1,813 words, 10 minutes read time.
At the 2025 Haman Family Reunion at Old Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church in Ashburn, we sat down with Annise Collins Harwell, sister of previous interviewee Donzelle Collins, to share her memories of growing up in Turner County. Annise painted a vivid picture of mid-century life in Ashburn– from watching the local school burn in the 1950s to working alongside her mother as a nurse’s aide at the original Turner County Hospital. Her recollections offer a glimpse into a time of community, resilience, and quiet progress, when neighbors rushed to save school desks from the flames and hospital staff cared for every patient with equal compassion, despite the segregation of the era. Read below for a firsthand look at Annise’s memories of Turner County’s past.
This interview may have minor edits for clarity.
The Ashburn School Burning
TCP: Can you tell me anything about growing up in Turner County that you remember, like, growing up on the farm, or going into Ashburn?
Annise: I did not live in Ashburn long.
TCP: You moved to Arabi. That’s right.
Annise: That’s right. Then we came back to Turner County. When I was, I did fifth grade down there, and I came back to sixth grade.
TCP: What school did you go to?
Annise: Uh, the elementary school there. Well, no, it was a whole 11th grades.
TCP: So the Ashburn school that’s in town, you went to that?
Annise: Yes
TCP: Were you there when it burnt? No, you probably weren’t. You got married, ’cause the school burned in the ’50s. Was it…?
Annise: Before I left.
TCP: Oh, before you left, so were you at school?
Annise: I was in high school when it burned.
TCP: Can you tell me anything about that? Like, your experience of that? Do you remember?
Annise: I remember. I came up there and I watched it.
TCP: You went up there and watched it in the middle of the night? Where did y’all live at that time?
Annise: Two blocks direct south, but you had to go around the road to get there.
TCP: What street did you live on?
Annise: We lived on Monroe Street. Well, the Mill was at the top of the hill in the town. We were on that street.
TCP: Okay, Monroe. So, you remember when it burned, you went to watch it burn. That’s what someone else told me. They remember going to see it. It was a big event.
Annise: It started in the middle of the school. And there was two things, two little classes upstairs. And one was a Home Ec, and I took my mama’s good scissors, with her permission. And pin cushion, with her permission. And I left them there that day, ’cause they were teaching us to sew. And it burned.
TCP: Oh, no. So where did you go to school after that? Because I heard some people went to Rebecca. Some people went to other schools. Did y’all do that, or did you stay at the school?
Annise: No. We stayed in school. It was just in different rooms.
TCP: Yeah, some people said that happened. It just depended on the grades.
Annise: It burned in the center. Which was the offices and the auditorium. The first floor could be refurbished. And then they rebuilt that.
TCP: Wow. Well, that’s good to have another perspective on that. I have information from Ms. Gloria Pylant. She used to be Ellis, Gloria Ellis. So she may be near your age.
Annise: Younger.
TC: She told a similar story about the school burning. So I’m just glad to get another perspective.
Annise: The burning was in the center. And there was only one upstairs to it. But it was in the middle, and you walked in the front door, in the middle of the door. And the fifth grade was right on the left, the old auditorium. And upstairs was Home Ec. And that’s the part that burned.
TCP: And it was wiring, wasn’t it, that caused the issue?
Annise: They were having it repainted. And found out later that the guy who was painting actually put out fires in there as he was painting, but he never told anyone about it.
TCP: That’s crazy.
Annise: And so… it started right after 3:30. I lived two blocks to roughly South, and saw the smoke going up. And a bunch of his kids in the street said, ‘Oh, I hope it’s the school house.’
TCP: Oh, and then it was.
Annise: And then it was. We went up there and tried and tried to get the desks out. And pulled all the desks from the wings. And set them out of the grounds.
TCP: Trying to save as much as possible.
Annise: Yeah.
Visit the Turner County Project Store and wear your hometown pride today!
The Turner County Hospital
Annise: They had built the hospital in ’53.
TCP: The Turner County Hospital? Tell me more about the hospital. What was your experience at the Turner County Hospital? Because you were there for a few years, apparently, before you got married. What were you doing? What was your job?
Annise: I was a nurse’s aide there. And at that time, there weren’t a lot of laws about it. And so, we probably did more than the normal nurse’s aide. But I worked in there, and I did whatever they told me to do. I could assist with it with supervision.
TCP: What type of things did you do? Like, medical things, or were you just more of assisting, like, giving things to people?
Annise: Uh, I’m assisting with… I was a nurse’s aide, and I was doing all of that. I did whatever they needed help with on any of the procedures they were doing. Changing dressing and such.
TCP: Yeah, so you never did any stitching or anything like that?
Annise: No.
TCP: So you were just helping someone else who had the training. You were just helping.
Annise: I was just helping
TCP: I imagine back then it was probably just a little different than the standards now.
Annise: Yeah. We didn’t have but two doctors.
TCP: Two doctors? What were their names, do you remember?
Annise: Both of them were Dr. Goss.
TCP: So Dr. C.C. and Woodrow, they were both the doctors there?
Annise: Yes. They were brothers. The doctors made house calls. The hospital was built in 1953, and my mom and I both worked there.
TCP: She was also a nurse’s aide, too?
Annise: Yep.
TCP: Did she stay working there after you got married?
Annise: She worked. And then the doctor, Dr. Woodrow, helped her get into Americus for training. And get the practicum that she was doing in the hospital here. And she became an LPN and worked at the hospital.
TCP: Wow. So she became an LPN around when? What year do you think that was? Maybe 60 something?
Annise: Probably early 60s.
TCP: And she stayed until she died, or did she end up retiring for, ’cause she, you said she died in 1978.
Annise: She retired because she was sick. She worked at the hospital, and I worked there with her. And… there weren’t very many nurses at that time in Ashburn. And I remember one night, though, we only had about 10 patients, because it’s a small hospital. She was supposed to work, but she got sick, and I went to work for her. And when I got to work… There was nobody there but me. And Dr. Woodrow. There was doctors’ lounges. And he came in and spent the night at the hospital. And told me if I needed any help, he would be there. And so I took care of the ten patients.
TCP: Were they, like, not dire, or were they just recuperating or something?
Annise: Recuperating and minor things.
TCP: Ah okay. Babies were born there. Did you assist with babies being born?
Annise: I saw babies being born, I assisted with them. But I was in there and helped take care of him in the nursery.
TCP: Was that a fun time with babies? I imagine holding the baby and cuddling with them was really fun.
Annise: It was. And it was in segregated times. Yes. And there were three wings. And one nurse’s station. One was an OBGYN. One was white. And they had a wing for blacks.
TCP: Did you ever help in the black wing at all, or were there separate nurses?
Annise: No, we all took care of it all.
TCP: Can you tell me more about that? I mean, obviously, I know it’s a sign of the times. It was very common. Everything was, even the movie theater was separated.
Annise: We didn’t do anything other than what we did before. We had the same standard of care [for everyone]. We took care of everything.
TCP: So you are saying that the spaces were separated based on race, but they all received the same level of care.
Annise: It’s a new wing, and you do it. Yeah, just like O.B. was a new wing. We took care of that. We took care of them. If you worked in the hospital, you took care of the whole thing.
TCP: Were any black people who were hired as nursing aides?
Annise: Oh, I don’t remember black people working in nursing. But we took care of the blacks.
TCP: I will say most people in a medical field generally don’t look at any of that stuff. They treat the person and the conditions, and not anything else. So I understand that’s probably pretty standard no matter what. So that’s great to hear, though, that was just the fact here.
Annise: Yeah, the only thing that was different was, if we had a child, we were always in there. Didn’t matter if he was black or white. You went down and you spent time with that child. Because it was scared to death.
TCP: Yeah, of course. I can imagine.
Annise: But I remember only a few children being there. I remember being one of those who took care of them.
TCP: Yeah, okay. Well, this has been a great conversation. I love to talk about the hospital, because I’ve never talked to anybody about that. So you’ve given me a lot of information, which I so appreciate.
About The People of Turner County Project:
This is an oral history project that works to both preserve, document, and celebrate the people of Turner County and the history through the stories of those who have experienced it.
This project collects oral histories of people who have lived or worked in Turner County, Georgia.
Leave a Reply