Last week, someone asked me if I took pictures of the old Nahunta jail when it was being torn down.
I replied, “I sure did,” and that led to other things.
I always heard that my Uncle Charlie Davis escaped from the old jail at least once. A few days ago, someone told me there was a story in a newspaper sometime in the 1970s where someone had escaped. That person went to Reidsville and checked themselves in because they didn’t like the Nahunta jail.
I wanted to know if it was my Uncle Charlie. I did a Google search starting in January of 1970 and the first thing to pop up with big bold letters was “Donald Morgan dies in house fire” on the front page of the Brantley Enterprise.
This was the last day of 1969. On August 2, 1970, my granny, Julia Herrin Davis, drowned at the 301 bridge on the Satilla River. I lost two grandparents within a year.
I was only six years old when this happened. My granny was 45 and my grandpa was 42. The last day of 1969 and 1970 was not a good year.
• Wayne Morgan is freelance wildlife photographer and author.
Julia Herrin Davis
