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Descendant of pioneering Fayette family buried today

Ardath Loyd Bradshaw, 94, died July 3, 2005, in Ocilla, Ga. She was born in 1911 in Fayette County, daughter of Dr. Robert Calvin and Martha Paulk Loyd, on property that had been in the Loyd family for 182 years. She was preceded in death by her husband, Woodfin Eugene Bradshaw.

The land in what is now Peachtree City was settled in the early 1820s by her great-grandfather, James Loyd, on tracts created by the 1821 Creek Indian Treaty. The Loyd place was located in western Fayette County along Flat Creek near the original Tinsley Mill site.

James and Sarah Parsons Loyd are buried in a small private cemetery on Smokerise Point in northeastern Peachtree City.

One of Mrs. Bradshaw’s fondest memories was of driving a horse and buggy with her sister along Fayette County’s red clay roads to a one-room school. They frequently stopped on the way home to water the horse at Flat Creek and play where the water ran over a large outcropping of rock just below where there now stands a bridge on Astoria Drive leading into Kedron Estates subdivision.

After attending schools in Fayette and Bacon counties, she was graduated from Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville. She held a masters degree in English from Mercer University and a Six Year Education Specialist degree from the University of Georgia.

She taught English, French, and music in the schools of Georgetown, Rockmart, Bibb County, Twiggs County, and Irwin County, Georgia.

In the early 1950s, she was among a small group of master teachers selected to receive grants to attend the University of Georgia and become the first instructional supervisors certified in Georgia.

This select group was taught by Dr. Johynne V. Cox and later became affectionately known as “Johynne’s first class.”

After completion of their academic course work, they were dispersed to several key school systems through the state for internships in instructional supervision. In 1953, she was hired as instructional supervisor in the Carroll County School System and later appointed curriculum director. She served the Carroll County system for 15 years before taking a similar post as director of curriculum in the Berrien County schools, where she worked until retirement.

After retiring from the public schools, she moved to Ocilla, Ga., and joined the University System of Georgia as an instructor teaching freshman English at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton.

An accomplished pianist, she played at the Sunday morning services of the Ocilla United Methodist Church and taught private piano lessons to elementary and high school students until she was in her eighties.

Professionally, she held numerous district and state offices in the Georgia Education Association, the Georgia Association of Curriculum and Supervision at the University of Georgia, and the School of Education at West Georgia College. She was also active in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Accrediting Program.

She was a member of Fitzgerald chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Daughters of the American Revolution, and a Life Member of the Georgia Retired Teachers Association, the Ben Hill-Irwin Retired Teachers Association, the Beta Pi Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society, and was active in the Ocilla United Methodist Church.

Services were scheduled July 6 at the Ocilla United Methodist Church with interment at Paulk Magnolia Cemetery on the Paulk family farm outside Ocilla.

Survivors include a son, Scott and Harriet Bradshaw, Peachtree City; a granddaughter, Kathryn Loyd Bradshaw, Peachtree City; and a sister, Izora Loyd Thomas, Ocilla, Ga.

Paulk Funeral Home, Ocilla, was in charge.