother’s UDC, the United Daughters of the Confederate. She loved them.
At any rate, I woke up and was having coffee out in the backyard. We had a beautiful backyard that went down into a lake, and there was a summerhouse—we called it a gazebo (a pretty little octagonal summerhouse out by the lake). I said, “The weather is going to be pretty, and I’m going to be married out here,” so we changed the plans from having the wedding in the house to out in this beautiful, little summerhouse. It was a lovely, outdoor wedding; that was fun.
I had already asked my best friend in Cleveland’s two little girls to be flower girls and to carry my train. (I had a long train.) When it was so pretty, I asked the next-door neighbors’ little girls to be flower girls, too—we were good friends with them. She had two little girls about the same age; they were about three and five years old. I just had Mary Lane for my matron-of-honor, and Billy was Brent’s best man. Then, we had these four little flower girls carrying two little bouquets and two of them carrying my train. Wow, that must have meant the world to them.
I worked at the newspaper two different times here at the Atlanta Journal, which is now the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The first time, I worked for Sue Mobley’s, Aunt Sue Brown Stern, who was the society editor. I worked there just about eight months for her maybe. I loved her; I was very close to her, but I got very tired of just writing up weddings and parties. That got boring, so I quit. Then, I went back to Cleveland.
The second time, I had gotten my Master’s at Georgia State University. That was where I finally got my Master’s. I got a job then, which didn’t last long, but it was exciting, working for historic preservation section of the state of Georgia. Then, I got mixed up in some political mess, so the job didn’t last but six months. But… you have to remember one thing. This is a true saying: “When one door closes, another opens.”
This lady who was a friend of my parents and who had a big job at the AJC—she and I were having lunch just when I found out that the state of Georgia job was not going to last. She said, “Newell, I have a place for you in the promotion department of the AJC,” so I went there and worked for her for at least two years. That was an exciting job but demanding. I had to be downtown at 7:30 in the morning to do things. If there were a hole in the newspaper, I had to put a promotion ad in. I quit that job in the promotion department after probably two years, but it was a wonderful experience.
Then, another door opened, and I met Frances Porcher, whom I had never known before. She was an Atlanta girl who was four or five years older than I. She was the top editor at the Centers for Disease Control. Francis introduced me around at the CDC, and I hooked up with this wonderful lady who is still my friend, Priscilla Holeman. Priscilla hired me as a writer/editor, and I worked for her for probably two years.
Then, I got what they called a “temporary job.” In other words, I didn’t have full insurance benefits. Then, I got a job with another part of the CDC called “NIOSH,” which was initials for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. They were just moving the headquarters to CDC in Atlanta from Washington. I got a job there, and that job was fabulous. I was able to go places, do things. When the director of NIOSH found out that I spoke fluent French, he created a position for me as director of international visitors. Since NIOSH’s headquarters was in Atlanta, we had a lot of international visitors.
I was with CDC (most of that time was with NIOSH) for almost twenty years. Wow. What that after Mom and Brent were in college? During their high school and college years. That ended up being a very wonderful career for me. NIOSH and I just meshed like this (shows me with her hands). I put on big meetings in Cincinnati, Ohio where NIOSH had about one hundred people working. It was a time when I just commuted between Atlanta and Cincinnati. My boss sent me to a World Health Organization meeting in Geneva. Wow.
So learning to speak French has been a great help in my life and career, and it all began with Mademoiselle Groleau at the Washington Seminary. (We laugh…) She was fabulous. I did my junior year in France from Sweet Briar College, too.
Was your junior year in France the first time that you went out of the country?
Yes, we went to Canada a lot because Ann Lane and Bob lived close to Canada. Was that when you were growing up? Yes, they lived in Aroostook County, Maine. They bottled Coca-Cola up there. We went up there in the summer three or four times. Mother took Mary Lane and me up there on the train when we were little. Boston was halfway; it’s a long way.
After you went to France during your junior year in college, is that when you started to love traveling?
Yes, during my junior year. Sue was there, too. We were there together in Paris. We didn’t live together, but we traveled together on all our vacations. Then, Sue Brown came over right after we got out of school. I went to Spain with Sue and Sue Brown, and I had about two or three weeks there. We went on the train from Paris to Spain. I had that much travel in the summer. I had lots of travel during the year. Then, I came back home, and we traveled on a boat, which was wonderful (on a ship in those days to Europe). We didn’t fly. How long did that take? Five or six days. It was wonderful being it gave you that wonderful feeling of being in transit. I love being on the ocean in transit. You really knew that you were between things, then.
The summer between my junior and senior years was when we moved to Cleveland. Daddy had gone up there before, but Mother had commuted between Atlanta and Cleveland. Daddy had promised me that we wouldn’t break up our home in Atlanta. He said, “We will not break up the home in Atlanta until you get home and can be a part of it.” So I was a part of packing up the house in Atlanta. That was sad, of course, but Nana could always make it fun. She said, “We ought to have a dance the last night.” (Laughs…) Did you? We didn’t, but I had a date, I remember, and we kind of danced around.
We had one car, then. We never had two cars until we were in Cleveland. Mother was, of course, so wiped out and tired from the packing of the huge, old house we had here. She was organizing all of that. Mama went on the train to Cleveland to rest because it was a long train journey. Daddy put Mary Lane, Billy, and me in the car to drive up. At the last minute, Corinne Murray (who was our helper then)—she did a little of everything and was a young black woman. At the last minute, Mother had invited her to come with us, and she said no, that she didn’t want to come. Still, at the last minute, she came and jumped in the car and moved to Cleveland with us. She had a big, nice room in our basement and stayed right there with us.
At any rate, in Cleveland when I started work up there after Mother had had me take the Junior League provisional course, I was office manager at that brokerage firm (my first job in Cleveland).
What do you think your favorite, biggest accomplishment that you’re most proud of is?
Raising my children to be good people. That’s my biggest and best accomplishment—no question about it. It may be my hardest one! (Laughs…) Oh, I bet!
What was the hardest thing about raising children?
I think the hardest thing was being very much on my own. I was a single mother, so I think that was the hardest part. You know, your grandfather (my husband) died when they were very young, really. That was awfully hard on them and on me because he had been a big help to me. That was sad and hard.
Was the divorce really hard, too?
Yes, it was, but I felt like I had to do it. I didn’t want to do it, but I felt like I had to do it because he had lost three or four jobs. He had just gone into a decline, so to speak. He just went downstairs into his office and sort of stayed down there. It was just impossible for me to be married to someone who was not out in the world. I had never been involved with a man who wasn’t working. If I had been in a different time or era, maybe I would have just realized that I needed to be the worker bee, but I grew up in a different time when a man went to work and had a job. I was not used to that, so yes, it was hard. It took a long time. Yes, I can definitely understand that, though. I know it was hard on your mom and uncle, but I had to do it… kind of to save myself.
Mom always talks about your dog Honey. What’s your favorite pet that you’ve had?
I was always the dog person in our family even growing up. We had a wonderful West Highland Terrior that somebody gave us named Burly—Burly of Bryans’ Burlesque. (Chuckles…) He was a white Scottie, but mostly he was grey. We loved Burly, and I loved Burly so much.
One time Burly got lost. Mother put an ad in the paper for him. This was during the war, and she said, “One dirty West Highland Terrier in the vicinity of Peachtree Road in Lindbergh.” Mother got a telephone call from this man at Christ the King, a Roman Catholic Church up the street. He said (speaking in a French accent), “Mrs. Bryan, this is Monsieur Morleigh at Christ the King. I think we have your dog. Come see.” So Mother went up there, and Burly ran into her arms. Aww… Burly was all-white! They had bathed him! (Laughs…) The priest said to my mother, “Mrs. Bryan, your dog likes to go for a ride in the car.” This was when gas was rationed, and we couldn’t go for a ride much. Mother said, “Yes, so do I, but I just have an A-card, so I don’t get to do it very much.” Then, Mother offered the award that she was going to give, and he said, “Oh no, I will just give it to the church,” so Burly came home with us.
Burly was one of my favorites. Honey was who I brought your mother and Brent up with. Honey was a darling dog. She died at the foot of my bed. I came home from work at the newspaper one day and found her asleep at the foot of my bed. Fortunately, Brent was home, and he and Billy buried her in the backyard. Yeah, I think she was my mom’s favorite dog. Oh, I’m sure she was. She was so sweet… just a real honey and pretty—a cocker spaniel.
Then, I started having cats. Like ChaCha! (Laughs…) I decided that that was how your mother and Brent could learn the facts of life! Oh, in having kittens… I was going to let the cat have kittens. Fortunately, my mother happened to be here from Clemson and was staying with me. One time, the cat we had (I think it was Snowflake) had a bunch of kittens, and she refused to feed them. She would not nurse them.
It was just awful. I didn’t have any money to speak of, so I couldn’t just constantly take her to the vet. Still, I took her to the vet one time, and he said, “This is what we call ‘feline inertia.’” I said, “You mean that she’s just lazy?!” He said, “Yes, she’s just lazy.” So he told me that the Humane Society would spay her for very little money. He said that I had to get some goats’ milk and drip goats’ milk with a dropper into those teeny little kittens’ mouths. Aw… For several nights every four to five hours, Mama and I would drop goats’ milk into those baby, baby, baby kittens’ mouths. We kept most of them alive.
From then on, I had cats. I tried with one puppy dog, and I even built a run for the dog in the backyard. It dug out from under the run and escaped, so that’s when I decided that I just couldn’t do dogs any longer. I just wasn’t home during the day to train them. I had to give up on dogs and concentrate on kitty cats.
What are some of your philosophical beliefs about life?
Whenever one door closes, another one opens. That’s a big belief. There are hard times, but you get through them. Work is a good thing, and family is the most important thing. Family is the number one, most important thing in life aside from a belief in God. Believe in God and then family. They pull you through the toughest times. Yes.
What problems in the world are you most concerned about, and what do you think needs to be done about them?
Oh, Mamie! (Laughs…) Is that too deep, too??? (We laugh…) As far as the worst situations in the world, I think we still have the same problems that we’ve had all along.
What advice do you have for me and younger generations about living their lives and making choices?
Keep your options open. Study hard, play hard, love hard. Make lots of friends, and keep friends. The longer you keep them, the longer you’ll value them. Just like in Girl Scouts: “Make new friends, but keep the old.” Exactly, we put that on Mama’s tombstone. That’s a good motto.
Keep thinking, and what matters most is family.