This is an oral history interview with Mr. Charles Fram, class of 1923, conducted by Marilyn Summers on February the 10th, 1995, at Mr. Fram's home in Atlanta, Georgia. The subject of the narrative is student life at Georgia Tech. 

Now, Mr. Fram, I know you went to school at Georgia Tech early, early, 1918, I think you told us you came. You want to tell us about that? 

I came in 1919. Came in July of 1919. 

Came from a small town with 11th grade high school and left in the 10th grade, which was permissible in those days, if you had your credits. 

But I was shy a few credits, and so I came into the big city of Atlanta, little country boy, and I came out to Tech, and I enrolled for the summer class, and moved over to the YMCA, which is the present alumni building, and stayed there the summer of 1919. Where did you stay? 

Huh? 

Where did you stay in the building? 

On the top floor. That was, those were the rooms up there. I can't remember what was down below, because I don't think I ever got below there, but upstairs. 

And then I took my classes across the street at the at the old building and got my credits and then came September I entered as a freshman I don't think we had but well we did have 200 at the freshman banquet, so we must have had a few more in the class. And I had to take courses that scared the **** out of me, to tell you the truth. 

But it did all right for freshman You asked about the professors. There was a DM Smith who was a ******, a freshman ******. He taught math. He'd scare the **** out of you, you really would. and we had a Dr. 

Alexander, the dormitory across the street from the from the field, I believe, I believe is Alexander Dormitory, I think it is, named after him, who was the English teacher. Those are the two people that stuck in my mind. One was a very gentle type of English professor, and one was a rough math professor. Did you learn anything from him? 

Yes, I did. I sure did. They were good teachers. But, you know, back in those days, if you could, Georgia Tech was a, oh, this is interesting. I had my tags on my trunk to go to the Citadel when I was accepted at Georgia Tech. 

So, I took those off and put them on and came to Atlanta. 

Now, you know, Citadel was rough, and I don't know whether I could have taken it. I might have just been the quickest freshman I was there in their history. 

But anyways, I decided I was going to come to Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech was even well known back in 1919. It was the only good technical school in the South, really, truly. 

And so I did my year, but in those days, if you could manage to get your education in the East, well, it carried more weight. It really did. And, I don't know, I finagled it some way or other and I got into Worcester Pollard Tech. 

So you were at Tech for one year then? 

I was there for one year, but that was the most miserable year I have ever spent in my life. 

Why was it miserable? 

I'll tell you what, I made an editorial in this school paper for being ugly at a basketball game. I hollered out, give them ****, and that wasn't acceptable. 

Oh, really? 

And they wrote an editorial about being unfair, unsportsman, unsportsmanlike's the word I want. Head, you know, when you get old you can't pick out the words you want all the time, you know. They come a half hour later after you're gone, see. 

Anyways, I decided that they didn't like me, and I didn't like them, and I had hit calculus by that time, and I was in trouble. 

But I had begged my daddy to let me go up there, and when I came back and said, let me leave there, he wasn't as pleasant about it as I thought he'd be. And from there I went on to the University of South Carolina, where I belong. And I spent three real pleasant years there. and I didn't find out until 1920, 1982, what a poor student I was. 

How did you find out? 

And that came about, I had to have a transcript at Georgia State, I wanted to go there as an auditing student, I had to have a transcript, I didn't even know whether it was in existence, remember it was a long time. 

And I called up the school and they said, yeah they had it, and they said they'd send it, and I told them, I said, while you're sending it, send me a copy. And when I looked at it, I was a poor student. 

But I had me, I really had me a pleasant three years at Georgia, at South Carolina. 

Well, where did you stay at Georgia Tech after you left the YMCA? 

Uh, what is the dormitory's name that's right next to the back of the field? 

Is it the Knowles Dormitory or the Cloudman? 

Well, no, there's only two old dormitories. There's, there's uh, is Knowles, is Knowles right back up? 

Yeah, Knowles. That was my first dormitory. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

No, it was it was an old building even then. It was. Yeah, and it, I don't know, it didn't impress me very highly. 

But then I moved up on the other side of the campus, which is now part of the aviation portion. What's the dormitory up there that's now another, another, can't remember. Anyways, I stayed in two dormitories in that year. And, of course, that was the end of that year. What do you remember about the YMCA building? 

Because it was pretty new in 19... It was new. As a matter of fact, externally there's not much difference at all. I don't think it's been touched. Internally, of course, today it's beautiful, and it was a very simple architecture when I was there. Did you have your own room? 

Yeah, I had my own room. In the summer, it's not, it wasn't crowded. It wasn't a great, great number of summer school students. 

Did you take your meals in that building, or did you have to go somewhere else? 

I'm trying to remember. There was a mess hall, but I can't remember where it was. That had just been too long. No, I took my meals on the campus. They didn't have any of these fast food restaurants around there. Of course not. And they didn't have anything around there. It was pretty scarce. It was fast around that area there. 

I used to step out of my office building and look around and watch the skyline that there was no skyline but I was there at all see the varsity came in later that was of course much later and the Fox Theater came later say that again the Fox Theater that came later oh everything came later after I had gone, because that first year, still a new area around there, you know. 

Wait a minute, Peters Park had been built, Peters Park had been built there, with all the surrounding homes, and that was all that was around Tech. The campus was very small then. Oh, campus was, campus really included just that square where the old buildings are and the field. Did you ever go to any events at the field? 

I went to the football games. Do you remember them? 

Yeah, I remember them. 

There was, I don't think, it was a good year, but I don't think it was anything particularly outstanding that year because, uh oh some of the boys had come back from the second world war first world war first i mean first world war and uh they uh they had a good team but they had to get together again they were called the golden tornadoes then is that right that's right and alexander was the coach do you remember the Staten? 

John Staten was on the team? 

John Staten? 

Oh yeah. He was a Navy man. He came out of the Navy. He used to see him dressed up in his uniform in the marches and so on. One little incident I'll never forget. 

Up in front of the hotel that's just been redone at North, North, at Postalian and Pea Street, what's the name of it? 

The hotel. Georgian Terrace. Georgian Terrace. Uh, they had a portico out front. 

They still have it, and Black Jack Pershing, who was the general of the First World War, was going to review us ROTC, see, and we dressed up in our uniforms with our wrapped leggings and they're dangerous things if you don't wrap them right they'll cut your circulation off see and we stood there at attention up there in front of that hotel the ladies were all over the portico or the porch out there in front dressed up you know beat the band and so on but he was to review us not them we waited and it happened to be a hot day and we waited and we waited and my leggings got tired tighter and tighter and **** the the rifle weighed 50 pounds and here he came in his open car standing up and he didn't even look at us But he saluted the ladies. I haven't liked Jack Percy since, absolutely. That was really mean that day, I mean. That stands out in my mind more than anything. I'll never forget that. That was your ROTC experience. That's right. And that is really pretty much my memory of... 

When you went to games at Grant Field, football games, did they get good crowds? 

Lots of folks come? 

Good what? 

Crowds. 

Well, we thought they were good crowds. The stands filled up? 

Oh, there was only the, uh, the, uh, West Band, that was all. The West Band or the East Band, which is, which is... The West Band. West Band. Yeah. 

It was only the West Band, and the students filled up a good portion of it, and the band, and so on and so forth, and, uh... 

Did the band play, uh, things we'd know today? 

Ramblin'' Rock and all that? 

Same, same thing that they played then, Ramblin'' Wreck and Give Them **** and so on. 

So, wasn't it, no change in the, in the band. 

Where did you, where did you go to listen to or see a basketball game? 

That wasn't on the field, was it? 

I can't, you know, I can't even, basketball never interested me. You mentioned you had been to a game, so I'm wondering where you went to it. 

Well, I can't remember where it was, but it wasn't the, the, uh, the stadium. I mean, the, uh, what's the name of the, uh, Grant Field? 

Not Grant Field, but the... Alexander? 

No, I'm sure it wasn't. It wasn't Alexander Stadium. No, that didn't exist. Uh, but I can't remember, I was only interested in football. Uh-huh, that was your favorite. That was my favorite, and I wasn't interested in anything else. And... 

Did the, did the First World War impact you in any other way than besides you had to go into ROTC? 

No, I'll tell you, it impacted me this way. 

I went to enlist, and they told me to go home and get a note from my mama and papa if I wanted to enlist. I think I was, uh, 15 then. And, but I was rather small, and they wouldn't take me. 

But 25 years later they took me and sent me overseas right quick and kept me over there for three years. 

So you got your chance after that. 

So I got my chance to find out if I was a soldier. And I think I did pretty good. 

Well good. 

Well I'm glad they didn't take you the first time. Fifteen is pretty young. 

Well they were taking, if you were big they wouldn't ask you, see. Really? 

No, yeah, but I was kind of small, and they knew I was too young. I wouldn't be able to, probably wouldn't be able to take what they, what they gave. Yeah. And so I, I missed the First World War. 

But everybody who came to Tech had to serve in the ROTC? 

No, everybody didn't. You just opted to? 

I always, always wanted to be a soldier. I always wanted to be a soldier. And so, I took RETC. 

As a matter of fact, some ways I have a picture of me that was taken down there at that time, but don't know where it is. 

What about the fraternity? 

What can you tell me about that? 

Well, that was a new fraternity, and it didn't last long, and it didn't send me. 

So you didn't get involved in that? 

No, I didn't get involved in that. It really wasn't what I wanted. But, from then on, you know, I moved up. May I feed me another question and I'll answer it. You moved up. 

What other organizations did you belong to on campus? 

You know, I belonged to, no, I didn't belong to a, uh, society. That, that was, that was all. It says in your book that you belonged to the South Carolina Club. Oh, the South, yeah, well. 

What was that? 

Well, that was the, the students, uh, from, uh, South Carolina, uh, that went to Tech, and we went out and had our picture taken. Oh, just to keep in touch with each other? 

Yeah, people did that in those days. They had state clubs and big cities had some big city clubs. As a matter of fact, I think I've got a blueprint with the South Carolina club in it. You can show it to us, Zach. Yeah. Tell me what your social life was like. what did you do to amuse yourself? 

Well... You didn't have a car, did you? 

As a matter of fact, there weren't but two cars on the campus. Oh, really? 

And I think one of those belonged to Bobby Jones. Really? 

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. 

He, I remember he used to sit on the SAE front porch there down, down in the field, and they'd point him out. He already was slightly prominent as a golfer, I think he was a sophomore. 

But there weren't the two cars on the field that I knew of. 

The other one was probably Dr. Field, because we understand he had an old car at that time. Dr. Field, Floyd Field. Oh, yeah, I remember Floyd Field. He was an old man when I was there. Was he really? 

Yeah, he really was. He had a white beard, I think, didn't he? 

I think so. Yeah, I remember him, Floyd Fields. 

I believe there's a building named after him, isn't there? 

He used to drive an old car that they called the Rambling Wreck, and eventually that's the same kind of car that we have now as a Rambling Wreck. Of course, you know, by the time we built our building across from Tech, those guys were gone. They were dead. 

They were old, you know, they were old when I was a freshman, and this was quite a number of years afterwards, 1940. I think Dr. Fields retired in 1945. Uh-huh. We built our building across Kentucky in 1940, and they were old, they were old people then. Did you ever have a chance to see Coach Heisman, or was he gone by the time you came? 

He was gone. He was gone. Dr. Matheson was the president. Do you remember him? 

Yeah, and he was a brother to the Episcopal Minister in Union, South Carolina. Oh, you had a home connection. 

So I had a home connection there, and I visited him one time. And where did he live? 

He lived on the campus, somewhere. In the big house next to where you were. It must have been. Yeah. Yeah. Must have been. You know, we're going back a long way, you know, I can't. Yeah, but you remember it so well. No, I don't. As a matter of fact, my retention is very, is a precious thing to old people. You're doing very well. But, yeah, he was there, and, but that's, oh, I must mention that Uncle Heine was there. Oh, tell us about him. Uncle Heine was in charge of the wood shop, and he was very strict. 

I made a tambour, is it a tambouret, a stool, is it a tambouret, a tambour, no a tambourine is, you shake it. A musical instrument. Tambouret, yeah I had to make, we had to do some woodwork, all freshmen had to take it. And it is right back of the, where the aeronautical stuff is. Right. 

Uh, and that, he had a whistle, which I think they still have there, don't know, have they done away with a whistle at Georgia Tech? 

No, there's still a whistle at Georgia Tech. That same whistle, they used to blow it, uh. That was Uncle Hiney's idea? 

When I was there. Uh-huh. Uncle Hiney's that place. Uh-huh. 

So you learned how to build things from him? 

Say it again. You learned how to build things from him? 

Yeah, in woodwork. You had to, I guess, it was a required course, couldn't get out of it. 

Did you enjoy it? 

Well, I had had some in high school, and I could always handle a screwdriver and a saw a little bit, so it didn't give me a big problem. Did you like him? 

Was he a good teacher? 

Well, he was a very friendly old man. He was real old then. I think his background, he was a ship man. 

I remember he used to have a table we'd eat sometimes with him, a round table that you'd move around, you know, and move the condiments and so on from one place to, you know, in a circle. Right. Why I remember that, I don't know. 

Well, I'm glad you did, though, because you've never heard that before. 

Yeah, he had one of those tables that it would go in a circle, and you'd take what you wanted off of there, you know. Do you think he made that? 

Ma'am. Do you think he made it himself? 

See, he was capable of it, he could do anything. Yeah. He could do anything. That's wonderful to have someone say that about you. 

Did you ever have an opportunity to meet any other people that we might know about, famous people maybe, on the campus? 

No, I can't remember anybody else on the campus. 

I had a roommate can't think of his name right now but about all about 1960 they were looking for lost sheep you know and they had lost him and I happen to remember him and he was at that time the vice president of Standard Oil of New Jersey, I think. Man had the biggest office, private office I ever saw in my life. Honestly, biggest private office I ever saw in my life. 

Had one desk in there, a flag, a SWOT, and a chair, and it must have been 60 by 40 in the, uh, uh, in New York there in the Rockefeller Center. I knew where he was, so, uh, I saw him one time, and I said, now look, they're looking for you." And so he got in touch with him and he became a member of the, is it the Gold Club, the way he gave thousands of dollars to the school. 

So I felt like I had done Georgia Tech a little favor. I think you did. Because I didn't have any money, and he did, and he He died sometime later back then. 

Well, that was a good, you were a good helping person. Yeah. And, uh, I'm running out of, uh... You're running out of things to talk about, huh? 

I'm running out of memory. 

Well, when you were on the campus, if you can think back to when you were living in the Y, if you were staying in the YMCA, and you would come in there, what was the neighbor, what was the area like? 

Did, were there trees on North Avenue? 

And was it a two-lane paved street? 

And was it just a, and what was it physically like in those days? 

Because wasn't it considered far away from the city? 

It was far away. 

If you walked from there to the, to, down to five points, it was a good distance. And after every football game, we'd snake it down to five points. 

Oh, so you took part in that yeah oh yeah the shirt tail parade at that time that was the social meeting place for the college crowd was five points downtown i believe there's pitch drug stores something like that it's one of those buildings that's right there at five points that they're i think are going to destroy it to give an open view from the Woodruff Park to the underground. Do you remember being a part of those parades? 

Oh yeah, I'd get in every snake parade. Oh, that was fun, I mean. It didn't seem so far when you were with the whole group. No, we were young, I mean, what was, I was, I was 16 when I, when I got to Tech. I was 17 when I, I mean summer, and I was 17 when I entered school, and that's young, you know. Yeah, that's young. Yeah, we'd snake it all down there. I don't think people liked it so much, but you know, we'd get in their way, but it was a lot of fun. Tell me about what was it like, though. 

There was no expressway there, so you'd just go right up North Avenue to Peachtree Street? 

That's right, and there was a streetcar There. On Peacht Street. On Peacht Street. No, nothing ran on North Avenue. 

So, North Avenue wasn't a very big major street. No, it wasn't at all. It just fitted into Georgia Tech and that was all. Oh, that was it? 

Yeah. I mean, there was, I can't remember anything beyond it. You know, the Coca-Cola building wasn't back there. Nothing was back there. 

So, was trees just away? 

There were a few factories over to the left towards Marrietta Street. 

But there was nothing around Tick except Peters Park with its small houses, which I think cost about $2,200 then, and which today, heavens knows, I'm going to sell it for. Here we go again, Mr. Frantz. I was asking you to describe a little bit about North Avenue physically. What did the street look like? 

Well, it was more or less sort of a like residential street. I mean, the fraternity houses were, if I remember correctly, on the north side. I can't visualize what was on the south side of the north side. That is from West Peachtree Down. 

I can't remember what was above West Peachtree, because I never got up there very often enough to really be impressed with it. 

Were there sidewalks, or did you walk on the street? 

Did the what? 

Were there sidewalks, or did you walk on the street? 

No, we had sidewalks. 

So when you had your shirt-tail parade, when you went... Oh, that was in the middle of the road. Oh, you went right down the middle? 

Oh, that was... we didn't stay on the... we took over with that even downtown. We were out in the street, not on the sidewalk. Did you go up North Avenue to Peachtree and then right down? 

We went up North Avenue to Peachtree. 

Or we may have cut into West Peachtree and then cut into Peachtree and went down to Five Points, which was the hub of the city at that time, streetcars and everything around there. And they had already covered over the chasm at Five Points. 

I think it was five years before that, why there was a big chasm that you had to go through, and they had covered that over when we were there, and everybody would congregate around Pitts. That was the name of the, of the place. It was a soda fountain place, and co-cola, no whiskey, and that was college meeting place. 

Was Rich's down there then? 

Washington Seminary girls used to come down there and I'm trying to remember if there were any girls colleges. Agnes Scott maybe? 

No, Agnes Scott was a little far out there. 

So they didn't come there, huh? 

We had to go, we had to go out to Agnes Scott. They wouldn't come, they couldn't come down there. Did you ever go? 

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, you did, huh? 

Oh yeah. 

It was a source of girls, I mean, you know, and, yeah, they would invite us, they would invite us out. You went on the streetcar? 

Had to. It was the only way to get out there, because that was way out Ponce de Limbe. 

And, uh, on Columbia, I believe it was on Columbia Avenue that it is, and it looks just like it did then. I don't see any difference. 

I passed it last year, and it looks to me like, I'm sure they've got new buildings there, But the old buildings are just like our old building at Tech, you know, with a spire on it, and oh yeah, I mean, college girls are beautiful. Happy memory, huh? 

Oh yeah, sure. That's good. 

Tell me, did you ever have an occasion to hear anything about Arthur Murray when you were on the campus? 

Yeah, he, of course, he wasn't as famous then as he became later, but he was, he had a studio somewhere, and he was, he was teaching the hoi polloi, he had the, he went where the money was. And I can't remember, I don't think he was married at that time. 

He got married later, but he was, I believe you said he was a sophomore, he might have been a sophomore. 

And did you ever go to the Georgian Terrace where he had his dancing downstairs? 

Not there, but did I tell you about Jack Blackjack Pershing? 

That's the time I went to the Georgian Terrace. Uh-huh, okay. I don't think I wanted to go back there anymore in any ways. 

Now, the Fox Theater... That wasn't built... No, that wasn't there. That was late. I'm trying to think what was... I don't think there was anything across the street facing the... Facing the Georgian Terrace. Facing the Georgian Terrace. was the Ponce apartment. 

I'm not talking about that part, but I don't think there was anything facing the Georgia Terrace Hotel at that time. I believe there was one of the old Peachtree mansions on the other corner there. 

Well, yeah, there were some houses along there. Samuel Inman's house was on there. Yeah, there were houses all up and down Peachtree I mean, all the way out to Buckhead. I think there's still a remnant today in that house facing Lindbergh Drive. I think it's one of the old... There's a few left, not very many. Yeah, not very many. 

As a matter of fact, who was the writer that wrote a book about, uh, about, it's an Atlanta writer that wrote a book that included those houses along them. Ann Rivers City. Ann Rivers City. Yeah. Yeah, she's good. I, I just, I just finished. Speaking of writers. I just finished her last book here, her newest book. 

Which one is that? 

Rivers? 

Huh? 

Is it called Rivers or something like that? 

It was something about Atlanta. Oh, I see. I read so many of her, I read most of her books anyway. We were talking about writers. I asked you if you knew Margaret Mitchell. No, but I knew her husband. Tell us a little bit about that. He was a business prospect. He was vice president in charge of advertising for the Georgia Power Company. who ran the streetcars in those days and I remember I'll come to that I used to call on him try to sell him some advertising in our publication an advertising publication that went to the agencies and so on and so forth and then I remember one time it's a it was down like not lucky wasn't lucky street it was one of the streets in there and the streetcar, streetcar came through and I was going down the area and the streetcar hit me, hit me in the side and I went to ***** and he got it straightened out. 

He hit you in a car? 

Yeah, I was going down the area and the streetcar came out of the side and hit me, which was deliberate murder, I mean, you know. At least. And so you went to see John Mars? 

Yeah, but I had, I had been calling on him. 

And what kind of a fellow was he? 

Very nice, a very gentlemanly, laid-back type of person that was very, very pleasant to know. 

And I never knew Margaret, but I understand she was radically different from him and Templeman and so on and so forth. What was Atlanta like then, when you did business? 

Atlanta was a big, small town. 

So you got to know a lot of people, didn't you? 

Yeah, you could get a lot of people. 

I'll tell you what, walking down Peachtree Street, where Macy's is now, if you passed a white woman, you tipped your hat to her. And, if a colored person came up there, he stepped aside. He stepped off the sidebar. Maybe you'd better not include that. Maybe you'd better take that out. But, that's the way, that's how big Atlanta was. It must have been around 200,000 people. 

I don't know that it had that many and but it was it was a hub of hub of the southeast in business and what what really brought brought the company to Atlanta was the fact that it was a hub of the south for printing we needed a printing plant, and that was, you know, modern, and we brought it down, he brought it down from Greensboro to Atlanta, and that's the way I backed into the publishing business, which I spent 62 years. 

And that's how Atlanta got to have you for a resident on a permanent Yeah, because I was a permanent resident from then on. 

Now, you know, I lived here in 1920, and I came back in 1928 for permanent residence. I see. 

Well, then you came back just about the time the Fox was being built then. That the what was the... The Fox Theater was being built in 1928. Somehow, although the Fox Theater is in the back of my mind. Yeah, it was being built in 1928. 28? 

Yeah, opened in 29. 

Well, that was it then. I guess I confused it with Blackjack Pershing, if that's right. 

So you get things, you got a chance to see the city change quite a bit, didn't you? 

I'll tell you what I did see. You may not know this. Where the Peachtree Hotel is, around the hotel, downtown. Weston Peachtree Plaza? 

Peachtree Plaza. Yeah. You know that used to be the governor's mansion in 1990. When I came back in 28, the Henry Grady was there. A lot of people don't know that the governor's mansion stood there. They think it's in the... Angeley Park? 

Angeley Park. 

But first it was on Peachtree Park. 

Right there on the corner where, and that's still the state land, still belongs to the state, but that's just a sidebar to the fact that the... You've seen a lot of changes in Atlanta. A lot of changes. 

Well, the biggest changes was to step out of our building on 3rd Street across from Tech and take a look around and watch the skyline that was, that surrounds us. 

When I went, when we built it, as a matter of fact, in 1940, 1940, the only thing was the hotel back of us, the Biltmore Hotel. Otherwise, there was no skyline at all. There was no skyline really downtown that you could see from where we were. 

Now, of course, you're surrounded with the skyline. It's changed radically. 

Well, It's grown to be a bigger city. As Tech has. And Tech has grown, or Tech has grown tremendously. You've seen the campus get bigger and bigger. Get bigger and bigger and take in more land and more land and more land. And I went by there for homecoming. Did you? 

Yeah, I met Dr. Clough, your new man. He's a delightful person. Yes, sir. And I... You've got a chance to see some of the Olympic buildings? 

That's exactly what you see. You helped me out. They are gorgeous. And one of those buildings is being given to my present alma mater. As I understand it, Georgia State takes over one of the... They're tremendous. Huge buildings. 

And I'm told that there's going to be a fence around Georgia Tech during the, during the time where you won't be able to get in. No, it won't be open to the public because it won't be able to go in. That's right. You'll have to have an admission to get in to the campus all the time. 

So you've seen a lot of changes. Oh, yeah, well, in 60 -some odd years, if it, it's not Union South Carolina. No, it's not. Because it's the same Main Street that I left in 1919. No changes there, huh? 

No changes there. I think some of the original buildings are still on the Main Street. 

Of course, I understand that they have a strip mall outside of town in Union, which I've never seen, but it hasn't changed any. 

Well, you'll have to keep in touch with the campus, because it's changing by the week. Oh, I see that now. 

Well, thank you very much for your time. It's my pleasure.