Remembering Enterprise's 'finest'

When Elizabeth Russ Nelson Byrd’s name appeared on this newspaper’s obituary page, memories of some of Enterprise’s “finest” came flooding back.

First, “Miss” Elizabeth’s daddy, former Enterprise Mayor Dewey Russ, who in the late 1960s, long after leaving politics, hung around City Auto Sales where his brother-in-law, Sterlyn Speigner, and others of us worked.

One time, we’d sold two Dodge chassis to Smith Lumber Co. and had flown two employees to Columbus, Ohio, to get them and drive them to Nashville, where cement mixer bodies would be installed.

The two employees caught a bus to Birmingham, where Mr. Dewey was to pick them up.

The duo arrived in the Magic City, but Mr. Dewey wasn’t there waiting for them.

He didn’t come and didn’t come.

After a couple of hours, one of the fellas called to find out where Mr. Dewey was; no one knew.

Phone calls to the Alabama Highway Patrol were fruitless.

Everyone concerned was frantic.

Finally, six or seven hours after the planned rendezvous, Mr. Dewey called and asked, “Where are the guys?”

“At the bus station. Where are you?”

“At the bus station.”

“Look around and see if you can find them.”

“I have and they’re not here.”

“Mr. Dewey they’ve called several times since early this morning; they are at the bus station!”

“Do you think there’s another Trailways’ station in Birmingham?”

“No, Sir. But the Greyhound station is around the corner from you and that’s where they are.”

Two other unforgettable fellows in Mrs. Byrd’s life were her two husbands: Howard Nelson and George Travis Byrd.

Howard was a cigar-lover in the fashion of Red Paschal, Ralph Marsh and Junior Counts, who gnawed and smoked cigars decades before cigars became fashionable.

Travis, not a cigar man, had the driest sense of humor many people mistook for no sense of humor a’tall.

But every day we worked together at Enterprise Banking Co. in the 1970s Travis spent time calling depositors who’d written checks on accounts with insufficient funds in them.

While that’s not as bad as telling a little girl you’ve just run over her puppy, that facet of Travis’ job didn’t produce many humorous moments.

The same can’t be said for Travis’ oldest son, Ed(die) Byrd,

Enterprise High School class of 1965, an Eagle Scout, SGA officer, trumpeter, National Association of Mockers’ King, and a fellow whose sense of humor was as obvious as his father’s was not.

Also unforgettable are Sam Byrd, the second son, an opera singer in New York, and Travis’ daughters Margaret and Marilyn, both broke out with acting ability.

Finally, the aforementioned Sterlyn Speigner, who was married to “Miss” Elizabeth’s Aunt Carrie, ran the stop sign in front of Park Avenue Baptist Church in plain view of a policeman one morning on the way to work after City Auto had been moved from Park Avenue to Dothan Highway.

Sterlyn kept driving despite the siren and flashing lights on the police car hot on his tail.

Sterlyn finally stopped just this side of Joe Frank Condrey’s Store at Keyton, and when the officer reached him said, “If I’d a had something that’d run and a tank of gas, you wouldn’t a caught me until beyond the Panama City “Y” after you’d guessed which way I went.”