Weekend celebration will honor famed local author

The Fayette County Public Library will honor the beloved Fayetteville medical doctor and nationally known best-selling author Dr. Ferrol Sams on Saturday, June 16 with an old-fashion country picnic in celebration of the release of his newest book, “Down Town.”

The event will take place on the library’s lawn and in the social hall, from 1-4 p.m. and will include hot dogs, chicken, and much more, plus live entertainment by Jhelisa Anderson. Sams, 84, will also give a brief talk about the new book, which will be available for purchase and signing. The event is free and open to the public.

In 1949 Sams took the Hippocratic Oath and swore to uphold the medical tradition. However, in 1948 he took another oath, at which time he vowed to love, honor and cherish his wife, then Helen Fletcher. The couple were both students at Emory University in Atlanta and became medical doctors. They worked as family practitioners from 1951 to retirement, just last fall, after 55 and a half years.

Sams, whose dream was to be a country doctor, fulfilled his dream in the truest sense. In the early 1950s, he made house calls and home baby deliveries in the tradition of a country doctor. Then the country grew up around him and he stayed on, retaining the tradition. Additionally, in 1987, he and his wife Dr. Helen Sams opened the Fayette Medical Clinic, now Piedmont Physicians Group.

A close-knit family, the Sams have four children who live nearby as do most of their grandchildren. Daughter Ellen is an administrator at Atlanta’s Piedmont Hospital; Ferrol III and Jim are both internal medicine physicians; and Fletcher is a local state court judge.

Sams’ writing career began in 1978 when he began writing a family history for his loved ones, which included his colorful, rural Georgia roots. “Run with the Horsemen,” his first book and a national best-selling title, was the result. It was a semi-autobiographical novel, which was published in 1982 when he was 60. In 2006, it was selected as the inaugural text for the Atlanta Reads program.

Sams went on to write seven more books: “The Whisper of the River,” “The Widow’s Mite and Other Stories,” “The Passing: Perspectives of Rural America,” “Christmas Gift!,” “When All the World Was Young,” “Epiphany: Stories,” and now “Down Town.”

A master at developing rich characters in the model of “our town,” he includes calculating politicians, ruthless businessmen, nosey spinsters, manipulating wives, Southern belles, morticians, a burly postmistress, the good doctor, the no-nonsense sheriffs and blundering crooks.

Sams has been acclaimed for his Southern humor and, often quoting the Bible, for his morality lessons. In 2004, book reviewer Frederick Christian Franck said about him, “Sams is as clever as (Mark) Twain…as sincere as Charles Kuralt and as connected to his roots as (William) Faulkner.”

Sams roots go back six generations in Fayette County. He was born in a house built by his great-grandfather in 1848, the house that his son lives in today. He recalls tending a few acres of land with vegetables and cotton and feels that the youth of today are missing out on the joy of working the land, of the smell of the earth and the feel of the dirt in your hands.

Recently, while on a brief retirement vacation, he is noted as saying, “Sitting here, with my lovely wife, Helen, on the porch of our country cabin...looking out at the beautiful Georgia Mountains, I can say that I am the richest man I know—I’m not talking about money. My life has been marvelous—filled with wonderful children and grandchildren; living and working in a town and county I love.” He spoke of being pleased to be able to indulge himself in his life-long ambition to write.

“Now, I am enjoying retirement to the hilt,” he stated. When asked about his new book “Down Town,” he simply said, “I had a lot of fun writing it.”

The June 16 event is sponsored by the Fayette County Public Library and the Friends of the Fayette County Public Library. The Fayette County Public Library is located at 1821 Heritage Park Way, Fayetteville.

For additional information, please contact the library at 770-461-8841.

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