Manget Street

Above Minnie & Frank Hunter on Manget Street

Jones/possibly Manget Familyl House

Manget & Waterman Streets my paper route)

At this corner a friend named Frankie Hunter, my age, lived (no relation).  His father's name is Francis Hunter.  I wonder if my grandfather Frank Hunter who lived near the other end of Manget and these Hunters (from Boston) mail was ever mixed up?

Frank's father Francis was hot tempered.  One time he and his wife was showing out of town visitors Underground Atlanta they were approached in the parking lot by two men with guns to hold them up.  Francis whipped both men and held them for the police.

The last I heard they moved to New Orleans and my buddy Frank was studying to be a Catholic Deacon.

The other side of the duplex had a high ham operator's radio tower.  He took his hobby seriously.

Manget Family Plot Marietta City Cemetery included Fred Proper, Missionary to China 1909-1949, (1880-1979)

Flipping through UGA’s magazine GEORGIA I came across an article titled RHODES TO SUCCESS.  The article was about UGA students  who also were RHODES SCHOLARS.  I combed the article carefully looking for my name (joking), seriously, for a name I might know of.  UREKA!  I came across Fred F. Manget, AB, ’73.

Before then Fred Prosper Manget (21 January 1880 – 21 January 1979) was an American doctor, public servant, and medical missionary. He served for forty years in China .

Fred’s father or grandfather was a professor or a minister at the Marietta Military Academy on Powder Springs Street.  The military academy played a crucial part of supplying officers to the Confederate Army.

The short paragraph said Fred Manget returned from Oxford and attended law school at Vanderbuilt University before joining the Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps.  He also had a 25 year career in the Central Intelligence Agency before retiring to High Point, North Carolina.

The reason I perked up when I saw the name Manget is We lived on Manget Street in Marietta for about 10 years.  Manget is a rare name you do not see that often.My grandparents, Frank and Minnie Tyson Hunter, bought their house on Manget Street sometime after 1920.  Overall they had 9 kids, 8 sons and 1 daughter. But in age they wee spread out, the older ones had moved our when younger ones were one. After my grandmother died in 1948 we moved in.

I think the reason they lived on Manget Street was that Frank worked at Glover Machinery as mechanic, which was just around the corner, less distance if you take a short cut through the woods.  As his sons grew into adulthood he got them jobs at Glover’s too.

Manget is not pronounced like it looks.  It sounds like “Monjay”.  Is French.  I think Victor Manget came to Marietta as a professor and doctor of divinity at Georgia Military Academy.

I think the Manget family lived in the 2-storied house at the corner of East Dixie Ave and Manget Sreet.  During my tenue at Manget Street the Jones family lived in the 2 storied house.  In the back was a persimmon tree that we loved to pick up the fruit.  The berries tasted horrible and made your mouth dry up instantly, but they were great for rabbit and opossum traps.  Behind the tree was an old barn.  Elderly neighbors said the old barn was where Mr Manget beat his wife and today in the nighttime you could still hear her cry out.  (I seriously doubt that).

Manget Street is blocks long.  It starts at Glover Street  and went all the way to Waterman Street about .75 to .9 mile long.  The south part of Manget Street from the Clay Street corner to the Glove Street corner completely bordered the west side of Larry Bell Park.  The Hunter front yard had a panoramic  of the park. 

My grandmother Minnie Victoria Tyson Hunter, wife of Frank Paris Hunter, died 21 July 1948, at age 68.  We moved in with my grandfather, on Manget Street, so he would not be alone.  I remember it was apparently his job, or so he felt, to wake up before everybody else to butter the bread, to get it ready to toast.  I am an early riser and was awake shortly after Grandpa.  There was a fireplace in the living room, heated by coal.  If it was a cold morning he would start the fireplace.  One cold morning I backed up to he flaming fireplace and a spark popped out and lit my pajamas afire.  Grandpa grabbed me and thew me down, which put out the fire.  He saved my life.

The first property on Manget Street is a small Baptist named Mary Baptist Church,  Backed up to the back of the church was the Hobby family barn.  They lived on Glover Street.  The Hobbys were Catholic.  Their neighbors disliked Catholics and got up a petition against them demanding that they move.  They did not leave and the petitioners decided to accept them.  My family were close to the Hobbys.  Their sons Mike and George and I one Sunday night, out of curiosity, climbed on top of the roof of their barn to sit in the dark and watch the Mary Church Sunday night services.  It surprised me to see some gospel singers, who leaders were Tom & Mary Jo Petty, my mother’s brother and sister-in-law.

Grandpa Hunter drank secretly.  Well, secretly, except for me.  He kept his bottle under the house but was too old to crawl under the house for a nip so I helped y retrieving  it for him.  He had a bunch of buddies who were about his age, always walking.  They visited him from time to time.  I think they were his whiskey runners.  I think they were old retired cronies from Glover’s.

When I got a new bike for Christmas, he taught me how to ride it.  He pushed me, keeping the bike balanced, then let go and hollered for me to pedal!

One time while under the influence he started crying.  He told me he did not really know what our last name is.  His father was adopted.  Many years later when my oldest son Rocky was born I remembered what he told me and started researching genealogy.  Frank was partially right.  His father grew up with the last name Trammell, because that was his mother Rebecca’s surname, which was his grandparents’ surname.    He married and enlisted in the Confederacy with the last name Trammell, but after the war he and his uncle Van Trammell was wanted for murder so he changed his last name to Hunter.  Which was only right because his mother, when he was born, sued Jason Henderson Hunter for Bastardy.   Jason was he local constable and was sued more than once for bastrardy by some of the local young women.   She won, and Jason was ordered to pay child support of $100 annually.  His father should have been going by William Hunter the whole time.

William Jason Hunter and his legitimate moved to Missouri. Possibly to prevent paying that annual $100 child support’

One time Grandpa and I were sitting in the front yard a pickup truck drove up and parked on the street.  A young lady got out and asked Grandpa was his name Frank Hunter.  He said he was and she said it was nice to meet him, she was his daughter.  They talked out of range of my hearing.  Then she got into her truck and drove away, never to be heard of again.  Which triggered Grandpa to start drinking and crying.  Mama got on the phone telling Hunter kin.  Grandpa’s oldest son came over smiling ear to ear and kidded his father about his previous life catching up with him.

What happened.  After my grandparents were married and even had their first child and they were living in Woodstock Grandpa had a fling with a girl with the last name McClure.  When it was discovered the McClure girl was pregnant a meeting was held with the Hunter, McClure, an Tyson parents.  They all agreed it should be a secret.  I think all concerned probably chipped in monetarily to send the McClure girl to Texas to live with relatives and have her baby.

In doing family research I found that after Frank and Minnie’s oldest was born they moved to Hunt County Texas and lived about a year.  I wonder if that was connected to the out of wedlock affair?

The northern part of the of Manget was middle income kind of houses which included duplexes and apartment buildings, 4 apartments per building.  And the south part of Manget were older houses, some with chickens in the backyard along with outhouses.  I don’t think now there are any residence home on the south side; warehouses and mechanic garages. 

Now, the Hunter yard is paved over and is surrounded by a chain-link fence with cars and cars carriers, apparently it is a home for impounded cars.

The Manget family was a well traveled international family.  One was an Ambassador to China.  I doubt if there was any wife beating.

Manget Street was the nest of my formative years, which I almost did not make it through.  At the very south end on the corner of Manget and Glover streets was a yard that a bunch of smoking teenagers hung out at.  I found them interesting.  One day they sicced a guy also named Eddie about a year older onto me, telling him I called him names, which I did not.  We got into a fist fight and he did not know anything about fighting.  I popped him in the nose and blood went everywhere and he ran to his grandparents home crying.  After I left his big sister came looking for whom ever gave Eddie a bloody nose.  She wanted to swear out a warrant.  The gang said they did not know who I was.  About a year later a bunch of us were playing in Eddie’s grandfather’s barn’s loft and a so-called friend reminded Eddie of the time I gave him a bloody nose.  He had forgotten.  But now then reminded.  He bounced on me and started choking me.  He was very strong and I thought I was about to die.  Then, God stepped in.  The floor of the loft was of lose boards laid across the rafters.  We were on the end of a couple of boards which at the right moment tilted because of our weight, and send us to the barn’s floor.  I  jumped up like a jack rabbit and ran home.  I asked an old friend a couple yeas ago what happened to Eddie and he said he was in prison for murder.

Another time, across the street from us on the edge of Larry Bell Park was a long gulley.  It was lined with small tall trees.  I found I could climb one tree and with my weight make it swing and then I could grab another tree and shimmy down the second tree.  I was impressed with my trick and demonstrated to my friend Tony and somebody else, I forgot who.  I climbed the tree, got it swinging and the top of the tree, with me in it, snapped into.  I fell and was knocked out.  Tony and friend thought I was joking.  They got his wagon and put me in it.  They carried me down to Tony’s house where fhis two younger sister were playing and told me if I did not get up they would take off my clothes in front of the sisters.  I didn’t get up so they took my clothes off.  Then they thought I had to be dead.  So they pulled the wagon and me home and nobody were there.  Back then, nobody locked their doors.  They put me in my bed and left.

I was in the 7^th grade at Waterman Street School from September 1953 to May 1954.  Once in this time period one evening after dark I learned that bats were attacking flying bugs under the street light in front of our house on Manget Street.  They would swoop down under the light and snatch a bug and disappear in the dark.  I already knew bats use radar to attack their prey.  For the fun of it, one evening I caried a handful of pebbles out front under the street light.  I lobbed up a pebble and sure enough a bat dove.  A car speeding by hit it.  I heard the “thump!”

After the car drove out sight I ran over and found the bat. Knocked out or dead.  I forgot what I did with it overnight.  The following morning I put it is an orange color  citrus webbed bag.  I carried it to school.  My teacher, Mrs. King, was going to be impressed, I just knew.

Outside 7B Class door I stood beside two female classmates waiting on the 8 O’Clock bell to ring so we could enter the class.  To them, I bragged how I caught it.  I lifted the towel to show them.  About the time I lifted the towel the little bat looked up, just squeezed out of webb bag.  It jumped up and took flight. 

I think it was blind and kept bumping into the walls.  Girls started screaming.  Miss Whitehead, the principal and Cliff the custodian chased the bat flying panicking around.

After the bat was subdued Miss Whitehead bent down eye level to me and chewed me out good.  Her face was red and expression was terror and hate.

Whew! 

I delivered The Atlanta Journal daily newspaper to the area of Manget Street near Waterman Street.

At the intersection of Manget and  Frasier Streets rows of apartment building met.  Also it is where I received my bundles of Atlanta Journal newspapers to deliver each day.  The first floor apartment of the closest one lived a family with a discontent wife.  She would walk by and flirt with me and whatever friend I had there.  She even showed us pictures of her poising near nude.  I remember her last name was Godfrey.  At the time my daddy was the chief of police.  He told me they found Mr. Godfrey in a patch of woods shot to death; suicide.  Daddy said his skin had turned black.  She and her kids moved soon after that, like a day or two.

I read later the area I delivered papers to was rated the number one crime section in Marietta.  The area was mostly duplex and apartment buildings, which my only guess low income came with a lot of domestic abuse calls to the law.  The city elite solved that problem by entification.  The same with the Clay Homes.

We moved to Richard Street in 1955.   Before we moved, maybe a year or so before, being so influenced with MAD Comicbook, I decorated my bedroom with figures cut out of various magaines.  Like a diving board with kids jumping off it and underneath in a pool the monster in the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was below in a pool of water with his hands out, and many more little clippings interacting with other clippings.

A man named Todd came and looked the house over.  He stood in front of my bedroom wall studying all the pictures taped to the wall and my mother said we would take down the pictures if he bought the house.  Todd said, “If you don’t, I’ll buy it.”  Which he did.

I knew of Todd already.  He boarded with my friend Van’s aunt in Pine Forest.  I knew he was an eccentric person.   Todd only got to live in the house a few years.  He went to prison for sexually molesting a young man.