Photos and Story by Robin Postell
VALDOSTA – El Thomas remembers 501 East Hill Avenue from his childhood.
“When I was about 12-years-old I used to rake this yard,” El reflected. “I bet I raked it 35 times. And back then, you didn’t come around here if you didn’t live here. This older white couple lived here and they’d pay me ten cents to rake the yard and I remember thinking how I’d love to live in a house like this. I’d think about them and the life they were living, I wondered what it must be like to live in a house like this.”
At the time, El was focused on the ten cents. “I could buy one of those Penny Wheel cookies with the horse on it and some milk. That was a meal,” he said.
About two months ago, El found himself the recipient of a blessing. He was buying a truck from Tim Blanton and out of nowhere Blanton told him he had a deal for him, one he couldn’t pass up.
“All I can say is it was God,” El said. “He told me that he had two properties he’d sell me for $75,000 – and it was this house and the rooming house right next door. God did this. Words can’t explain this.”
El, a successful “handyman and and mechanic”, said he had attended Valdosta High School but was in “special ed.” El doesn’t mind telling you he can’t read and write – something his wife Victoria helps him with as his manager and secretary.
His daddy, who passed about 17 years ago, wasn’t going to let El be held back by any limitations.
“My daddy taught me to count money,” El said. “You learn how to count money, he told me, and you’ll be okay.”
And El is okay.
In Valdosta’s Historical District, El and his wife Victoria have met the criteria for maintaining the old manse, attending this week’s October 1 Valdosta Historical Preservation Committee meeting to get permission for the installation of a balustrade. “I got a lot of grandkids,” El told the committee, adding how much the house meant to him, telling his story to them – about his “miracle from God.”
James Thornton, the Director of the Preservation Committee, expressed, “We are really lucky that someone has that house. El is stabilizing that whole part of Hill by owner-occupying.”
The enormous house, with its wrap-around porch, its three full kitchens, three full baths, towering ceilings, wood floors, beautiful original doors, antique trim, six ornate fireplaces, is a home of a lifetime – and a piece of history. In the last two months since purchasing it El has painted it, replaced the roof and porch floor, put in carpet. A big job – a huge job – and he loves every second of it.
El sits on the porch steps and repeats what a blessing it was, how God had “done it,” saying that he’s headed to Macon to see his mama who has been in a coma for three weeks.
“She got to see the house, got to see the new roof,” El said. “I’m glad.”
Welcome to the neighborhood, El and Victoria.
