Many longtime residents of Kennesaw remember Susie Cox Stegall, the local piano teacher, newspaper correspondent, and center of the town’s social scene. Though she passed away in 1974, she is still fondly remembered over fifty years after her death.
Susie was born on October 26, 1896, and was the daughter of Albert and Susan Cox. Susie’s name likely came from her mother. She was the fifth of eight children, and attended a one-room school house. Susie seems to have developed her interest in music as a child, as in 1913, she provided the music at her sister’s 11th birthday party. As Susie got older, she began spending more time in Atlanta. Just after the United States entered World War I, she went to train to become a nurse at the Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta. Susie worked as a nurse for several years, but ultimately decided it was not the career for her.
In 1919, Susie Cox married Emmett Carey Stegall, an Atlanta detective. They would live in Atlanta for several years. Stegall, however, soon found himself in trouble with the law. In 1923, he shot private detective W. H. Hames and two other men while investigating a prohibition violation, and Hames died soon afterward. While Stegall was exonerated at first, he was later convicted of volunteer manslaughter. He always maintained his innocence and was pardoned in 1932, but his career never recovered. E. C. Stegall died in 1942.
From the mid-1920s onward, Susie Stegall would call Kennesaw home. She began working as a piano teacher and would teach countless students for fifty years. In 1927, she began to handle the publicity of a group she was part of at the Kennesaw Baptist Church. Stegall quickly realized she could learn what events were taking place around town and submit it to the newspaper. Through this endeavor, she became Kennesaw’s newspaper correspondent for decades.
Stegall’s house was on Moon Station, at the parking lot where the weekly Kennesaw Farmers’ Market is currently held. She called it Magnolia Hill. Her house was believed to have been two railroad shanties moved together and converted into one house. Because of this, it did not have indoor plumbing, and she instead relied on an outhouse in the backyard. A unique story about the structure comes from Joe Bozeman, a local historian and one of her former students. Stegall had just finished doing her business in the outhouse when she began to walk back to her home. Suddenly, a train came through town, derailed, and knocked the shack over. The railroad was very apologetic and paid to install indoor plumbing inside her home.
Starting in 1950, Stegall’s byline began to appear with her pieces in the Marietta Daily Journal, making it much easier to research her life and work. Church events played an especially large role in her reporting, as were reunions, guests from out of town, and illnesses. According to an interview she gave the paper in 1957, one of her favorite columns was when she reported that every house in Kennesaw was given a new address number. However, due to a printing error, the column read “all of the horses in Kennesaw have been numbered” instead of all the “houses.”
In addition to her work for the newspaper and as a piano teacher, her flower garden was recognized. Every Sunday for almost 40 years, she arranged to place flowers on her church’s altar. By 1972, she had mostly retired but continued to teach 25 music students. She passed away on May 26, 1974, at the age of 79.
As a way of recognizing her service to the community, the City of Kennesaw held “Susie Stegall Appreciation Day” on October 25, 1964.
She was laid to rest in the Kennesaw City Cemetery, and her pupils continue to speak about her impact on their lives.