University of Georgia - Pandora Yearbook (Athens, GA)

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Then he carefully repeated these simple rules. Next he looked carefully and thoughtfully over his glasses at us quiet students, smiled and chuckled, and said, I paid one about an hour ago. The year before, with a Freshman cap on, he had rung the Chapel bell because a thousand students had registered ; but only my year, September 1920, did we have a thousand regular students. He told us in Chapel that the Class of 1924 was starting when the University had 1024 regular students, stressing in his mathematic approach the number 24 — the designation of our class and also the excess over a thousand — 24! There were also 138 rehabs, fewer than the year before; but he counted them as students both times for the final figure, for they were. Cotton was king then, our major money crop, and Athens was the largest inland market in Georgia, maybe in the South. And in Chapel Uncle Dave asked us not to smoke on the street. The warehouses were filled and overflowing, and cotton was piled on the streets. One bale was placed next to the curb on the street, another on the curb toward the sidewalk, and a third on top of these. Although only one side of the street was used (Lumpkin, Broad, Oconee, Clayton, Washington, Pulaski) still the streets were narrowed by the bales, and cotton seemed to be everywhere. After his retirement Uncle Dave moved from the Chancellor ' s House on the Campus back to the family house at 436 Dearing Street, where I appeared regularly to court his granddaughter. Like every youngster in his twenties, I thought of Uncle Dave as old, ancient in his sixties — but he was about my own age now. He always came by about 9:00 to speak to me and to wish me and Sue Fan good night, for he retired early. Uncle Dave loved this state, this school, and this campus, and he loved people, just as I do. Like me, he was pro- vincial, and he ran the University on shoe-string finances because the State of Georgia was poor. He had been a boy during Reconstruction, as shown in his own writings — for instance, his often published paper on Sill ' s Fork Plantation before and after the War. And yet in his human depth and sincerity and judgment he would have adjusted to Changes just as others have done. Uncle Dave was a farmer, managing with his friends Dave and Pope Spratlin (both named for Barrows) two large plantations, a story which I won ' t tell here, except to say the boll weevil wiped them out. As I grow older, I remember what he said about his home-place on the plantation, near the family graveyard, To us Barrows there is nothing prettier than the sunrise across the valley at the Home Place, and to me as I grow older they become more beautiful than ever, even though I know I shall see fewer of them. Wm. Tate, April 11, 1971 20

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IT ■iwn and around the I m «ad coach. His father i.wtwidl-wlyjdida I MkAkmti Society •taiMKriu! skit that a?MC Barrow ! Unde •thteaiy Ws. « «Wmn Bible Class arf VJKfc Dave was my yHNVff. Our heads all ft fapk a flowing beard B « him m his office, jri« , began to wonder ■tfl but sturdily built, .Jirtsandallfaculty (K p ) emon»f» (lonhis ire, shading h HesarXleraljudge, And Uncle Dave smiled, doodled on, and I excused myself, he nodded, and I quietly slipped out — not suspended! Scion of a prominent Georgia family, which was honored in 1970 as the University family of the year, David Crenshaw Barrow had graduated from the University in civil engineering and law, had returned to his alma mater to teach math, later to be dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, had become president when Mr. Hill died in 1908, was the symbolic figure of the University until his retirement in 1925, to be followed by Charles Mercer Snelling, who had been my academic and administrative dean. When elected president (our president in Athens had the title of Chancellor and signed the diplomas of all the four-year state schools), Uncle Dave had fewer than four hundred students; and he handled loans, scholarships, excuses for absences, and all disciplinary cases, as shown by his papers filed in the Li- brary. Around him centers my best story of college life, a colorful proverbial expression that seems to me a perfect gem of campus lore. It is especially useful to me when I ' ve had one of those disorganized, hectic, nagging days when I ' ve got- ten up on the wrong side of the bed, when everything goes wrong, when it seems that the Deity created the entire Uni- verse for my inconvenience. In college Dave Barrow had had a fight with one of the Hurts from Atlanta, who became a firm friend and admirer of Mr. Barrow and sent his son here. That Hurt family built the first skyscraper in Atlanta, and they have sent many of their children here, some under my deanship. But this boy was cutting classes after an earlier conference with his father and Mr. Barrow, and Uncle Dave was standing in the hall talking to Uncle Tom Reed, our regist rar, himself famous for his ability to remember names. To Uncle Tom ' s remarks that often trying to get a boy to study was like beating one ' s head on a rock wall, Mr. Barrow an- swered with a perfect description of a lazy boy, Yes, working with a sorry boy who won ' t try is just like going bird- hunting and having to tote the dogs . It ' s a perfect comment, a gem of an expression, often a consolation to me, for despite my optimism about students, I know some are lazy and won ' t do their best. And again I say it is a perfect phrase — Working with a sorry boy who won ' t try is just like going bird-hunting and having to tote the dogs . Note that his Georgia background made Uncle Dave use two natural expressions for this state and this people — a sorry boy and tote . Over the years I have spoken hard and harsh to lazy students. One boy with a pleasing personality, a good mind, in college by the scarifices of his widowed mother, was doing C work when he had an A brain; and in my discussion with him he slyly implied that I was accusing him of laziness. Yes, you ' re lazy, deep-dyed lazy. If you ever marry and your wife has a child, it will be prima facie evidence of adultery. When the Barrow family was honored a year ago on G Day, much stress was laid on the number of that family who had attended the University, originally from Oglethorpe County, with branches both in Athens and Savannah, well over a hundred. However, I think the strongest, the unique feature is the chain of five generations, father to son, who have been con- nected to the University — all named David. The first David attended Philip Exeter and Harvard, and he was a trustee. His oldest son resigned from West Point, entered the Confederate Army, died in the battle of Big Pond or Olustee in Florida; and another son was a United States Senat or. The youngest son, who was named David, became Chancellor of the University; and his son David was Regents ' Distinguished Professor of Mathematics; and his son David retired as a colonel and teaches geography at the University; and his son David has graduated and works in the Computer Center. Five generations of David to David to be connected with the University — trustee, president, distinguished profes- sor, teacher, technician. It ' s like the begets in the Bible! And Barrow County, which isn ' t his home, was named for him and his brother Pope, and also Barrow Hall in the Ag engineering group; and some alumni raised a large gift to establish the David Crenshaw Barrow Chair of Mathematics. And five of his grandchildren made Phi Beta Kappa! I married one of them. Uncle Dave was a little boy when news reached Athens that his brother Jim had died in battle; but plans to bury him at the Old Home Place in Oglethorpe County were changed to put him in Oconee Hills, where the two brothers lie side by side. One was written up by Dr. E. Merton Coulter in James Barrow — the Last Generation , a book dis- cussing the generation of the Souths best who died in the Last Cause. Uncle Tom Reed wrote a biography of Uncle Dave , and his writings have been collected in a memorial volume by his widow. Once an alumnus, a good person and a gentleman who had been successful in a modest way but who had gradu- ated from Georgia by the hardest way financially, with a loan directly from Chancellor Barrow, came to my office and asked if I knew where Uncle Dave was buried. We went down to the Barrow lot in Oconee Hills, and we looked at three graves there — James Barrow, Colonel of Confederate Infantry when not thirty; Jewett Williams, Rhodes Scholar and Professor of New Testament Greek at Swanee, dying as an infantry captain in World War I; and Chancellor Barrow ' s grave. The alumnus looked at Uncle Dave ' s grave, started crying, then finally said, I never would have made it in college except for him. If I have ever known a great man, it ' s him, right there. As a freshman and a sophomore I attended Chapel twice a week, as a junior and a senior once a week. And Uncle Dave had charge, and we had a song, a prayer, a scripture reading with comments, and announcements. I didn ' t have a high regard for this chore then, not considering it relevant I guess in the terminology of this generation; but looking back over the years, it meant more than I realized. And at every Chapel I carefully looked around each time to see if I knew every classmate! Once Uncle Dave read from a psalm about good husbandry, saving your resources. Then looking over the tops of his glasses, as he regularly did since he didn ' t wear bifocals, he gave us three rules for endorsing a note for a friend. He enumerated them by holding up three fingers as he talked in his simple, lucid style with pauses for emphasis. First, your friend ' s credit isn ' t good, and he must use yours. And sometimes you must help a friend or a kinsman. Second, don ' t endorse for a friend more than you can pay, don ' t ruin yourself and your family this way. Third, when you endorse, begin to think about planning to pay. 19

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