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The morning of May 2, 1953, Marion Stembridge began a planned military- style operation and succeeded in shooting two of Milledgeville’s most outstanding citizens. Facing possible arrest at the approach of former Police Chief Eugene Ellis, he chose suicide over prison.
Milledgeville leaders had scheduled a grand gala ball for that evening to open festivities celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the town.
Seventy years later, to the date, the Red Door in Milledgeville hosted the launch of Susan Lindsley’s book Milledgeville’s Sesquicentennial Murders, a nonfiction volume detailing the facts leading to the shootings and the aftermaths.
“With more than a hundred books going out the door, it was the most exciting book event of my literary life,” said Lindsley. “It was more than a book launch; it was more like a blast off. The highlight of the day was the visit of the Ennis Family. Marion Ennis Jr., (Buddy) son of the Marion Ennis, came to the event along with his wife Barbara and daughters Marilee and Liz. I hadn’t seen Buddy since grammar school days.”
Another attendee Lindsley remembers Tony Sloan Brown, daughter of Eva and Bob Sloan. Eva was Milledgeville’s first female lawyer and passed the bar without attending law school. Bob was once a county special detective and shared many of his adventures pursuing moonshiners and cattle rustlers with Lindsley.
“Some people attending remembered the shootings; some heard stories about the day’s events and came to learn the truth and lay aside the rumors circulating around town for seventy years,” Lindsley said.
“But many who came participated in putting the book together by responding to my online request for information or pictures. Two examples are the picture of Marion Stembridge, sought for years but found by GMC Library Archivist Mauriel Joslyn and the group picture of a Peabody group showing Pete Dexter (author of Paris Trout) provided by Anne Overstreet Walden.”
She said it was her biggest opening day book event of her career. Lindsley has 20 books in print, with topics ranging from Milledgeville-based fiction and nonfiction to biographies of Susan Myrick of Gone With the Wind (a Milledgeville native). She has written about Yesterplace, her name for “home, farm, county and town” in collections of essays, short stories and poetry.
“When I entered two articles for evaluation at my first writer’s conference, that is, for editorial advice, I received instead two first place certificates, one for fiction ( When Darkness Fell) and one for nonfiction ( Blue Jeans and Pantaloons in YESTERPLACE). These two documents set my enthusiasm on fire, and I’ve not stopped writing since,” Lindsley said.
Her works have won more than 80 awards in state, regional, national and international contests.
“Awards are nice,” Lindsley said, “but no award can compare with the thrill I had last Tuesday when Milledgeville folks, from downtown, across the state and from out of state, came to purchase copies of one of my books. So my thanks to all who attended, and as ‘Dirty Harry’ would have said, “You made my day.”
– Contributed