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 7th 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.
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