MADGE HILBURN METHIN - EDITRESS

 MADGE HILBURN METHVIN

An Editress Who Contributed Her Life to Her Community

Madge Hilburn Methvin was born on January 23, 1900 in Dublin, Georgia.  Her father, Octavius Inman Hilburn, was a pioneering farmer of Laurens County, who was credited with planting the first pecan trees in the county.  Her mother, Eugenia Calledonia Jackson, was a member of the large Jackson family of the Brewton community.  In her adult life, Madge Methvin was revered by  her colleagues for her work as an editress of a small town newspaper.  She was an editor who saw her job as the chronicler of the events of her community. She never backed away from reporting the news, even when it wasn’t popular with many of her readers.

Madge Hilburn didn’t start out to work in the newspaper business.  After completing her education at Dublin High School, Madge enrolled in Shorter College in Rome, where she obtained a degree in music.  She began teaching music and other classes in Hiawasse, Dexter, Glenville, and Eastman.  One day she walked into the office of the Eastman Times Journal to have some recital programs printed.  Little did she know what fate was awaiting her inside the door.  As she entered, she noticed a young man who was the son of the editor of the paper.  Claude Methvin, Jr. and Madge Hilburn fell in love.  Madge’s music teaching career was over.  From that moment on, she was in the family newspaper business.

Claude Methvin, Sr. published “The Times-Journal”  for several decades before his death, when his son Edwin T. Methvin took over the operation of the paper.  Claude, Jr. and Madge moved to Vienna, Georgia where they had the opportunity to buy “The Vienna News.”  In 1933, during the height of the depression when money food was scarce and money was even more scarce, the Methvins gathered enough money to buy the business.  Claude served as editor. Madge did just about everything else.   When many people were lucky to find work at all, the Methvins were working seventy six hours a week.  Mrs. Methvin recalled, “The work week never mattered, I soon learned, for when you are the recorder for all that goes in a community, your work goes on around the clock anyway, just as life does.  Your mind becomes like a recording tape, receptive to story impressions everywhere you go, whether at work or at play, noting items that must or may become next week’s news.” 

Madge was singing in the choir when the head deacon of the church and minister got into a rhubarb over the matter of legalizing drinking in Vienna.  When the board of deacons sided with the minister, the deacon stormed out and kept the fight going, giving the Methvins stories for many years.  Madge was approached by a man with a gun threatening to kill her husband if he published a story in the paper.  The Methvins were also barraged with requests to publish stories about big animals that had been killed by glory seeking hunters.  As with any paper, mistakes can be made.  Madge never figured out how this line, “The shooting occurred in the woods on the Peavy farm,” about a group of cotton pickers being hit by shotgun shot, was printed at the end of a young couple’s engagement announcement.  Methvin was proud of one story which walked through her door.  It was a story about a movement to plant blue lupine as a cover crop.  The plan was successful and led to a special editions of the paper, a county festival, and national recognition for the county. Madge also took pride the paper’s role in the establishment of a hospital in Vienna.

Claude Methvin, Jr. died from cancer in 1953.  All alone, Madge considered returning to her first love of teaching music.  With the unfailing support from her employees, Madge managed to keep the paper going without missing an issue. The Methvin’s oldest son, Claude III, was working with a paper in Seattle, while their youngest, Eugene Hilburn Methvin, was studying at the University of Georgia and planning a career in the Air Force.  Madge didn’t want to curtail her sons’ career plans by bringing them home to work in the family business.  Mrs. Methvin in her memoirs said that “she knew of no other work which could be so satisfying.”  Madge often balanced the sufferings, responsibilities, and tasks of being a country editor with the rewards of being so close to the people. Time after time, the latter outweighed the former.

The most famous citizen of Vienna during those days was Georgia senator, Walter F. George.  When Sen. George, an icon of Georgia politics,  announced his retirement from politics, “Time” magazine hired Madge to gather reactions from the local citizenry.  Methvin submitted two pages of material. “Time” used two sentences and paid her twenty-five dollars or $2.50 a word.  When a local couple complained about the subscription price of her paper, Madge answered that she got $2.50 per word from “Time” and charged annual subscribers only $4.00 for all of her words.  When the senator died, Methvin’s office and home became the nucleus of all outgoing information that was provided to state and national media.  Reporters scoured her files, and she willingly gave them all of the information they wanted - even to the detriment of her own business and her sleep time.  At Senator George’s funeral, Mrs. Methvin played the organ.  Madge Methvin played the organ and led the choir at the First Baptist Church in Vienna from 1946 to 1963.

The Methvins never shied away from reporting articles involving race relations in the county.  In 1935, after stern warnings from the “courthouse crowd,” they  published a report on the murder of a black prisoner by a gang of white men.  This incident and others led to  the establishment of another town newspaper in 1937.  The Methvins persevered and the rival paper went out of business in 1942. After World War II when the activities of the Klu Klux Klan began to accelerate in Dooly County, the Methvins took a public stand against the lack of due process, cross burnings, beatings, and shootings.  For two years, Madge took over the brave role of criticizing such activities in the community.  The public began to accept her words and through their ballots convinced Georgia governor Herman Talmadge to completely change his stand on the Klan. Talmadge actually ended up encouraging the passage of a  law, which led to the downfall of the Klan in Georgia. 

Madge won the Georgia Press Association’s Shope trophy in 1957 for a fearless editorial against the governor’s activities in a states rights rally in Americus. In 1966, Madge Methvin received a special GPA award for her organization of a letter writing campaign to Marines in Vietnam.  She was honored by the Georgia Association for the Mentally Handicapped in 1974 for her support of their worthy causes.  

Madge’s health began to fail .  In 1974, she retired and sold the neswpaper where she had worked for over forty years.  Her successor, Carlton Lawson,  described Mrs. Methvin as “A lovely lady, a lively lady, with a twinkle in her eye and a charming style.... she has lent her style, her humor and her courage to just about every phase of newspaper work.  More than a witty writer, more than a courageous editor, she has used her talents and her opportunities to make life better for all members of her reading public.  She has made her life a contribution to her community.  Another of her lasting contributions to her country was her son, Eugene Hilburn Methvin.  Methvin, a senior editor with “Reader’s Digest” magazine has won national acclaim for his articles on crime and its effect on our county.  Perhaps a classmate of Eugene’s characterized her best when he  exclaimed that Mrs. Methvin, was “everybody’s mamma.”  Madge Hilburn Methvin died at her home on Valentine’s Day in 1982.