He was our father, our mother and our devoted listener. The rock upon which our family was built. Farmer.
Businessman. United States Marine. Elementary school room mother.
James E. Newby died peacefully at his home March 24, 2019, on the farm where he had lived since he was 5 years old. He was 89. A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday, April 6, at White Oak Presbyterian ARP Church, Moreland.
Visitation at the church will follow. Born in 1930 to Fannie Lou and Clarence E. Newby, James and his family did not have electricity or indoor plumbing. He spent much of his boyhood plowing a mule in the fields of his father’s Coweta County farm, sometimes plowing by moonlight to get the work done.
When his father broke his leg, James quit high school and took over the farm. (He earned his high school diploma later. ) He joined the Marines on Sept.
10, 1951, serving two years. After that he embarked on a business career. But he never stopped farming until he was in his 80s, when arthritis finally slowed him down.
He was a big man – 6-foot-3 and broad about the shoulders. When the mother of his two daughters took ill, he took on her duties, including cooking baked beans about every other night for dinner, a dish his younger daughter, Diane, will not eat to this day. It was a measure of his commitment to his daughters and his confidence in himself that he became “room mother” for a year at Atkinson Elementary School.
At a parents’ meeting in middle school, he once identified himself as “Debbie’s mother”. Strong as a horse, James often reminded his own horses of this fact, especially when he was shoeing them. He ran dozens of cows and owned many horses, two enormous mules and a burro named Trouble.
He was always on the lookout for a new wagon, and he loved driving his mules with his many friends in the Old Time Driving Club. He is survived by his wife, Betty McCullough Newby, and was preceded in death by his wives Gladys McWhorter Newby and Johnnie Abercrombie Newby. Also surviving are his beloved sister and only sibling, JoAnn Whitlock; his daughters, Debbie Newby Halicks (Richard) of Peachtree City and Diane Newby Moore (Ron) of Perry; grandchildren Lauren Moore Hutchens (John), Lindsay Newby Moore Spinks (Joe), James “Will” Halicks (Samantha), Sarah Newby Halicks and Joseph Landon Moore III; nieces Jill Wilson and Jerri Whitlock (Chris); and six great-grandsons: John Michael Hutchens II, Christian James Hutchens, Logan Jude Hutchens, Elijah Joseph Spinks, Luke Hunter Spinks and Ronen Gabriel Stiles-Halicks.
James worked as a weaver at Southern Mills and later at Ford Motor Co He joined Coca-Cola in 1955 and worked there for 35 years. He started out driving a route, delivering Coke to stores, and was promoted to manager of the Newnan Coca-Cola Bottling Plant.
He was the face of Coca-Cola in Newnan, as long as that plant was open, and then worked as division manager of bottling operations from Macon to Valdosta. He was devoted to his job, sometimes jotting down notes about Coke signs that needed attention as he sat in church on Sunday morning. At high school football games, when he saw someone drinking a Pepsi, he would go to the concession stand and buy them a Coke.
He once loaded up samples of a new Coke product and served them to students at a Coweta County school. James was an avid reader, especially of Louis Lamour western novels. He owned more than 100 copies of Lamour’s books and stacks of similar novels by other authors.
He cut Christmas trees in the woods and proclaimed each year’s tree the best one ever. He had a farmer’s eye for the weather, tracking every inch of rain that fell on his spread. And he took a childlike delight in snow – perhaps because it reminded him of the times his mother made him ice cream from snow.
In earlier years, he served as a deacon and elder and sang in the choir at White Oak Presbyterian, was a member of the Newnan Civitan Club and sat on the Trust Board of Fayette-Coweta EMC. He was on the Coweta County Farm Bureau Board of Directors from 1993-2002. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to White Oak Presbyterian ARP Church 2796 Gordon Road Senoia, GA 30276.
Online condolences may be expressed at www. mckoon.com. McKoon Funeral Home 770-253-4580.
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