jeff.waters@gaflnews.com



“Because I had been in the flatwoods of Georgia for so long that I had to do a lot of fast growing up, because I was still wanting to play kid games.”

- Evelyn Peppers



From the flatwoods of Echols County, Ga. to Jacksonville and then to Live Oak. That’s where Evelyn Peppers has lived for nearly a half-century.

She married Gilbert Peppers and the two raised five children and successfully owned Pepper’s Paint Center.

“Because I had been in the flatwoods of Georgia for so long that I had to do a lot of fast growing up, because I was still wanting to play kid games,” Peppers said.

Peppers said she was born in “a hole in the road,” a place called Needmore in Echols County. “You can find it on the map if you look hard enough,” she said.

Her father was in the turpentine business with her grandfather. They would cut notches in trees and extract the turpentine in bowls, then sell it. On the side, her father dealt in “hadacall,” also known as moonshine or white lightning. She said her grandfather was well known in law enforcement there so if they got in trouble, they could get out of it.

Peppers’ parents both passed away at an early age. In 1957 she moved from Needmore to Jacksonville, where she attended Paxon High for her sophomore year. Peppers said moving to Jacksonville from the flatwoods of Georgia was a “reality check.”

“I still liked to play hide and seek and red rover, but I soon learned that that was a little bit more than what they were used to,” Peppers said. “I never heard of algebra until I got to Paxon. It sounded like something to eat like home economics class, so I signed up for it. I soon learned that it did not have anything to do with home economics, so needless to say I went back to general math.”

Peppers said when she moved to Jacksonville with her aunt, her cousin was quarterback for Paxon High School so she was able to make a lot of friends fast. “My cousin said he wanted to introduce me to some of his friends,” Peppers said. “It was just a street behind so we walked over there and went inside and started talking. I said, ‘hey ya’ll, let’s go play hide and seek,’ they looked at each other and thought, who is this?”

In 1958 Peppers moved to Live Oak to stay with her sister and her husband. She said her junior year was the best of her school career. She graduated from South Cobb High School in Atlanta in 1959 before moving back to Live Oak where she eventually met her future husband through a mutual friend.

Peppers said her hobbies are looking after the kids at her daycare, cooking, collecting recipe books and creating new recipes.