Pike County Times
The Pike County Times, PO Box 843, Zebulon, Georgia 30295. Click here to donate through PayPal. Becky Watts: Phone # 770-468-7583 editor@pikecountytimes.com
 
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This online news website is owned and operated by Becky Watts. The Editor can be reached at 770-468-7583 or at editor(at)PikeCountyTimes(dot)com. Pike County Times is a website for citizens to keep up with local events and stay informed about Pike County government. It began on November 13, 2006 as a watchdog on county government and has turned into an online newspaper.

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Concord "Back in the Day" - A Story of the Life of Fred Oxford
By Guest Columnist: Fred M. Oxford

Pike County was a different place back then. Fred Oxford would know. He grew up in Pike County with his family and lived here from 1912 to 1941.

Fred and his family lived around Concord. Fred was the oldest of five children born to Charlie and Bessie Oxford. Fred was born in 1912, Paul in 1914, Clay in 1915, Kate in 1917, and Eugene in 1919.

Concord was a small farming town with a population of 400 or so with a thriving R.F. Strickland Store, a department store and a few other stores during this time.

There were schools in the major towns like Concord and Meansville until all of the county schools were consolidated in Zebulon with twelve grades after World War II.

Fred's memoirs, written in 2004, tell of a time when life was much simpler than it is today. Fred sent his memoirs to me a year ago and I have scanned them and placed them online with his permission.

Fred worked in the Post Office in Concord from 1933 until 1941. He moved to Atlanta and eventually retired from the Post Office.

When asked if he missed Pike County, he told me that there are a lot of things to enjoy about it. He still has family in this area too.

Fred is now the only one left of the siblings. His three brothers and sister have passed on. He told me the story of his youngest brother, Eugene, and his routine training mission in 1944 where Eugene's plane never arrived at its destination.

This story can be read by clicking www.miarecoveries.org/media-pikearticle.html. A story written by Mary-Kate Roan can also be read at MIARecoveries.org and it can be accessed by clicking www.miarecoveries.org/media-pikearticle2.html. There is access to find out an update on what is being done to bring home our MIA soldiers.

Some interesting facts about Concord include the following: The R.F. Strickland Co. was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The Concord Jubilee began in 1973. "Cold Sassy Tree" starring Faye Dunnaway, Richard Widmark, and Neil Patrick Harris was filmed in Concord in 1989 using the R.F. Strickland Co., several homes in town, a church, and a cemetery as the primary filming locations.

Fred writes about Concord in his memoirs that can be accessed by clicking on the following links. These pages have been scanned two pages at a time for those of us who do not have access to DSL or fast internet. (That includes me!)

Readers can also view a map of Concord from this time that was sent to me by Mr. Oxford by clicking here and view a list of those businesses by clicking here.

The story is broken up into two page increments for those in Pike County and the surrounding areas who do not have DSL. Please note that the story is copyrighted by being a part of Pike County Times.

[Note from the Editor: Fred passed away in 2011 before his brother Lt. Robert "Eugene" Oxford could be brought home from India where his plane went down on January 25, 1944. Pike County Times is covering the Defense POW/MIS Accounting Agency (DPAA) recovery mission in the Himalayan Mountains in hopes that eight members of the Army Air Corps who went down in a B-24J aircraft in 1944 will finally be brought home. Click here to read about Fred's brother, Eugene, and the effort to bring him home to Concord.]

If anyone has any thoughts that you would like to pass along about parts of Pike County "back in the day", please email them to me and I will get them online. Pictures are welcome too.

 
 
 
 
5.21.09
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