Pieces from the past
Sometimes history is found on the dusty floor of a building in the process of renovation. The old theater downtown has been in the process of being converted to usable university space and has created piles of debris. Amid the piles of wreckage consisting of dusty, broken theater appliances and old wood, a worker found a wallet.
This wallet had been left at the theater long before its close on Sept. 8, 1983, with its final showing of Space Raiders. In fact, Mary Ruth Justice, the owner of the wallet, died nearly six years before the close of the theater.
The date the wallet was left at the theater is one of many anomalies about Justice’s life. She was born in Milledgeville, then part of Hancock County, on Nov. 27, 1920 to Horace and Willie Justice. However, she was also born an African American into a society largely intolerant to her people.
Records of Justice’s birth do not exist in the national censuses for any of the years she would have conceivably lived in Hancock County. She has no school records, probably due to the fact that she would have been required to go to one of 11 area segregated schools for African Americans. Her first public record was her social security card, issued at the age of 19, four years after its inception as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
After that, there are records of her marriage application and workers’ license. She married Walter Davis in 1944, another resident of Milledgeville. The marriage license tells us when she was married, but both of Justice’s parents had already deceased.
From that point, until the couples’ deaths a year apart in 1978 and 1979 respectively, there are no further records. At some point, the couple moved to Buffalo, NY, where they are both currently buried.
Cindy Potts of Public Safety took the initiative of finding out about Justice’s life. The wallet found its way to her desk after being collected at the theater.
“I have family who have been in interested in genealogy for years,” Potts said, “so I thought it would be intriguing to research her.”
Potts did more than simply research her. She put word out to nearly the entire city about Justice, speaking to other journalists, television, and radio stations. She looked up census reports, social security information, contacted local justices, and searched for any relatives in the area.
Potts’s effort to figure out Justice’s life seems to have worked out well for her, too. Early Thursday morning, she met with a relative of Justice. In the coming week, with a photo album, a collection of old family memories, and assorted media representatives from around Milledgeville, Justice’s story should be completed. Look for updates in The Colonnade.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 17 2008. Filed under Features.
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