This is a Living History interview with Peggy Beard, the widow of Roan Beard, who was the class of 1940, conducted by Marilyn Summers on September the 17th, the year 2003. We are at her home in Avondale Estates, Georgia. 

The subject of our interview today will be her life, Roan's life, and their experiences at Georgia Tech. Peggy, thank you so much for letting me come and visit you today. We're very happy. Happy. It's a gorgeous day in Atlanta and particularly in Avondale States with a lovely view. 

But here we are all closed in to talk to you today about your story and about Roan's story because as we've coaxed you into doing this, if you don't tell us, nobody really will. 

So, and you've been so gracious to agree to it. 

So tell me, let's talk about Peggy first. Okay. First of all, you really aren't legally a Peggy at all. No. Tell us your name. My real name is Sarah. My maiden name was Boyd, so I'm Sarah Boyd Beard. 

And where was Sarah born? 

I was born in New Jersey, Orange, New Jersey, but the hospital was in Newark, so I don't know where I was born. Some place up there, huh? 

Yeah. 

And what was your mom and dad doing up there? 

My father was with AT&T in New York, and they lived there, and my mother was a social worker, and she had gone back to work when I was a young woman, young girl. Oh. 

Were you an only child or did you have brothers and sisters? 

No, I'm the youngest of three children. I have an older sister who just recently died and I have a brother who lives in Tennessee. Families dispersed all over? 

All over him. 

Now, if the Boyd family was living up in New Jersey, how did Sarah get all the way down here? 

Well, my father brought me down here when I was 13. 

So the bulk of your growing up, half of it was up there. Up there. Yeah. Do you remember where you went to school? 

I went, yes, I went to all, several schools. He started offices in New York, upper New York. 

So we lived in Binghamton and Cortland and Elmira and Rochester. You know about cold winters then, don't you? 

Yes, we do. 

So then we moved back to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where this company was. It was part of Singer Sewing Machine, and they sent him down here to start an office down here. 

Now, you said AT&T. 

Well, he was with AT&T. I didn't tell you how. 

He left AT&T and went with this company called Deal Manufacturing Company, who made all the mechanical parts of the sewing machines. That was right in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which was right where we had previously lived, close. 

After we went up to New York, we went to all these different places, and he would open an office there for this company, and then they sent him down here. 

Then he was able to, after he got all of us through college, then he became a manufacturer's agent on his own, but he could never, you know, do that while we were all in college. 

So he didn't start his own business until after he got me out of college. He was a good daddy. He was. He made sure his kids got education. 

So you were raised to believe you were always going to go to college? 

Oh, sure. It was not an optional thing? 

I mean, there wasn't any. They both had, mother and father, my mother and father had both gone to college in Ohio. 

So they honored education. In Ohio. 

How did you make up your mind where you were going to go to college? 

Well, because I went to a school that my father had gone to. And tell us about that. In Ohio Wesleyan, which is in Delaware, Ohio. Where's that near? 

Right outside of Columbus, about 20 miles north of Columbus. 

So that's a college town? 

Oh, it's a college town. It's a great town. And both my aunt, his sister, older sister, had gone there. And it was a family thing to go to Ohio Wesleyan. 

But my sister had gone, my older sister had gone to Oberlin, and I thought, well, that was where I should go. 

But I went to Girls High here in Atlanta, and you had to be in the top 5% to go for them to recommend to send you to Oberlin. And so my father was delighted that I could go to Ohio Wesley. They let me in Ohio Wesley. It was one of those things where 5% didn't matter so much to him. It didn't matter. No, no, but anyway, it's a great school. 

Now, we would be remiss if we didn't explain how you got that name Peggy. 

If you were Sarah, why did we call you Peggy? 

Because we did all of our lives, right? 

Right. You've always been called Peggy. I've always been called Peggy, yes. 

But it wasn't your name? 

It wasn't my name. My mother's name was Sarah. 

Her sister's name was Margaret, and mother was pregnant, and they thought that if I was a girl, they would name me after her sister, who she was very fond of. 

But so, in utero, I was called Peggy. My father loved that name, too. 

And so then I was born and they named me Sarah because her sister said if I have, she became pregnant, and she said, if I have a girl, I want to name her Margaret. 

And mother said, well, we don't want two Margarets, and there was only going to be about three or four months. Difference? 

Difference. and so they named me Sarah when I was born and kept on calling me Peggy and I've been Peggy all my life ever since ever since and I but there's never been any legal Peggy it's all no no legal Peggy so I am legally Sarah and my middle name was Gordon so I was Sarah Gordon Boyd and then when I married Beard it was very close another B so that was okay that's fun and anyway when When my aunt had her child, it was a boy. 

So there wouldn't have been any competition anyways. It would have been no problem. Who knew, huh? 

So they kept on calling me. See, in those days they didn't investigate what you were going to have before you had it. No, they didn't do that, did they? 

Yeah, you waited and got surprised. Right, yeah. 

Now, when you moved down here, I almost skipped your high school education and you reminded me you went to Girls High. 

When you moved down to Atlanta, you were 13 years old and you started, you were probably still in middle school or eighth grade? 

I was going into the ninth grade. 

Oh, so you were going into the ninth grade then? 

So you were going into high school? 

No, I was going to O'Keeffe right there on the Tech campus, which was the middle school. Like, they didn't call it middle school. What was it? 

I don't know. 

But anyway, it was the ninth grade was there. That was the last one. And then when I went into the tenth grade, I was going to Girls High. Where was Girls High located at that time? 

Down at Roosevelt, down Grant Park, down there. It was still there. I mean, it's now apartments. 

Now that's too difficult for you to have walked there. Oh no, we all drove, we all rode the streetcar. 

You went downtown and got off at Davidson Poisson's, you know, which was, Macy's was Davidson Poisson's. 

You got off there and transferred to all this was a girls school and so they all went out from this side of town rode the streetcar downtown and transferred and went into another streetcar going out to to Grant Park and all the boys from that end of town came up to Boys High which was on this side of town. Twice a day there was a mass moving of young people. Yes and everybody you you made appointments to meet there. At downtown. Downtown. That was a good place. And go to the Francis Virginia a tea room and have a Coke and transfer. 

But my mother was working and I had to call her and if I didn't get home in time to call her at the proper time, it was really bad. You got in trouble, so you didn't do a whole lot of lollygagging. No, I didn't do that. 

Peggy, was that an efficient means of transportation riding the streetcar? 

Yeah, it really was great. I mean, you'd go with your friends, you know. I lived on Ponce to Lynn at that time, and the streetcar ran down Ponce to Lynn. 

So I just had to go across the street and get on the thing. 

So it was just a very common occurrence, everybody transported that way. Oh, everybody did that, yes. 

How big was Girls High? 

Not in size of the building, but how many girls went there? 

I don't have any idea, but it was, I still, I mean, we have about a hundred left left in our class that we still meet regularly once a year or so for lunch and everything. Isn't that neat? 

So it was a fairly large school. And that was the class of 1937. There was still enough of us left to do that. 

Kind of a good time in life because the Depression was sort of kind of getting over and the war wasn't really a presence yet. 

Things were rumbling, but… You know, they were rumbling, yes, but… But still kind of a carefree time for all of you, huh? 

Well, yeah, it wasn't. 

So would you say you had a happy growing up time in Atlanta? 

Oh, yeah, I had a great time. When I moved here, you see, I was 13, and my brother was 16. And that's how I met Roan was because from my brother. They went to Boers High, who were on this side of town. And so they became close friends, and that's how I met. You brought them home? 

My husband. They came, yeah, they came. to our house a lot of time, and I was a little sister, do this, do that, you know, whatever they wanted. 

What was the social life like for being a teenager in Atlanta in those days? 

Well, I felt like, see, I was a Yankee. I was not accepted as in this social elite, young people here, and there were certainly those people. 

It was a closed society, you're telling me, huh? 

So they were a little stuck up and they didn't take you right in? 

Well, I joined in a small high school sorority, so I met a lot of those people. 

But what did they do in those days for entertainment? 

Oh, they had dances. It was a big deal. 

I mean, the high school fraternities and the high school sororities had dances, and you had to be pledged, and then you invited, and you had to have a date. 

If you didn't have a date and nobody asked you, you were in bad shape. 

So it was the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl, though. Yeah, of being a teenager. Yeah. 

The movies? 

Did they go to the movies? 

Oh, we went to the movies and had picnics and swimming, you know. 

And all of these activities, your parents didn't drive you anywhere, probably, did they? 

Everything was public transportation. Yeah. Which, of course, is so different than today. 

Well, some of the boys could get a car, you know, if they were old enough, you know. 

But my family, we were not, we were talking about the Depression, we didn't have a lot of money. Nobody did though. Yeah. And we only had a company, so-called company car. 

So my brother could not use that car to go have dates. 

But Rohn's family had a car, excuse me. 

And so they, my brother and this other friend, Jack Lee, there were three of them would go together in Rome's car, normally. That was a big deal. He would get his father's car. 

So he was the older man at that time. The older man, yeah. 

Do you remember the first time you dated him? 

I had very, very few dates with him because when I went off to college, I was gone, see. That's right. I was. Let's talk about that. 

The decision was made that you could go to Ohio Wesleyan by the time you were in your, In those days, now, your senior year was actually a junior year, was it not? 

Because they didn't have four years of high school. Oh, yes. The girls' high, it was four years. It was not like North Fulton or some of the other schools. Oh, it was four years. It was four years. 

So I was 17 when I graduated, and I was 17 when I went to college. And so you were one of the people who was going away to school. Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah. 

And that decision you made because of the tradition in the family, and as you said, you didn't decide not to go to Oberlin, you didn't get recommended for Oberlin. 

What were you thinking about taking, just general classes? 

Did you have a goal you were going to be a nurse or a teacher? 

I was going to be a social worker like my mother. Oh, were you really? 

I took sociology and psychology. Yeah, those were the things that were on my mind. And my sister had gone to Oberlin and she had graduated the year that we moved down here in 1933. 

She had graduated from Oberlin and had gotten a job here, where the mother had found her a job so that when she came, when we came down in September in 1933, she got a job and lived at home until, I guess until she got married. She met a man who had, through one of her college friends who had a friend here. 

So, anyway, it was… It was all who you knew. It was all about networking. It was the way it worked out. Yeah. That's the way to think. 

So, off you went to Ohio. Had you been there? 

Oh, yes. My parents, see, had been from Ohio. Both of them were from Ohio. 

So, they had been there many times. And so, my grandparents were there. 

And my father's mother lived in a little town called Fredericktown, which was where he had grown up, which is near Mount Vernon, Ohio, about the central part of Ohio. And my mother's parents had moved from Cleveland to Oberlin to retire. He was in the steel business and he was Welch, as I had said. 

So he was in the steel business and he moved to Oberlin as a retirement place because of all its cultural things. Yes, music and that sort of thing is prominent. Yeah. How did you like going to college? 

How did you like school? 

Oh, I loved it. I had a great time. Yeah. Did you make lifetime friends? 

Yes. Still have. 

I'm in a round robin letter that we've been writing for 60 years and it got lost somewhere in the last six months, so we've been tracing it to find out who had not sent it on. 

But you can remember those as very happy times. 

Oh yes, I was in a sorority, which in that college, everybody had to be in a sorority, except very few, some day people who lived there did not. 

But it wasn't like it was an elitist thing, everybody was in some sorority. 

Now, Ohio Wesleyan, was it a Methodist college? 

It was a Methodist school. 

But it was just a general arts degree that you were going after, with your specialty being again, you were going to go into social work. 

The four years flew by? 

Oh, it flew by, but I've always liked it because one of our children went there, and so he has kept it, and I've always been close. 

I would always go back for every five years, and they all thought Roan went there because he always went back with me. He was good about that. 

Did you keep in touch with Roan during the four years you were away in college? 

Well, not in any romantic kind of way. You were aware of him still as a friend of your brother. 

Yeah, and see my brother had gone to Davidson, and we all felt sorry for Roan because he had to go to Tech and couldn't go away. 

But Roan loved to play bridge, and my parents played bridge, so he would get somebody. He was close to my family the whole time I was gone because he would go. Isn't that interesting? 

He would go. And you, at that time, were not thinking of him as a future mate. He was just a friend of your brother's. Oh, yeah. Just a friend of my brother's. Yeah. And then what happened before you graduated, or no, maybe after you graduated, was Pearl Harbor. Yeah. You graduated in May of 41. 

I graduated in Pearl Harbor, yes, and when I came home in June and May, in 1941, Rome was working at Eastern Airlines, but he was working at night. 

So he was at home in the daytime. 

And so when I wanted to get a job, I wanted to go to graduate school, but my parents could not send me to graduate school. 

So Mother said, well, you just come home this summer and we'll see what you can find. Maybe we'll work it out for another year. And that did not happen. 

So Ron was still coming to see my parents and see my brother was gone. And so I would see him like that in the daytime and everything, but we never really had any dates. And then he got orders. He wrote to Eastern Airlines and he wanted to quit Eastern. 

He wasn't happy with his job, and so he wrote to the Army and asked, you know, was he going to be called? 

Drafted. Called. Because he was already an officer because of the ROTC at Tech. Right, right. He graduated with a commission, but had not gone active duty yet. Right. 

So you had that summer to get to know him a little bit, just as a friend. Yeah, just as a friend, yeah. 

Okay, but now it's getting real. And so now he's getting, and then he got, after he wrote them, and immediately they wrote back. See, Roan had a problem with eye trouble. He had only one eye that he could see with. And the other eye had been bad all his life. And in those days, they didn't know what to do about it. They called it a lazy eye. 

And in those days, he went, they took him to the best eye surgeon in Atlanta, but they didn't know what to do. 

Now they cover him up and force the other eye, you know. 

So anyway, the Army had said, well, you'll never have to serve, you know, at first. 

But then when the war came, of course, they called him. They lowered their standards and took the guys. And they lowered their standards. He could see with one eye. That was good enough for them. That wasn't all they wanted. It was a body. 

So he went into the military when then? 

That was in July, 1941. 

So even before Pearl Harbor? 

Oh yes, before Pearl Harbor. Because he was called and he had his orders to go to San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

And so he and this good friend, Paul Evans, who also was called, and they left on the Their orders were the same, and they went to New York, and then the boat was not ready. 

So they were in New York about two or three weeks before. They thought they were going to sail immediately, but they did not. 

Now, he was going away to war as a friend. 

Did you make a pledge to write to him and stay in touch? 

Well, yeah, that was what—the first letter I got from him was he sent to the psycho department at Lawson General Hospital, which I thought was really, here I was in the psycho department. Because you had gotten a job. Yeah. Your mother? 

I had gotten a job. No. My sister. Your sister helped you find a job. I knew the man who was going to be head of the psychiatric department at Lawson General Hospital. And they thought they could use a social worker. 

And he said, well yeah, but of course I couldn't, they couldn't hire me as a civil the Civil Service, you had to be able to type and to do shorthand and all that, and I didn't do any of that. 

So I went to summer school that summer. This had happened before the July departure of Rome. 

But anyway, that was how when Rome was off in the morning, he would come down. 

I was down at this business school across the street from Davis and Poisson's, and And he would come down there and we'd go to lunch or go swimming or something like that. 

But it didn't feel like you were being courted. No. He was just a good family friend. Just a good friend. And so you got the job at Lawson, and now tell us where that is. That was out in Chamblee, Georgia, which is where the IRS now is, but they were all mobile. Buford Highway. Buford Highway. That's right. Buford Highway. And it was an army hospital, Lawson. It was an army hospital. 

So we had veterans and people who were actively in the military? 

Actively in the military. That's where they were sent if there were any moves or anything. What was your job? 

I was working for this Dr. Parsons who was my sister's friend who was the psychiatrist and he was head of that department. And so I ended up just doing mental testing. I had done that. I'd had that at college. And so he would let me do mental testing and stuff like that. 

And then I ended up just being running the office because they had a whole secretarial pool and all I had to say was, you know, please type this or do that or something. 

So anyway, I was just helping him as an office manager or something. But, busily employed and all of a sudden a letter comes to the psycho ward with your name on it. That's right. And we started and we had a correspondence back and forth and that's how we ended up. 

I don't know that people can really understand the importance of letter writing as it was at that time. That's right. It's very different. For him, it was his connection back to home place and what was familiar, right? 

Right. And for you, it was how you got to know him. Yeah. You got to know him. Got to know him. Through the mails. And so you started finding yourself looking forward to getting letters from him. Oh, yes. And I'm sure he was focused on letters from him. 

And you know, I don't know whether you remember or not, but you know, they were often just these little bitty letters, Army military letters that were printed. I mean, they were just… Shortening? 

I mean, no, just very small. They were like three by fives, and people took pictures of them, and that was what was bailed to you. Oh, I didn't… You didn't ask. 

I mean, at the very beginning, you actually got a letter in and an envelope and stamps and stuff like that. 

But then after that you didn't? 

No. 

Well, how did you get the message then? 

I wish I'd just have to show it to you. Yeah, you had to say so. You could read it. I mean, it was a picture. It was like a… Was that for security reasons or what? 

I guess that was the way the Army sent mail. 

But you were allowed to write a regular letter back? 

Yes. Oh, yeah. We'll have to take a picture. To the APO, you know, someplace where he was. 

What was happening? 

Well, at that time he was down in Puerto Rico and the war was beginning to heat up. 

So they were looking for submarines in this little island where he was put. They were all worried about submarines coming into Puerto Rico, into San Juan. 

And so that was his job, was they were, they had a battery of guns and they were supposed to be all prepared if they saw a submarine coming, or they were going to take it anyway. 

He was a lieutenant then, he was an officer, so he had a group of men under him, and he was still a very young man of course. Yes, he had all the, and many of them were Puerto Rican soldiers. How long did he stay on that island? 

He was there 22 months. Almost two years. 

And during that time was when we were riding back and forth, and one day his stepmother and father asked mother and me to come, and daddy, to come for dinner. 

So we went for dinner, and that night she, the stepmother, said, well, Rowan wants me to give you this ring, and she gave me this diamond ring. You mean you were engaged by proxy? 

Yeah, because he didn't know anything about it. He had written to them and asked them to see about the cost of a ring and that he wanted to know. He was going to propose to you. 

But he was going to let me know, but he had not at that point. He had not even proposed to you yet. 

So what a surprise for you. 

What did you think? 

Well, I didn't know, so I called him that night and got him out of bed, you know, forgetting about it. 

And at that time it was radio, you know, you had to turn it off and you go back and forth and everything. And so he couldn't understand why he was waked in the middle of the night. 

But anyway, finally he got the message that Lenore, his stepmother, had given me this ring, and I didn't know what it was all about. 

So anyway, he said, I'll write you. 

So he wrote me and said that he had planned it. What a funny proposal that was. Not in that one. I hadn't had any dates with him or anything. And so anyway, he knew that he was going to have a month off in September. 

So he said he was going to say that he could come home in September and if that would be a good time, we could get married. 

So we went on and planned this wedding. and you realize this was a year and a half later you know we planned the wedding at our church and and I said well what am I going to do you know suppose he comes home and I don't want to marry him and he doesn't want to marry me and mother said well we'll we won't send invitations we'll just send announcements and then we don't have to mail them if if you don't get married Isn't that funny? 

You really weren't sure right up to the minute, huh? 

Well, he came home on a Sunday night, and we were going to be married on Tuesday. That wasn't enough time, was it? 

That wasn't enough time. Yeah. 

But anyway, so when he came home... 

But had you taken the ring? 

Yes. 

But with reservations? 

Yeah. We took it with reservations. And so, but anyway, I thought, you know, this is all wrong. What's going to happen if I don't like it? 

Where's the romance here? 

Yeah. Where's the courtship? 

But anyway, he came home, and on Tuesday, we got married. You did. 

So when he came home, that was the magic then? 

It was great, you know. We had a month's honeymoon. We went to New York. He had planned to take us. 

We were going to New York for our honeymoon for a week at the Pennsylvania Hotel, where they had all these big bands playing. And he knew that we both knew that we loved that kind of music. That dancing music. 

So we went up there for, spent all our money. 

Peggy, how did you make up your mind? 

What turned you? 

Oh, I had, you know, I, it wasn't that I wasn't sure, but I, you know, I just thought support. Yeah, I mean, it just. 

But I mean, you hadn't been on a date. Hadn't been on a date. 

So he came home and you had one date and said, this is it. Yeah, yeah. I can love this man. 

But you had gotten to know him very well. 

But I'd known him well enough to know what kind of a person he was. And my parents loved him. My mother thought he hung the moon, you know. Oh, there you go. On all our married life, she did. And that was a big thing. 

So you had ringing your family. And my brother. Of course, your brother must have been. The story was that my brother was in Italy at that time. And mother wrote and said that we were engaged and we were going to get married. And he wrote back, and he didn't think that was a good idea at all. He didn't? 

No. 

No, he said, I love him as a friend, but I don't know what kind of a brother -in-law he's going to be. Isn't that funny? 

But anyway, they have been close. 

So he officially went on the record as not too sure about the whole thing. Mother told me, when she told me that, I thought, oh my goodness. 

Oh, Lordy, what am I getting into? 

What am I getting into? 

But anyway, it was the best thing I ever did. 

One of the important things about that, and really the message of this courtship is that you were good friends. Oh, yeah. And that marrying a friend can never be a wrong thing. That's right. 

I mean, I knew the kind of person he was, he was honest, and my parents loved him, and you know, and they knew him better than I did, really, I guess, because I was. As far as spending time, physical time with. Yeah, because see, I was just home. 

When I, previous to my actual graduation, I had seen him at times when I came home, because he would come and play bridge, and bridge was a big deal. 

But he wasn't courting you. That's the point. No, he was just coming to see the family. 

So, but he was still in the military, so you had this wonderful honeymoon, spent all your money, and then… Spent all our money, and then… You came back to Atlanta, and he went… Then he went back to Puerto Rico, but then in a couple of months, they transferred him, and he went to this, what they call a temporary pool up in Buckrow Beach in Norfolk, outside of Norfolk. And he was just to be there for them to pick him out and send him somewhere else. 

So we were just there, he had just three months there, but I went with him. Yeah, I quit my job and went. 

And what happened? 

Where did they pick him out and take him? 

Well, we were on our way to Ohio to see my aunt, and we got there that night. this was all part of this three months time and he had asked them was he going to be sent out. No, there weren't any orders for him, just go ahead and go. 

So we went to Ohio on the train to visit my aunt and with the day we got there there was a phone call for him the night we got there and he always said he should never have answered that phone. 

But he did. 

But he did and they said come back, you've got orders to go to the South Pacific." So we went back from Ohio back to Norfolk, and we were living in a dive, you know. 

And so we packed up our things, and then we got back on the train, and I went back to Ohio and got off and went up Tomo sister and brother-in-law were living up in Twinsburg, Ohio. 

So I went, got off the train there and went up to stay with them and continued on the train across the country. And then went to… It was a sad partying because you had to be scared to death. I was scared. Yeah, he was going where there was activity. I mean, really, the war had escalated. 

It was very… When you think of the strains that were put on such a young marriage, it's amazing what you lived through. 

But I was pregnant and didn't know it at that point. Oh, you didn't? 

At that point. You didn't even know it. Didn't know it. Oh, isn't that sad? 

And of course, he went on not knowing it. Not that anybody would have cared anyway, let's face it. They would have still made him go, wouldn't they? 

Oh, he had to go, you know. 

But I didn't know I was pregnant until I got up to my sister's. And she was a medical social worker, and she'd think, well, you're probably pregnant. It hadn't even occurred to you. It hadn't even occurred to me. 

Now, he was on the train going to probably, what, San Francisco or somewhere along the coast? 

Yeah, no, San Francisco. 

Where was he headed out to? 

Did he know anything? 

Was he going to be aboard a boat? 

He was going to be a boat. 

He was on the ship and he went to New Guinea and was in New Guinea for a while before he got further orders and he ended up, when he went into the Philippines, when they went in it, lady, on the second day. They were going to the Philippines. 

Now, did the letters start again? 

Yeah, but they were few and far between from him, probably. Yeah, for a long time. He didn't know, see, that he was going to be a father. Yeah. 

So you had to let him know by mail? 

Yeah. 

So you sent him a letter to let him know. He found that out. And Ellen was born when he was, she was ten months old when he came home. 

So, at nine and whatever. 

But anyway, so she didn't know him, you see, when he came home. I just don't think people can even understand the enormity of that, you know. 

And all you could do was send pictures, you know, and of course we've got thousands of pictures of Alan when she was a baby, you know. Because you were taking them and sending them. I was taking them and sending them to him. 

So he had the joy of that. 

But he was in active combat, so things were really tough for him. They were really bad. That whole six months of your pregnancy after he'd left and the ten months. And the rest of the time. 

So that 16 months, more than a year, that you were bravely. I was living with my parents, though, and I continued to work. When I came back, I went back to work at the hospital. 

So they let you do that? 

Oh, they let me do that until, I don't know, maybe I was six months pregnant, I don't know. 

But I went back for a while, I can't remember the times. 

And then you have your baby without your husband, worrying about where he is and what's going on, and bring her up through all her baby time without him. 

And when he came home, of course, he didn't know how babies were, you know, and she was in the same room with me. 

And I would, you know, every time she would turn over or something, I'd start to get up and he'd hold me down, you know, and he'd say, let her grow up, let her grow up. 

But you were playing double roles there for a while, so you had to be very conscientious. How long did it take her to acclimate him? 

Oh, I don't know. We had prepared her, you know, that he was coming home, you know. Daddy's coming, daddy's coming, yeah. And of course, she'd seen all his pictures and everything, and she was of course a very smart child. Of course he was. 

So it didn't take very long at all. Didn't take long, no. 

Now, when he came home, was he home for the duration then, or was it again just a temporary leave? 

No, no. He was, he got out. He had enough points and he could be out. That was in, she was born in January 1945, and he got home in December. 

So it was. Right at the end. 

So 1946 was the beginning of your life together. We really, yeah. Peggy, at the time that Roan came back, the war was over for you at least, and almost over. 

So we're going to start in January of 1946. And in a way, you had been so little time with him physically. Most of your relationship had been by mail as far. 

So you were just beginning, you were going to just get to know everything there was to know about Roan Beard the man prior to coming into Peggy's life. He was coming back to a family that he didn't know all that well either. He knew more about your family than he did about you specifically. 

So you had this adjustment period where you started finding out things about each other, and he learned. He met his little daughter, Ellen, and learned to be a father. 

But before we forge ahead with family and career and everything, let's go back and talk a little bit about Rowan's background. He was born where? 

He was born in Atlanta at Crawford Long Hospital. 

And what did his parents do for a living? 

What was his day? 

His father worked for a millinery company, Ernest L. Rhodes, which was a big deal in those days. 

In those days, hats were very important, and his mother was a homemaker, but she was one of 12 children. Her father was a judge in Mississippi, and then they had moved to Atlanta. 

So Roan is the first one in the family born in Atlanta? 

He has an older brother, ****, who also went to Georgia Tech, but he grew up here and was always, he went to Bass and then Boys High and then Tech. 

So there was a very traditional path he followed of a young Atlantan of that period of time. 

And you have to realize that Atlanta was much smaller then, and there were, people knew everybody else, you know. Indeed, indeed they did. And even though it wasn't that small. A big city in the south, but still a very small town as far as the locals were concerned. Compared to the people, yes. 

And they knew each other and interacted, and everybody knew somebody or knew somebody's family, so he was well connected. And at Boys High, he was well-connected because the coach there. 

Now, you mentioned coach. Ron was an athlete. He was an athlete. He was a naturally gifted athlete. 

Even though he had been disabled his whole life with his vision thing in the sense that he didn't see. Oh, yeah, but they didn't pay any attention to that. They just let him go. He was able to adjust, whatever it was. 

So he played football? 

He played football for Boys High and was very good and very well-known. Rone. Everybody knew Rone Beard. He was Philip Richards. He went to school together all their lives. They went to elementary school and all together. There are just a lot of tech connections you know, even now. 

But he was a very humble kind of person. I didn't know that he was such a great person. You didn't know what his accomplishments were. Those things were not important to me. You know, my brother was an athlete, but... You took it for granted. Yeah, it was just the way people were. 

But when he went to Georgia Tech, did he play football for Georgia Tech too? 

Oh yes, he did. about his time at Georgia Tech. 

Well, he was the center on the team, but the guy who was the center before him was very well, I mean he did very well, and so Rome really was just kind of like a substitute for a long time. 

But he was in that class of 1940 that went to the Orange Bowl, and there was so much about the Orange Bowl at that time, because it was one of the new things, you know, to have bowl games. And Tech went there, and they won, they beat Missouri, and that was all very good. That was exciting, you know, but I didn't know much about that. All that kind of stuff. He would have been very strongly influenced by people like Coach Alexander and George Griffin. Those people became his friends and his mentors, and he grew to love Tech very much. 

Oh, well, he didn't even, you know, while he was an undergraduate, and then, of course, when he went back to work there. But, as you say, George Griffin was one that he really admired and loved. They were great molders of men. They were great mentors and helped these youngsters. And Roan made lifetime friends at Georgia Tech. That was one of the biggies was And that was it. And everybody knew Roan. And so that wherever we went, or whenever we went anywhere, everybody knew Roan. 

I mean, there was just no, and that, you know, I didn't, he was just Roan to me, you know, and it wasn't, but wherever we traveled, or wherever we did, there was always somebody who knew that. Yeah, he came forward. 

So this very tall man who had this wonderful athletic background and a typical coming up in Atlanta kind of lifestyle, you had to get to know. You had to find out what this man was. 

Well, I got to know him because he was easy to know and he was always very quiet, you know. He wasn't a showboat. He didn't try to take over anything. He was very different from Howard or Bob or those friends. And yet those were his close friends who were always... The more extroverted type. Making the rounds and who knew. They all knew everybody, too. Sure, they did. 

Now, what was the first job he was going to look for when he came back from the military? 

He was hoping to go back to Tech because he knew he was sort of in journalism, and he was writing and that kind of thing, and so he knew that he could work for the Alumni Association. Oh, so it was his idea that that might be a good place to go work. That was his first shot. 

But he didn't go work right off the bat. No, he worked for Scripto right away. 

And didn't you mention he went to work for Davidson's too? 

Well, that was just a piecemeal because we had to have something to eat. 

Okay, so the first thing was Davidson's then, Because, just to get money coming in. Yes, yeah. He was on commission and so he was in the... In sales? 

In sales, yeah. 

So then from there it was... That was not what he wanted to do. Look at Scripto and he went there for a short time. He was there at Scripto and that was when we went to North Carolina and lived in Charlotte. And he was a salesman and he had to sell. He went all around East Tennessee and the Carolinas selling. 

And Scripto was definitely a Georgia Tech connection, too, because it was owned by Tech people and run by Tech people. 

So he was with them for about a year. 

Well, actually it was a little bit longer than that, but it was that he had to travel and he was gone all the time. 

So that might not have worked out too far. 

So he and I was there with Ellen all alone, you know, didn't know a lot of people in Charlotte. 

So he made the decision to move back to Atlanta? 

He decided, he said, I can go be gone all week and make a lot of money, or we can go back to Atlanta and I can try and find a job where I'll be home with the family. That's how you asked about that. And so we did that. And he came back to Atlanta. And that was when he went to Davidson's, just for, just enough to... Tide you over. 

Tide us over, and then he went to Tech and got George Griffin, apparently, Jack Thiessen, who was the alumni director, actually hired him, but I'm sure that it was George who... Influenced that. Yes. 

And they hired him to do what? 

What was his first response? 

He was writing the newsletter, and just doing all that kind of... Odds and ends things to keep... 

Odds and ends to keep, and Jack Thiessen was a very loved person, and he had a lot of friends in the Illinois, you know, business, and so he introduced Roan to... 

So he mentored him then? 

Uh-huh, yeah. 

But Roan didn't stay. He only stayed a year that time. 

Well, that was because Morris Bryan convinced him to come up to learn about the textile business. In Jefferson. And he did not know a thing about the Jefferson, and that was when Jeffrey was born. And that was our third child when we went to Jefferson. And Rebecca's son, Southworth, and Jeff were born the same time. 

But we went up there, and they gave us a house. 

So Ellen was how old? 

Ellen was almost five by then. And Andy? 

And Andy was three. Okay. And Jeff was just born. Oh, boy, you had your hands full. Three and five. 

But the first time I'd ever had any full-time help in my life was when we went to Jefferson and Rebecca got me one of her family's women who came and who was just part of our family. She was wonderful. 

But that only lasted for a year because Rome came back to you and said, fine, I really am not used to the textile industry. He said, I'm just a high -paid shipping clerk. 

So, out of here. And out of here. He said, this is an old career. This is not going to get me anywhere, you know. And so at that point, we were talking about going to graduate school, but we couldn't afford for him. He wanted to go up to Pennsylvania to Wharton College, business school, and he applied. He just got an MBA? 

Yeah, but we couldn't afford to do that. 

So Morris, when we went into Atlanta to look for a house to live in, it was that we couldn't see anything. And so Ron went into work on Monday and he was going to tell him that we were going to leave. And Morris said, okay, you can go Friday. And we had no place to go Friday. Oh, my word. And so, but Morris meant that, you know. 

And so we had gone on Sunday, and I remembered this one empty house that we had looked at that was for sale. 

So I remember the name of the real estate agent, and Ron called him at noon after he came home and told me at noon. 

And so he called him, and the guy said, yes, that house was for sale, and it was so much money and how much it was going to be down payment and so Rome said I'll be back in touch with you so we called my father and said can we borrow enough money to get us in get us in which we did and on Saturday we move the next Saturday isn't that amazing but we had close friends there in Jefferson besides the Bryants and we they helped us pack all this stuff up and that was Alf Anderson, who also was a big athlete and a friend of Roan's. 

And so we got there and moved into, moved to Brookhaven in a house in Brookhaven, which was a new house. It was great. 

Now here we are, reestablished in Atlanta, but he hasn't got a job. No job. 

So the first thing he must have done is gone to see George Griffin. Yeah. 

So then he, but you know, I'm sure he just called George because George and Rome were very close. 

So anyway, then he set him up and he went back down to Jack Thiessen and he hired him again, hired him back. 

And so he was in the process of coming up into the alumni business so that he was finally the director. Did he enjoy coming back? 

Oh, loved it, you know, being back with his friends and all. 

So it was a good decision. He never went back and regretted that decision. Oh, no. Oh, no. That was his life. 

Now, in those days, to the best of your memory, where was the office located? 

Where was Georgia Tech alumni? 

It was in the tower building in the basement of that. 

So he was working right in the old tower. I know. 

You know, I think he really actually started in the Knowles building, and then they moved it over into the basement. Yeah. 

But right in the heart of the campus there. And they, there was only a few people working for the Alumni Association at that time. Yeah. Ms. Bradley was there, and Hazel LaGurse, and Mary Peaks was there. I don't know if you know any of those names. And Jack Teeson. And Jack Teeson was the head of it, yeah. And how many years before Roan actually became the director? 

What year was that? 

Oh, my goodness. Because he came there in 1949, we established, or early in 1949. 

Do you not remember when he took over? 

I guess we can look and see when Jack retired, probably when Jack retired. 

But Roan was there in the late 40s, which is a very formative time for the, a critical time for the Alumni Association. 

We lived in an old house that had been made into apartments on Ponce de Linn, right across from the Claremont Hotel, which is still there. 

So you moved then from Brookhaven over to Ponce de Linn, when he took that job? 

I'm confusing the times. We had already done that before. I'm sorry, I'm confused. 

Yeah, but we were able to, we had been at Callaway Apartments, and then we bought a house, and that was when we went to Jefferson, after we bought this house that I just thought was wonderful, first house we'd ever bought. Oh, and you lost that one. And lost that one. Okay. 

And then when we came back, we lived in Brookhaven, And then we eventually moved into this house in Chamblee that we all, where the kids feel like they grew up because we had three and a half acres and it was all for baseball. The whole neighborhood used that yard as a place. Oh, that was great. Yeah. That was great. And that was in, actually that was in the fifties, so it was... Not too far after the time. Rowan was happy with what he was doing. 

Did you start attending tech functions, going to football games and all that? 

They let me join the women's club, even though I was not a professor's wife. 

But they let me join the women's club, which I've been a member of ever since. 

So you got to meet lots of the tech. Lots of the tech people. Tech people. 

And when we had lived in Callaway, Paul Partland's, which is across from the President's House, I met a lot of people then. 

So you really got pulled right into the heart of what was going on at Georgia Tech. You got to meet the presidents. Oh, yeah. Knew all of them. We knew those people well. You knew Mrs. Van Leer as well as the colonel. 

She was the one who said that she thought that I could join the women's club and would be comfortable with the professor's wives. 

And were you comfortable? 

Oh, I was kind of, I'm still playing bridge with them and still going to a book club with them. That's great. 

So you made friends again. Yes, some of these people from 49, 50. And of course, George Griffin was right under your nose all the time. All the time. He was a sweetheart though. Yeah. 

And one of the things about George that I remember so well was he, Rome would get him to go to some of these alumni meetings, but Rome would always do the driving and Jeannie and I would sit in the back seat. And he wanted to stop at every little town that he knew there was an alumnus in. And he would go to the, he would get Rome to stop at the drug store and he would go get a Bromo. I don't know if you know what a Bromo is, but it was, it was something to ease his stomach. And he, but he knew everybody in all these little different times. 

So it would take, Ron would always figure, extra time to get to this place wherever we were going, because he knew George was going to stop and see some people, you know. Just part of the drill. That was part of it, but they were wonderful people. 

I hear he was a notorious driver, because he didn't pay attention to anything, so Ron probably knew that for safety's sake. Oh yeah, we knew. 

And he would always have a newspaper sitting over here on the right side, you know, and Ron would be driving, and he would get to this place, oh, this is where we are going to stop, stop right here, you know. And Jeannie and I in the back seat, she was deaf, and so she spoke quite loudly. 

So between the two of us, Ron would say, shut up. I didn't know Jeannie was deaf. Hard of hearing or deaf? 

Yeah, hard of hearing. Hard of hearing. 

Well, you have lots of adventures with them then, huh? 

Oh, yeah, we did. Road trips. They were lovely people, wonderful people. And Mrs. Van Leer, that's it. You said you had good adventures with her. Oh, she was very nice. And Dorothy Crosland, did you ever come across Mrs. Crosland? 

Oh, yes, sure. 

So these were the main women. The women of the thing. Yeah, the women of that time. 

But, I mean, you know, there were a lot of, all the professors' wives, now that Callaway is a student place, you know, But those days, when we wanted to move into that from Ponce de Lee and from that place that we lived, it was, we were in the first building and it was nothing but mud and everything, you know, and the kids would come in just covered. 

But they had a great time playing outside. 

But we were in building one on the second floor. And so the kids would come up with all that stuff on them. 

But it was wonderful. 

But Roan had said, we can't afford to do that. We can't afford to move to Callaway. 

But somehow or other, we managed it. And that's where we met so many of the professors' wives and everything. It was fun. Was it a happy time? 

Oh, great, yeah. I love it. My children were busy. And at that time, we just had Ellen and Andy at that time. 

And then it was from there we moved to this house over that I was so excited about and just had moved in when Morris talked Rowan into going to Jefferson. And I was very pregnant with Jeff. 

So you were very happy to come back. Oh, yeah. It was just a little interlude. He gave it a try and then you came back. 

So we have that all squared away now. And so then you had your fourth child. Danny was born. 

So we have four children. It's a house full. And Mr. Beard knew he was in the right career and the right place at the right time. 

I mean, there wasn't any question about his looking for anything else, as long as he was able to stay there. And he was, he had a lot of ideas about how he could enlarge the, get alumni, get them to... Be involved. Be involved. Yeah. Really, the birth of modern alumni associations was that time, a roll call, a regular... And they, you know, they arranged meetings in all these different towns. A lot of these little towns or big towns didn't have alumni groups at those times. 

So creating the clubs program was part of it, getting out, getting speakers. 

And getting speakers, get Coach Dodd to go and George Griffin, everybody wanted George or Coach Dodd, one or the other. The two legends. Uh-huh. Yeah, they were legends in their own time. Yeah. I mean, they knew how important they were. 

But people, I mean, they were great. Wonderful people. Wonderful people. Oh, yeah. You were very lucky to be around. Mm-hmm. Such amazing, amazing people. 

So, too. 

And the, it was just, it was the heyday for developing an alumni association, and Bobby Dad's golden years of football didn't hurt a single thing. Oh, not a thing. Having all that stuff come to fore. And besides, he met people throughout the country because he belonged to the National Association. I can't even remember the name of what they called it. 

But he was on the committees and things like that, so we went. He went different places. 

So he traveled a good bit. You traveled some of the time with him? 

Some. As the children got older, I traveled some for him. 

Did you, over that period of time, ever hold a job yourself? 

Did you start working? 

I started working when Danny was in the sixth grade, when we moved from Chamblee to Sandy Springs. 

We sold that property in Chamblee, which was great for the kids to grow up, and built a house in Sandy Springs. And Danny was the last child. 

The other three were at Westminster, and he went to the elementary school up at Amon Perrin. 

So once you had him in school, then what kind of work did you look for? in the afternoon. I worked part-time for an architect, a friend. He would come home from school about three or four, but I would always be there before he got home. Then he was there in the sixth and seventh grade, and then went to Westminster in the eighth grade. Then Ellen had gone to college, and the three of them were there. You never went back to social work? 

No. I worked for this architectural firm, and they were all tech people. Again? 

Again. Tech support. Yeah. And so it's a firm that still works, and I was the only woman there. 

They were all, well, he did have a couple of women architects, but when we did the, he did the Hilton Hotel downtown. 

Now, which firm was this? 

This was Maston Associates. Okay. And he was involved with a Chinese firm that was in Dallas, I guess. And so, they built the, there was a joint group of building the Hilton Hotel downtown. Yeah. Life went on, a few moves, bringing the kids up, a pretty typical life for a couple. What possessed Rome to take a retirement when he did? 

That was… 1977? 1977. 

He was, see, he was over, he was 62 at that point, and he felt it was time that they, he didn't agree with a lot of the things that they were doing, and he thought it was time and I think they thought it was time too. 

So, he retired? 

He retired and they were wonderful to us. They sent us on a trip to Australia. 

Oh, how fun was that? 

They gave us a great big van because he knew, they knew that Ron wanted to travel some more. And so, it was very nice. They were wonderful to us. And did you travel some more? 

Uh-huh, we traveled. 

But we had traveled a lot because he was, part of the alumni. He always started the trips, and so we got to go. Oftentimes, he had to go to work, actually, see. 

Sometimes they paid my way, and sometimes we paid my way, but as my children were older, I could do that. You had more freedoms. Yeah, to do that. 

When did he begin to become ill, so that you were going to be caring for him? 

It was in the early 90s. 

So you had a long period of enjoyable time. Oh, we had a lot of time. We traveled and we did, but we still stayed home a lot. Enjoyed your families. 

But the point was you did have a good bit of time together. Oh, yeah. We had a lot. We were very, very lucky. 

We were married 53 years and he really did not get sick beginning of what we call the Alzheimer's which we weren't sure about but that is not what he died of. 

He died of heart problems but there was one period of time in well he was still working when that happened. He had three surgeries in within 18 months. 

He had a real bad back from a football back and then he had when we went up to Banff to receive the award to Georgia Tech for having the largest number of participants in raise more money in a public school. 

They got an award for that, and we went up to Banff, and the day we got there, he got sick and ended up having appendicitis in Banff, looking out at the mountains. Oh, dear. But, I mean, and then he had some, the other surgery. There were three surgeries, anyway, all was in there, but anyway, he recovered, you know. He was very strong. Peggy, tell me about your children. Let's start with the oldest one. I'll start with Ellen. 

Ellen now runs a school in Syracuse, New York, which is a main, where they really mainstream extreme, special children, and normal children, typical kids. Elementary school? 

It's pre-elementary. 

They take them at 2 and they keep them until they get them ready to go into public school, if they're ready. 

But it's a school that she went there to graduate school, and she got her doctorate in psychology, and her second husband started this school. school. It's called Juwoneo. It's an Indian name. It means to set free. He had three children by his first marriage and was not happy with the Syracuse schools. 

He decided that he was going to start this school where special children could be taken care of, but he wanted them to be mainstreamed and everything. He started that school. 

When she got her degree, she went there and she ended up being the director and she's been the director there for 30 years. 

And they have just built a new, finally just got enough money to buy another building to, and they renovated, renovated that building and they moved in last September. 

So they've been in it a year now. 

But she is a very busy person. 

She's on the graduate, she teaches graduate classes at Syracuse in addition to this and raising two children by herself a single parent. 

So she has two children of her own and then she married someone with three children. One of them is adopted. 

The three children that he had she raised and they were married 13 years and they're all in California or Washington. 

One of them is with Microsoft and one is at Berkeley teaching, and the other one is in San Francisco, too. How wonderful, successful. 

And the two children, she has one child? 

It's one of the ones that's in George Washington, and one who is, oh, a daughter who is, will be 16 in November. She's from Columbia, and Ellen got her when she was five months old. Oh, she's had her in her whole life. She's darling. 

So there you are. 

So I have, those are those two children she has. Yes, that's a busy life for Ellen. It's interesting that she picked psychology, sociology, fields, and she's a third generation of you. That's right. That's really nice. 

And then Andy is our second son, our first son, our second child, and he has always been a tree person. When I couldn't find him, I'd look up in a tree and he'd be up there. And so he's had quite a life and had some problems and everything. And so then he, when he came back to Atlanta, he started his own little tree business, but he... When you say tree business, you mean he grows and sells them? 

Climbing trees and... No, he... How do you have a business climbing trees? 

Well, you're a tree man and you go... Oh, you mean like trimming them and making them well? 

Trimming them and that's, yeah. Like an arborist then? 

Yeah, well he is an arborist. He is an arborist. Oh, okay. 

He finally did that, but he went to Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and he never finished, but he toured the country, you know, hitchhiking around the country for a while. And loved the trees. And loved, always could find a job because he could always do tree business. 

Well, so he saves trees. He saves trees, and he belongs to Trees Atlanta and all those things. 

But he now works at East Lake Country Club as an arborist. And he has a little house over there. 

Well, I'm glad he's in Atlanta saving trees. We need those kind of help for people, don't we? 

Yeah, right, yeah. 

But he's wonderful to me because he comes all the time and keeps my yard for me. Oh, that's grand. 

But he's not married, never has married, has had several relationships, but he's not married. He's committed to his trees. Right. 

And then Jeffrey is our third child, and he went to Ohio Wesleyan, and he is in the mental health business up in, he lives in Hadley, which is right outside of Northampton, but he runs a big shelter in Northampton, Massachusetts. And he has been there. He first taught down in New Orleans for about seven years. his basketball coach at Westminster had called me the day or right before Jeff was going to graduate and he said, what's Jeff going to do? 

And I said, who knows? 

What does a philosophy major do? 

How do you make a living as a philosophy major? 

And he said, well, I'd like him to come down here and teach for me. And I said, he hadn't had any education courses. He said, that doesn't matter. I want to talk to him. 

So he taught him everything Everything he knew, he said, and Andy was, Jeff I'm talking about, was down in New Orleans for seven years at this private day school where Emmett Wright was the director. 

So he's a caretaker in a way. Yes, he's a caretaker. 

And so he had an opportunity to, he took kids to Europe in the summer and he had come up with a science course. 

And at the Amherst School in Amherst, the professor or the doctor, whoever was head of that school, wanted Jeff to come to do that science course. 

So Jeff went to Amherst, moved everything he had, his girl and other things, up to Amherst and they got there. and he didn't have a contract. My brilliant children did not have a contract. And they said, well, they can't, they just couldn't afford to do that. 

So he was up there without a job. And so he had several jobs. He worked at a casket -making place and everything. He got life experiences. He did. 

But anyway, he finally went to work for this company, I mean this group called Service Net, which is a mental health agency. 

So he's kind of in the family business, too. Yes, too. I've just been up there and everybody loves him, but he's not married. He's doing an incredible job of helping people. He loves it and he does that. And then there's Danny is our youngest son. He's married to an attorney, a girl who went to Emory and then she went to law school over in Athens. They have three children. And the nicest thing about all that is they're right next door. They're right next door. 

So Peggy has hands on with everybody. Yeah, so we're very fortunate. The oldest son is 13, and his name is Rome, named for his grandfather. And Joe will be 10 in January, and then their youngest child is Jintzy. In the meantime, between Joe and Jintzy, Danny was run over on Ponce's land. And he was run over by a car and broke a leg, which did not heal very well. 

So there's that space between Joe and Jensie. 

But now he's a very successful seller of... Entrepreneur. I know. We say wax. We shouldn't explain that he runs a major record store here. He runs a record store. Oh, it's a major record store here. And I was going to show bread in Atlanta. In Atlanta. And he's a record producer. Yep. And here is a record. Here is a whole article about my son. 

But anyway, go ahead. I know you can't see my hands. I hope you can't see my hands. 

But you can hold it up. You hold it in front of you. Like this. Making it up as you go. That's the story, huh? 

Yeah. And obviously you're very proud of all of the children. Oh, I'm very proud of him. Of all of the children. Oh, I am. All of them. I have four wonderful children. All of them have a lot of their father's temperament. They're all calm. Isn't that nice? 

And that's nice. You moved here to this house a few years ago, long after you lost. We should say Rome passed away in 1996. 1996 in September. Next week, Sunday, the 21st. And it turns out that Peggy is a very independent woman and has managed very well. Fortunately, I've been very... 

You're still very active, doing a lot of volunteer work, keeping in close, connected to tech with all of your friendships. Play a lot of bridge, do you, Peggy? 

Play a lot of bridge. Play bridge. That pleases Rome no end to see how well you're doing. Yeah, we all used to play a lot of bridge. 

And maintaining all those strong friendships, because as you said, he was beloved by his peer group, as are you, and you return that love. I've been just very fortunate to have found him. To think we came that close to giving that ring back. That was really something. That would have been a different life altogether, and this one has been a very good one. Very fortunate. And still doing very well. 

Well, I told you it was important to put this all down for Roan's sake. And I'm sure he's very proud of all of your accomplishments and being his chronicle. And we're very pleased to have him personally on the record. We thank you for all your time and for your great support of Georgia Tech and your interest in it. And it's been a lot of fun. 

Well, thank you, Marilyn. Thank you. You just have been wonderful. We're glad. This is easy. alright now what I'm going to have Brandon do you and I, we're going to take your mic off and then you've got to now.