 In 1992, a League of their Own was released in cinemas all over the world. This was a captivating story about the American girl's professional baseball league. It was fictional characters, but it was based on a true story. The catalyst for the American girl's baseball league was World War II. During World War II, as all of the men went off to fight in the war, a new movement started happening among women. Women all of a sudden had to step back from their traditional roles and take on more masculine type jobs. A League of their Own is personally one of my favorite movies, even though some of the actors who were in a League of their Own have since fallen from grace. I still very much appreciate the story of these women that had to go up against all odds to continue to keep our country economically running while we were in the middle of a huge world war. In fact, I remember going to the movie theater to see a League of their Own and at nine years old it was so inspiring to see these women still as beautiful and as feminine as they could be kicking butt in baseball. Because of this wave of females having to go to work during World War II is where we get our next story in Rome, Georgia. We're going to follow the story of a woman who moved to Rome from Alabama in order to find work during the war. Her work would end up becoming legendary, but before we get started remember to hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Go ahead and tell your friends too and as always, if you have a story that you want me to cover, please message us on our Instagram at esotericatlanta. Of course, I would like for all these stories to be in the state of Georgia. Welcome to esotericatlanta. My name is Bryce and today we're going to be talking about Miss Peggy's house of ill repute. She was one of seven children. There were four girls and three boys. Peggy's father was a furnace man, so he would run steel up and down Cherokee County in Alabama. When World War II broke out, Peggy moved to Rome. Georgia, Rome, Georgia was the closest somewhat metropolis city near her in order to find work. In a lot of the literature I read, it said that Peggy was a very responsible woman and she oftentimes would take care of her brothers and sisters when her family wasn't able to. I don't know where Peggy was in the order of her brothers and sisters, but I have a feeling she was probably one of the older siblings, given the stories of her wanting to provide for her family. When Peggy moved to Rome, she ended up boarding at a girls boarding house on East Second Avenue in downtown Rome. Now for my young listeners or viewers, boarding houses were very common back then. They were a place, for example, it would not have been maybe appropriate for a woman to have her own apartment or what not. Of course, times have definitely changed since then. Now boys and girls live together, no big deal, but for this time period, this was normal that you would go and you would stay at a boarding house where there was lots of other women there. It was kind of like a grown-up sorority house from what I gather, except it wasn't tied to a university. There were probably some rules and regulations about who could come inside. I don't think girls were bringing their boyfriends into the house or whatnot. It was a more respectable time. And in 1943, as fate would happen, something happened in Rome that changed Miss Peggy's fate. In 1943, Batty General Hospital opened up in West Rome. Batty General Hospital was a hospital that was taking in wounded soldiers from World War II. Batty Hospital was named after a man named Dr. Robert Batty and he was a doctor from Rome who was a pioneer in ovarian cancer. I probably have mentioned this before, but Rome still is known for its medical community. That's how, again, my mother's family ended up in Rome. My grandfather was a surgeon and they have the Harbing Clinic there and he got head hunted to come and be a surgeon for the Harbing Clinic. Rome is very fortunate and from what I've researched, even before my family was in Rome, it sounds like Rome has always pioneered medical developments in medical health. So that makes sense that the government would decide to put a hospital for wounded war vets in Rome, Georgia, since we had access to so many wonderful doctors. In fact, Batty Hospital was a prominent business in Rome up until 2011. Now, of course, it ceased being a veteran's hospital and it actually became kind of like an asylum for people with mental instability or poor mental health. And in fact, in the 1940s, while it was serving as a hospital for wounded war vets, it also opened up a wing to be a tuberculosis unit. And then it was in 1973 that it became Northwest Regional Hospital, which is again the hospital that most people from my generation know it as, which was a place for people who had some mental health issues. And then again, as I said, it closed in 2011. But back to our story. As Batty General Hospital opened, all of a sudden, Rome received an influx of young men who were wounded from the war. These young men were finding themselves getting into a little bit of trouble because they were headed into the more sketchy areas of Rome to try to find some lady friends. And so as the story goes, some pretty powerful people, politicians and big wigs in Rome approached Peggy Snead one day and asked if she would open up a business to help them with their little problem. Again, this was long before any of my families, either side of my families, were in Rome. And I just like, man, I wish I had somebody that could tell me about those days when Ms. Peggy opened up her brothel on East First Street in downtown Rome. Legitimately, she opened up a brothel. And it was like this open secret in Rome and she for a very long time did not get any problems from the police or from the powers that be because the powers that be were the ones who asked her to open this place up. As time went on, Ms. Peggy's brothel became one of the biggest landmarks in Rome, Georgia, and it put Rome, Georgia on the map for a really long time. She was internationally known for her house of ill repute. Ms. Peggy also hired a taxi service to come and pick people up and bring them back home. She also sold liquor. This doesn't seem like such a big deal to us now, but back in these times, we were just coming out of prohibition. And a lot of states, even when prohibition was lifted, continued to ban the sale of alcohol. And even when they started selling alcohol again, it was very much looked down upon. Now, when I was a little girl, you couldn't buy alcohol in the stores on Sunday. That might have changed. I'm not 100% sure. I know when I lived in California you could. So I'm really unfamiliar with how that works now. But if it has changed, it goes to show you that in the 37 years that I've been around, even as little girl, there were still some weird things around alcohol. It was rumored that Ms. Peggy Snead would drive around Rome in a pink Cadillac, and she had a poodle that she colored pink as well. And all the people of Rome say that Ms. Peggy used to come to downtown Rome to the department stores to buy her lady's pretty lingerie. Now, it is also said that Ms. Peggy's need was one of the most respectable and kindest women that you would ever meet and was generally loved by the town. She made a lot of money and she gave a lot of money back. There was also a rumor that Ms. Peggy Snead worked for the FBI and that she would elicit men, bring them into her brothel, and then call the authorities when these men that she would get to come in were wanted. My mother told me, so my mother and her sisters, when they moved to Rome as children, Ms. Peggy's home was in operation, full swing operation at this point. My mom said that they used to prank call Ms. Peggy's house. She says she feels really bad about it now, but I don't think that was the worst thing Ms. Peggy ever had happened to her. In fact, let's get into the worst thing that Ms. Peggy had happened to her, which was her downfall. The downfall of the brothel started in around 1968. A young police officer by the name of Jen Free went down to Ms. Peggy's house to pay for a lady of the night. As soon as the transaction happened and she received the money for Mr. Jen Free's purchase, Ms. Peggy was arrested. Now, apparently when she was arrested in 1968, there was a huge backlash from the community. You see, Ms. Peggy was loved by Rome, Georgia. Nobody had a bad thing to say about her and people were pretty upset that they had arrested her. But alas, on September 25th of 1969, an indictment was filed against Ms. Peggy's need and the indictment number was 17477. You can still look up all these charges today. In fact, the four charges on this indictment were prostitution, two crimes of pimping, and one crime of owning a place of prostitution. Although I am sure that this trial was very stressful for Ms. Peggy's need, it does seem a little bit comical as I was reading the whole story, if I'm honest, it's a little bit comical. And definitely a story that makes a small town a small town. Now, let me go through a little bit of what happened at the trial, Ms. Peggy's trial. So she ended up having two missed trials in two days. And on October 28th of 1970, the Rome News Tribune quoted that a juror stated he reached his guilty verdict based on Ms. Steele's needs reputation. Now, obviously, I understand where this jury is coming from. But for those that aren't familiar with the way our judicial system works, you have to go, I've served, I actually really like serving jury duty. I'm probably one of the only people in the United States who likes jury duty. But you can't, you can't be biased. You have to go, they ask you a lot of questions. You have to go into the trial being completely as unbiased as possible. And of course, because of who Ms. Snead was in the town and everybody, even my mother as a little girl knew who Ms. Peggy was. Everybody knew she was running a brothel. Everybody knew that she was serving alcohol. She was doing all this stuff. So it was almost hard to find a jury that didn't already believe that, yeah, she, she's actually guilty of these charges. Even though she was placed in this position as a madam by very powerful people in Rome, Georgia, who wanted to make sure our wounded war heroes were serviced properly by ladies of the night. I mean, prostitution is the oldest business in the world. So going back to her trial, here we have a very small town in Floyd County from every socioeconomic background, from every race, from every religion knows exactly who Ms. Peggy is and what she does for a living. Now, even though people know she's guilty, there are also people that don't want her charged because they like her. They actually really like her and don't want her to have to close down. And here's my own opinion about this kinds of stuff. Obviously, human trafficking is a really big problem right now. And I think we're seeing a lot about different rings of trafficked humans in all sorts of pockets of power across the world. However, if someone isn't being trafficked, if they are doing a job because they choose to do this job, then I don't have a problem with that. It sounds like in my opinion from what I've read and I could be completely wrong. I wasn't alive then. I didn't live in Rome. I don't I never knew Ms. Peggy. So but it sounds like she was running a business with women working for her that were choosing to work for her. It doesn't sound like there was anything super illegal going on in this illegal business, if that makes sense. I didn't read anything about any underage girls or anything like that. And apparently, Ms. Peggy would constantly be shopping for her girls and really took care of them. If that makes sense, I don't know, I could be wrong about that. But like I said, from what I read, it just sounded like Ms. Peggy was a pretty upstanding citizen and kind-hearted person, even though she was a madam. But regardless of whether the people of Rome liked her and wanted her house to stay open, it was technically an illegal operation. So Ms. Peggy was found guilty of all of her charges, and she was placed on probation and had to pay a $1,000 fine. And after this, Ms. Peggy's house completely closed down. Now in August and September of 1971, Rome experienced a lot of upheaval as a community, as did the whole world. There were a lot of racial riots going on, and a very necessary time in our country. Our country was starting to shift and re-look at what, how we viewed equality. So it was a positive change, even though some of the change resulted in some violence. And with that violence, during the riots, there were a lot of businesses downtown that caught fire and were burned. And Ms. Peggy's house was one of these businesses. And I chuckled because in reading about this, the police officers they were interviewing in the article I was reading said that when the call came over, it didn't give the address. It just said Ms. Peggy's house was burning. And everyone knew exactly where that was. Talk about a small town. And one of the police officers went on to say that when they got to Ms. Peggy's house, someone played Jim Reeve's precious memories over the dispatch speakers. And I literally almost fell out of my seat laughing. I mean, I mean, I can see it now a bunch of cops just standing there with this house, this old famous brothel burning down in precious memories, playing over the speaker. I could see them taking their hats off and salute to Ms. Peggy's brothel. I really think this would make a really good movie. I think someone should make a movie over Ms. Peggy's needs life. I think this story is just, it's fantastic. I mean, you can't make this shit up. It is just fantastic. And this is, even though I'm, I prefer to live in a city, these stories are what make small towns magical sometimes are stories like Ms. Peggy's like I live in Atlanta, we got a ton of brothels here. There's gangs of prostitutes just down the street for me that go out and work the streets every night. It ain't no thing here. But in a small town like Rome, Georgia, that's a story. Ms. Peggy's life is a story for the history books now because every good story needs a good ending. There is a good ending to this story. After Ms. Peggy's needs brothel burned down, another building was put in its place. And this building was the greater Christ temple rapture preparation cathedral. That's right folks, a church was built over the property that used to hold Ms. Peggy's brothel. Now Ms. Peggy's need passed away in 1991. She had some health problems that had persisted reading about Ms. Peggy spending a couple of days reading other people's experiences with her. She reminds me a lot of Dolly Parton in some ways and maybe that's just my own projections in my head. But Dolly Parton has a quote where she says that she never wanted a boring life. And I definitely think that Ms. Peggy's need did not have a boring life. And I think that she had a very fun filled, fun packed life. And it does seem that even though she was operating technically in a legal business, she was very good to the community of Rome, especially since that wasn't her hometown. She gave back and she seemed to really take care of people. And given what I've read, it seems that most people in Rome who knew her have nothing but very fond memories of her. So rest in peace, Ms. Peggy's need. Thank you for the stories. Thank you for the precious memories for those who knew you. And you know, truth is stranger than fiction. And I know that Hollywood right now is seems to be going down. And for good reason, there are a lot of really bad people in Hollywood. And it seems like now we're going through a cleansing and getting some of those people out. And so for those young filmmakers out there, if any of you are watching this, I think the life of Ms. Peggy's need would be an incredible movie. I know I said that earlier in the video and I'm going to say it again. I think that this would make a fantastic story. And it is a true story. All right, guys, thank you so much for sitting through another video. Thank you again to Josh McCabe for our music and to Todd Roderick for doing our editing. Don't forget to subscribe and to give us a like and to give us a follow on esoteric Atlanta on Instagram. I hope you guys are doing well. And I will talk to you soon. Bye.