Norman/Maxwell Family

The following is from a 3-page, type-written, undated text titled "Mrs. J. W. Reeves." Based on its content, it was written sometime between 1916 and 1945. The author is her daughter, Lillian W. Reeves.

She went as a bride to "The Mill", the Reeves homestead in Monroe County. With the exception of several years at "The Mill," she resided in Barnesville. Knowing that the secret of a well ordered life is the art of putting first things first, she gave her first and best attention to her home. There she and her husband reared their three daughters. (A blue-eyed boy died in babyhood.) After her husband died in 1911, she turned again to teaching. By several other activities, however, she kept the home fires burning. She had run a little country store out of which grew the larger business in town. While taking boarders she helped her husband in his mercantile [sic] business and wrote advertisements that kept the business in the eye of the public. At the same time she held an annual contract to do the advertising of their other business firms. In addition she sold insurance, sold books, and did some artistic dressmaking. But above all she has been devoted chiefly to the profession of teaching. Her longest term of service has been at Aldora Mills School, where she is now engaged. There she carries on social welfare in connection with her school work. About 1916 she opened the school with thirteen pupils in an old dilapidated church building. By means of ice cream parties, picnics, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas trees, together with modern methods in the school room, the problem of attracting children was solved and gradually the parents realized the importance of school attendance. Today the Aldora School has a faculty of three teachers, has an attractive, modern school building, a ball park and play grounds and is rated second best of the rural schools of Lamar County. Since social service has always been the chief ambition of her life, a personal choice led her where she felt that she could do the greatest good to the greatest number. During the years flattering offers of better positions have come to her through contacts made at summer schools and in traveling, but this gifted trader continues to give the industrial community the best mental, moral and spiritual advantages.
Civic and religious activities have received a due portion of her time. For years she was president of the Woman's Missionary Union of the Centennial Association which is auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention. For several successive terms she was chief executive of the Missionary Society of the First Baptist Church of Barnesville, and has been teacher of the Woman's Bible Class of the Sunday School for fifteen years. Two years ago she completed a third term as president of the local Woman's Christian Temperance Union. At one time she was State Editor of the Georgia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She is a charter member of the Lamar-La Fayette Chapter of the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and has been the historian of the chapter since its organization; was an organizing member of the Lamar County Education Unit and served as president eight years. She has held an office in every civic, religious and social club of which she is a member.
Mrs. Reeves is active in a literary way. She writes essays, stories, poems, and plays which are a source of pleasure and profit. When Lucien Lamar Knight was compiling his two volumes of "Georgia Memoirs and Landmarks," she furnished a History of Barnesville and was favored with the two volumes, autographed copy. But a multitude of duties nearest at hand left little time for the appeal of these finer aspirations.
Gifted with a rare imagination that sees visions and dreams, and possessing a marked talent for organization and business ability, she is able to crystallize them into practical ideas. She first suggested plans for the "Tri-City Cotton Festival" held in the city in 19__ with Barnesville, Thomaston, and Forsyth inclusive. She first suggested plans for the more recent "Advertising Bazar [sic]," which, by reaching business fir[m]s from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, netted a handsome sum for the Club house commission.
Mrs. Reeves continues her farming interests which she says "pays expenses." Descended from a line of landed estate owners from Colonial times, her sympathies have always been with the farmer and she believes the farmers should run the government instead of the government running the farmers.
The absorbing love of her life has been children, flowers, and books. To them she gives her best and through them the best comes back to her. After a busy, happy day in the school-room, she may be seen at home working with her flowers. When the evening shadows drive her indoors, she turns to her books, and, there, surrounded by flowers and books, the "children of life's seven stages" know where to find her.