Book recalls author’s 1930s childhood

By H.M. Cauley

For the AJC

For years, friends and family urged Betty Benedict to write a book. The 76-year-old widow was constantly entertaining and delighting her circle of friends with tales about growing up in a small town in North Carolina. The stories grew from notes of events she had recorded on scraps of paper and restaurant napkins and stashed in a floral hat box.

“I always wanted to write a book, but I just couldn’t figure out how to put it together,” said Benedict. “I had no idea how to make the story flow.”

A few years ago, Benedict’s best friend, Charles Thompson, persuaded her to go high-tech with her stories. He booted up a laptop and sat for hours, typing her stories onto a hard drive and arranging them in chronological order. After 10 months, the final result is the recently released book “Winding Round the Square.”

The 282-page indexed work is a detailed memoir that begins in 1929, when the Benedict family moved to Clay County, N.C., several years before her birth. But the core story starts in the late 1930s when Benedict was a child growing up around the town square in Hayesville. The first-person account is written like a diary, collecting a variety of humorous stories related to the inhabitants and happenings of a small town struggling through the Depression and World War II.

“I had a very, very interesting childhood,” recalled Benedict. “My first memories are of playing in my dad’s store in Hayesville where he sold merchandise he bought from big department stores up North that were closing. I remember draping a mink coat over my feet to keep warm.”

Sprinkled throughout the prose are Benedict’s childhood poems, as well as 194 family photos, school pictures, scenes of Hayesville and headshots of friends and teachers.

“I worked on a poem called ‘Winding Round the Square’ for years, and I could never seem to finish it,” said Benedict. “But it gave me the start for this book.”

Benedict may have another tome in her future. Her life after Hayesville was also intriguing, as she went on to marry and have a daughter. She lived in New Orleans, where she attended beauty school, won first place in a hairstyling competition and eventually opened her own beauty business. In the early 1950s, her experience impressed the hiring staff of a salon that was part of the new Rich’s at Lenox Square mall.

“I’d never even heard the word ‘mall’ before,” said Benedict. “But I worked there for four years, even though my goal was to open my own place again.”

In 1962, Benedict began the Decatur University of Cosmetology, but two years later, she sold that business to start the DeKalb Beauty College, which she ran for 32 years. The DeKalb Chamber of Commerce named her its “Businessman of the Year” in 1972 and 1973, and eventually changed the title to “Executive of the Year” in honor of her being the first woman to earn the designation. Her business acumen was also noted by then-Gov. Jimmy Carter, who proclaimed a week in her honor.

Benedict dabbled in interior design until 1998 and enjoyed a brief stint as a successful state lobbyist for the cosmetology industry. She was living in Stone Mountain five years ago when a chance visit to Social Circle in Walton County inspired her to relocate to the small town on the metro area’s eastside.

“I was going to lunch with my daughter at the Blue Willow Inn when I passed this house,” she recalled. “I remember remarking that it looked just like the house I grew up in in Hayesville. And there was a for-sale sign out front. My daughter called the agent, and we looked at it that day. I thought about it for a day or two, then put my house on the market and bought this one.”

The 1850s two-story has double porches, four bedrooms, seven fireplaces, a backyard well and plenty of room for Benedict’s collection of antique furniture and paintings. (It’s even reputed to have a ghost, which she has never encountered.) She divides her time between Social Circle and the family house in Hayesville, where she still finds enough memories to fill another book.

“I think I do have another book in me,” she said. “There are a lot of things I left out of this one. I’m just not sure if I’ll do it or not. But I do know that Charles would have to agree to sit down and listen to it all.”