In the late summer of 1958, Floy Porter Culbreth was living a life in Atlanta that had echoes of June Cleaver á la “Leave it to Beaver.”
She was a happily married 40-year-old mother of two. She had just moved to her first home she and her accountant husband Roy had purchased in Midtown and was thrilled it had a backyard garden.
One day, Culbreth caught a movie two miles east at the Plaza Theatre but left her wallet behind. For unclear reasons, she never retrieved it. Instead, it landed in a storage closet in the manager’s office, forgotten. That closet was later walled off during renovations and subsequent theater owners had no idea it even existed.
This past August, current Plaza owner Christopher Escobar was renovating the adjoining bathroom when a contractor discovered an unknown nook. They found no dead bodies or cash. But the space had an old popcorn-shaped lampshade, empty liquor bottles, stray marquee letters ― and Culbreth’s wallet wrapped in plastic.
Escobar’s wife Nicole, a teacher, decided to find out who owned the wallet and sifted the wallet for clues. “I love being an Internet sleuth,” she said.
The wallet featured a very early Rich’s credit card with “Mrs. Roy B. Culbreth” embossed on it, because wives could only get credit at the time through their husband. Two ID cards for a Thea Culbreth also gave Nicole information to work with. She eventually found obituaries for both Floy and Roy Culbreth in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Floy’s obit from 2005 mentioned her active involvement helping those with cerebral palsy and that led to Nicole finding The Culbreth Cup, an annual golf tournament to raise money for United Cerebral Palsy of Georgia.
Jackpot! She connected with Wes Jones, board chair for the nonprofit and Culbreth’s grandson. The charity event started a decade ago after his grandparents had died as a way to honor both of them. It has since raised more than $500,000 for the organization, which provides an array of services for Georgians with cerebral palsy.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@aj
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@aj
On a bright sunny Sunday afternoon in November, a dozen of Culbreth’s relatives gathered at the Plaza Theatre to formally retrieve the wallet in a room less than 20 feet from where it was found. Escobar handed the valued artifact to 71-year-old Thea Chamberlain, Culbreth’s daughter, who was 6 years old when the wallet disappeared.
Chamberlain’s eyes welled up as she grasped it. “Look at that,” she said. “Oh my goodness. This is hitting me more than I realized it would!”
With her 5-year-old grandson Hoyt sitting on her lap, Chamberlain reviewed the eight black-and-white photos in her mother’s wallet. She and her half brother Jim Howard, 82, were amazed to see a photo of their grandfather and Culbreth’s dad Ashton Porter.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo him,” said Jim, whose handsome 1950s-era visage popped up three times in the wallet.
“Who is that?” Hoyt asked pointing at a tiny photo of a little girl clutching a Tiny Tears doll.
“That’s me when I was a little girl!” Chamberlain said.
“Wow!” Hoyt said, his eyes widened and mouth agape.
Chamberlain thanked Escobar for returning the wallet to them. He smiled. “Places like this only exist because of families like yours,” he said.
Culbreth, who had more than a passing resemblance to actress Myrna Loy in her youth, grew up in the small Georgia town of Sylvester east of Albany and met her first husband Jimmy Howard there. They married and had Jimmy Jr. in 1941 during World War II. But Jimmy Sr. died in 1948 when a train struck his truck. A few years later, she met Roy Culbreth, who was in the Army at the time and ran into her at a dance.
“Daddy saw her dancing and was immediately smitten,” said Chamberlain. “He said he thought to himself, ‘All that and pretty legs, too! Wow!’”
After they married, they moved to Atlanta and had Thea in 1952. By the time her wallet went missing in 1958, Chamberlain was a woman with many interests. She loved crossword puzzles. She did pottery. She attended Theater Under the Stars shows at Chastain Park and adored Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy movies. She was a Camp Fire Girl leader and taught Sunday school at Grace United Methodist Church.
She gardened and cooked plenty of Southern classics: cornbread from scratch, fried chicken and scrumptious home-made hushpuppies. “She could stretch a beef roast into about four meals,” Jim recalled.
Chamberlain used the library card in her wallet regularly to check out religious guides, romance novels and history books. She adored “Anne of Green Gables” and “Gone With the Wind.” She would read recipe books out loud. “I used to tease her about it, but now I totally get it,” said her daughter. “I do the same thing!”
Credit: CONTRIUT
Credit: CONTRIUT
Chamberlain was bemused to find two raffle tickets in the wallet that gave her a shot to win a brand new 1959 Chevy Bel Air. “She always thought she could win but never did,” she said.
And she was also delighted to see her mom’s credit cards for two department stores that were once downtown Atlanta mainstays: Rich’s and Davison’s (which later became Macy’s).
“Mother loved to shop at both,” she said. “I was usually with her and my reward for being ‘good’ was to head to the candy store at Rich’s for rock candy on a string and the best malted milk balls ever made.”
In the 1960s, a neighbor had a child with cerebral palsy, which led her to help open the Atlanta Chapter of United Cerebral Palsy and establish the first day care center in Atlanta for children with cerebral palsy.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
After her daughter left the roost, Culbreth in the early 1970s jumped into the workplace as a clerk in the accounting department at Georgia Power, where she stayed for about 20 years.
Chamberlain said her mother, who died at age 87, led a wonderful life with Roy. “They had such a good time with each other,” she said. “So many friends! Most of their pictures together, they’re either gazing at each other, holding hands or kissing. All my friends wanted to be around them. They were truly special people and incredible grandparents as well.”
The wallet left one mystery: a photo of a young boy nobody living could identify. “All their friends have passed on,” Chamberlain said.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
After giving back the wallet in November, Escobar had lunch with the Culbreth family at the neighboring Majestic Diner. Jim, Culbreth’s son, mentioned he had started an accounting firm decades earlier called Smith and Howard, following in his stepdad’s footsteps. Escobar paused. As executive director of the Atlanta Film Society, he had just hired that exact firm a few days earlier to audit the nonprofit’s books.
“What are the freaking odds?” marveled Escobar. “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
But Escobar was most impressed by what Culbreth left behind. “She managed to inspire her family to continue philanthropic work and make a difference in people’s lives,” he said. “That’s a legacy.”
WHAT WAS IN THE WALLET?
Credit: CHRIS ESCOBAR/
Credit: CHRIS ESCOBAR/
Receipts/Lottery Cards
$2.00 for 6.3 gallons of gas from O. Sams Gulf Oil station; $3.26 for 10 gallons of gas from B.F. Goodrich Gulf Oil station
Two “Lucky Number” raffle tickets for a 1959 Bel Air Turbo-Fire V8, 2-door sedan Chevrolet to be “given away every 59 days at your Spur Filling Stations.” (She did not win the car.)
Credit: CHRISTOPHER ESCOBAR/SPECIAL
Credit: CHRISTOPHER ESCOBAR/SPECIAL
Credit Cards
Rich’s and Davison’s with business cards from sale personnel at Davison’s (Larry Ford) and Rich’s Store for Homes (Sherman A. Sabel).
Membership/Identification Cards
Her library card to the Highland Branch set to expire Jan. 15, 1961.
Her PTA membership card.
Two ID cards for Thea Mary Culbreth, her daughter, at Samuel Inman School. At the time, it was an elementary school, later to become a middle school. It is now Virginia Highland Elementary School, which opened this past August.
Credit: CHRIS ESCOBAR
Credit: CHRIS ESCOBAR
Photos
Her father Ashton Porter in a hat.
Her husband Roy Culbreth in front of a car.
Her daughter Thea as a little girl in front of their apartment building holding her Tiny Tears doll, which Thea later gave to her granddaughter Stella.
Floy and her husband Roy in front of their car with a Dr. Pepper billboard in the background.
Three photos of her son Jim Howard at various ages including as a high school student at Grady High School, now Midtown High School.
A mystery photo of a young boy nobody could identify.
Credit: CHRISTOPHER ESCOBAR/SPECIAL
Credit: CHRISTOPHER ESCOBAR/SPECIAL
Miscellaneous
A calendar for the year 1959 from Ivan Allen Co. Their friend Bill Burch worked for Ivan Allen, so he likely gave it to her.
An appointment reminder for her daughter’s dental appointment with Dr. Marian Sprinkle, on Tuesday, Sept. 30
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