The Fayette Citizen-News Page

Wednesday, November 5, 2003

The Faces That Built Fayette

Part 4: Traveling carnival comes to F’ville, produces a mayor

By BRUCE L. JORDAN
Special to The Citizen

Lois Brown Seawright had represented her family proudly, bringing a doctor to Fayetteville and giving birth to two beautiful daughters, one who would bring a great mayor to the town, but she did not inherit all of the family’s good looks. In fact her sister Louvale was being referred to as the “prettiest girl in Fayette County.” Louvale Brown watched her sister Lois marry and start a family and was anxious to do the same. Louvale was younger than her sister.

Lois had spent her teenage years in the living quarters in the county jail with her father, Sheriff Tobe Brown, a foreboding character. She was there in 1908 when he fended off a lynch mob that was after accused murderer Jim Bennett while her mother hid Bennett in the clothes hamper.

Louvale’s mother Elvira was never convinced that Bennett was guilty although the mob was. A jury eight days later would be convinced enough to convict him of murder. Louvale watched as her father hid Bennett under his lap robe (a type of blanket used on buggy’s in the winter) and spirited him away to Jonesboro for safekeeping until his trial. Bennett was charged with killing Buddy McEachern, the former town postmaster, and a jury quickly sentenced him to death by hanging.

The hanging caused quite a stir in town. Louvale’s father Tobe couldn’t bring himself to “pull the trigger” on the gallows that day in 1908 and asked Sheriff Brown (no relation) from Clayton County to come to Fayetteville and perform that function. Louvale was 17 at the time. The hanging near the town square was a big event in 1908, drawing more than a thousand people to the town square.

Exciting events, no matter how tragic, were rare for the small town of Fayetteville. Another exciting event would soon come to Fayetteville and change the life of Sheriff Brown, his wife Bunch, Louvale and eventually the entire town.

In late June of 1910 a carnival visited Fayetteville. These carnivals might stay in a town for days or weeks depending on their success and the town’s turnout. During this 1910 visit a “carney” worker named O’neil Lindley Dettmering, nicknamed Whitey because of the blonde hair he had as a child, spotted the pretty young Louvale Brown.

The carnival was called Wood’s Shows and included a poodle performing tricks as well as a carousel and many other attractions.

Whitey was the son of Leo and Frederica Dettmering, immigrants from Frankfurt, Germany, who had settled in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Whitey’s parents died and left him to be raised by two aunts who eventually became blind. Whitey joined the traveling carnival for adventure. When he saw Louvale Brown in Fayetteville, he gave up his sense of adventure for his infatuation with the girl he soon learned was the sheriff’s daughter.

An unexpected fire disrupted the carnival on July 4, 1910. The only thing not disrupted was Whitey Dettmering’s intentions. Although he knew he would have to proceed with caution in pursuing the sheriff’s daughter, proceed he did.

When the carnival moved on from Fayetteville, Whitey Dettmering did not. He convinced Louvale Brown to run off to Griffin with him and get married. He took her to Texas for a short while, but as all of the women in her family had done, she convinced her husband to take her back to her small hometown of Fayetteville.

They moved into a home just south of Louvale’s parents on South Glynn Street. According to the family the bamboo that grows in the area just south of what is now Enterprise Leasing was planted by Whitey so he would always have fishing poles.

Whitey and Louvale began what would become one of Fayetteville’s larger families. They had seven children, five boys and two girls. Sadly, both of Louvale’s daughters died as infants. Her destiny was to raise five energetic Dettmering boys. The times in which she raised those boys would be filled with conflict. World War II and Korea demanded the service of all five boys at some point and time in their lives.

Whitey went into the produce business at the old Farmers Market on Sylvan Road. He would take the peaches from his father-in-law Tobe Brown’s orchard, as well as other produce grown in Fayette County, to the market for re-sale. He supported his large family this way for years, selling Fayette County crops to people throughout Atlanta. He also ran trucks of produce across the country iced down for preservation.

Whitey and Louvale had lost both of their daughters at ages 1 and 2 but their sons all grew up to serve their country. Their next blow came in 1949.

Having survived World War II, oldest son Frank returned home only to be killed in a single-car accident on Birdie Road in Spalding County. At the time, his brother Jack was on the USS Toledo and received a telegram erroneously telling him that his father and two of his brothers had been killed in a car accident. For five weeks Jack believed he had lost half of his family in one car wreck. When his maneuvers were complete, the Navy corrected the mistake and Jack learned that only Frank, his oldest brother, had been killed.

Whitey and Louvale had a scare with their youngest son, Harry, who everyone always called Jerry, when he developed rheumatic fever as a child. This led to an affliction which was devastating to him during high school. It was a condition known at the time as St. Vitus’s Dance. The clinical name for the affliction is Sydenham’s chorea.

Doctors now know it is an after-effect some suffer after having rheumatic fever at a young age. The condition caused Jerry to have tremors in his hands and arms as well as constantly licking his lips. It caused his older brother Jack constant fights through high school defending his younger brother from the mean spirit of some high school bullies.

Jerry eventually outgrew the affliction but either the condition or the medications left him with a heart murmur. Jerry missed a lot of school due to his illness. He graduated from high school two years behind his peers. Just as he was graduating the Korean conflict entered the lives of America’s young men.

Jerry wanted to be a minister and was studying at North Georgia College. He knew he could not get on with his life until he knew if his services would be demanded overseas. He took physicals with all of the armed services and failed because of his heart murmur. Believing that he would never be accepted because of his medical condition Jerry asked the draft board to classify him in a category that would give him a high probability of being drafted. Jerry thought it would get it all over with for him. He thought after being drafted he would be rejected after a physical. It didn’t happen that way. Jerry was drafted by the army and sent to Fort McPherson where he passed his physical and was sent on to Korea. He was killed there in 1952.

Whitey and Louvale had to deal with the painful reality that they had witnessed the death of more than half of their children in their lifetime.

Louvale died of a sudden heart attack in 1959 at the young age of 68, still one of the prettiest women in Fayette County. Sadly she never saw many of the great contributions her children and their children made to the community she grew up in.

Whitey tried painting for awhile but eventually opened a pool room and grill on the square in Fayetteville. He lived to see his son Jack take on a significant role in the town.

After serving his time in the Navy, Jack Dettmering went to work for B.F. Goodrich Tire Co. In February of 1950 Jack went to the Fayette County Courthouse with his friend Dan Wingard. While Jack was there Dan introduced him to the county tax receiver’s daughter, Mary Whitlock. After having just met her, Jack left the courthouse with Dan and turned to him and said, “Dan, that’s the girl I’m gonna marry.” And he did. Jack Dettmering and Mary Whitlock married in June of that same year.

In 1963 Jack became involved in the town government serving as a city councilman for five years. In 1968 he became Fayetteville’s mayor. He would remain the mayor for the next two decades, longer than anyone before him or to date has ever served as the town’s leader.

With Mary by his side Mayor Jack Dettmering would bring sewer lines, an independent water authority and many other advancements to Fayetteville. Near the end of his last term Mayor Dettmering arrived at a ceremony to dedicate the new city police and fire building on Johnson Avenue. He was moved to tears when it was revealed that the other city leaders had, while he was on vacation, voted to name the new public safety building in his honor. Many believe him to be one of the more progressive mayors of the late 20th Century. Not a bad accomplishment for the son of a carnival worker who passed through Fayette County and spotted the prettiest girl in town.

Watch The Citizen for future installments of Bruce Jordan’s “The Faces That Built Fayette.”