Clyde Sands and Mamie Thrift

Clyde Sands and Mamie Thrift. . Once upon a time you could turn off Georgia Road 185 onto the peaceful rural land that led to the Clyde Sands compound, an exhilarating experience, that is, if you like country. On either side of the by-way, as far as the eye could see, was a complex of rich and fertile farmland. An abundance of fruit trees, peach, pear, orange, lemon, kumquat and fig grew as if in the Garden of Eden. Fat hens, and little fluffy guineas ran loose adding to the ever present charm of a by-gone era. The couple truly represented rural life in Baker County., After the 1969 death of Clyde Sands first wife, Thyra McDuffie, he married the couple's widowed wash lady, Mamie Thrift... a request of Thyra. Clyde was born on the 496 acre farm that his Grandpa had bought for $600 growing cotton to pay for it. Clyde paid his ‘Pa’ $16,000 for the land in 1937. He and Thyra reared two sons on the land. He and Mamie, actually friends from childhood toiled the land and cultivated the crops until Clyde's health failed., Today (2005) the land is cared for by Clyde's two sons, Clyde-Dell and Ferman (Kay) and the old homestead lives on.