By Eric Curl
March 31, 2025 – WRUU’s Louis Clausi recently featured writer and Savannah native Miriam Center sharing stories of old Savannah and its evolution on his “That Old Savannah Magic” radio show. At 99, Center had some stories, and I thought the discussion was so interesting it had to be shared to those who may have missed it. You can find some of the highlights here and listen to the show from February at Show 236 – Miriam Center – 2-23-22 – That Old Savannah Magic – Savannah Soundings.
Joined by Matthews Adams and Miriam’s son, Scott Center, the topics ranged from Center’s early life on Charlton Street in the 1920s, Savannah’s Jewish community, family history and immigration from Belarus; St. Patrick’s Day changes, real estate career and political involvement and friendships with notable figures such as Johnny Mercer. The discussion included descriptions of dirt roads, street vendors, and community-centered neighborhoods. Center shared memories of buying candy for a penny, Yiddish conversations between elders, and streetcars running through the city. Check out some of her direct quotes below.
“We would wake up Sunday morning hearing a song out on the street where hucksters had baskets on their head … They were selling shrimp and vegetables. And my grandmother would go down and buy her produce off the baskets, off their heads. It was very colorful and very beautiful.”
“And there was a family that lived next door and my grandmother, who I shall call mama, because we always did, they would hang off the sides of the porches talking to each other in Jewish (Yiddish). And I didn’t know what they were saying.”
“They were gossiping about all their children and what went on because they never left the houses. They just stayed home and cooked. Nobody drove cars and they walked to a market if they could get down to the city market.”
“And because my mother was one of six children, the oldest, there were four girls and two boys. And so they had one bathroom for two parents and six children. So the boys, my two uncles … would run across the park and pay a quarter at the Jewish Educ Educational Alliance to take a shower.”
“What they told me is Papa in his little confectionary store that he opened after he was a pedaler, it was when you couldn’t buy whiskey and he would keep it behind the walls in his little confectionary store and pull out a slat in the wall and sell whiskey drinks.”
“I love confectionary. You could buy five silver tops, which you all call now Hershey Kisses for a penny.”
“I’d go to the courner, to the confectionary (Solomon’s drugstore) .. where SCAD is now, the Gryphon.”
“And across the street, Poetter Hall was where I went to dancing school.”
“Nobody ever heard of air conditioned or even a window fan. We had a rotating fan and fought to be in front of it. But we’d all go downstairs at night and sit under the big cherry tree and people would make lemonade.”
“The DeSoto was beautiful. It should have never been toned down … There was a bar downstairs called The Tavern. I met a really cute piano player there during World War II, and I can never, I was so young, and I was already going to bars at 17.”
“I went to Trinity Methodist kindergarten, which was right around the corner. And I came home singing Jesus loves me and my mother said, you can’t sing that we’re Jewish. Send me to Methodist kindergarten. So that was the beginning of my life, always singing.”
“We’d sit on benches (at Forsyth Park) and there was a man with a monkey and an organ grinder, and they sold peanuts and we’d buy a bag of peanuts for a monkey … he’d dance while the organ grinder (played).”
“The first president I remember is Franklin Roosevelt and I turned 18 and Georgia decided that people 18 could vote because if boys were old enough to go in the service, it was the beginning. It was World War II, then they would have the right. Georgia was the first state to do that. Then 18 year olds could vote. So I proudly marched over and voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
“You could take a street car from Habersham in front of the ice cream parlor and go all the way to Thunderbolt on a street car and you could go all the way to Isle of Hope on a street car.”
“I sailed to New York on a boat as a child when I was 10 or 12. They used to have boats … Steamboats, beautiful boats. They went from wherever that is on the other side of the bridge. I don’t remember the name of the company, but it would be like SS Birmingham. And when I took dancing, they would say, if you could entertain, let them know. And so I took my costume and my tap shoes on the boat when my aunt took me to New York.”
“Pinkie Masters was a dear friend of mine though. I ran for political office one time and he went all over town putting his little, he had a style of making little tiny signs and sticking them all over places when you’re not supposed to in the ground of candidates. He backed and he backed me when I ran for state senate.”
Clausi’s fabulous show airs from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays.
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