Guy McBride Dabbs, Jr. (11/16/1932 – 2/06/2003)
Christmas of 1989, Guy McBride
Dabbs, Jr., wrote a short autobiography which he left to his children and other
family members as a remembrance of his life.
There are four things that come across very clearly throughout these
pages. 1) Young Mac adored his wife, Frances. 2) He
thrived on adventures he had with his children and wife. 3) He
loved motorcycles, and, 4) he loved airplanes.
The last two don’t necessarily come in that order. Each of these things came early in his life
and each he cherished until the day he died.
Mac was not a stay-at-home kind
of guy. He was one of the Dabbs men who
were at their finest when he was on-the-road meeting new people and discovering
new places.
Even
his first memories of riding the school bus to school in Mayesville are filled
with the wonder and distractions he found walking up the long dirt road back to
his home every day. “It really is something what a little boy can
do on a dirt road. I had a small pine
thicket that I used to have a house in and made all kinds of plans there. Sometimes it took me at least an hour to
cover that half mile.” From the very
beginning he was attracted to dirt roads away from home.
Mac started driving his father’s
’39 Plymouth Sumter Sumter
might actually leave his father. The summer after he graduated from high
school he started flying lessons at the Sumter Airport South Carolina ,
but in the summer of ’51 they went all the way to Key West
where they got round-trip tickets to Cuba
Mac attended Clemson in 1950 and
transferred to USC-Columbia the next year.
While at Clemson he met Frances (Tic) Stroman (4/30/1931 – 1/13/2002)
after having been set-up on a blind date with her and then backing out before
he found out she was the best looking girl on Winthrop Campus. They were married in 1952, promising both of
their parents that they’d finish school and not have any children right
away. They kept their promise. In 1953 Mac went to ROTC Camp at MacDill AFB
in Tampa , Florida
In 1960 Mac resigned and returned to the
Crossroads to farm with his Dad. Young Mac and his father were not a good
combination as business partners. Mac,
Sr., had very specific ideas and expectations on how farming should be done and
he was critical of young Mac’s abilities and ideas. Mac wanted to try tomatoes
and string beans. They failed. His Dad told him to stick to tobacco, corn
and cotton. Mac
wanted to build a golf course. His Dad thought it was a terrible idea. Why would anyone get involved with another
career where success depended on the weather?
Mac and Frances began by living in the same home with his mother and father,
but in 1962 built a three bedroom ranch on the other side of the pool. Before long they had moved into Sumter Helicopter School
In 1970 his golf course became a reality on
I-95 at the intersection of Highway 378.
Pineland Plantations Golf Course became a family business and while Mac
continued with some farming, Frances and the children ran the golf course with
Mac finding the time he spent there far better than any time on the farm. In 1982 he stopped farming completely and was
again licensed for his medical to fly, having not flown since 1969. He and Frances and the kids were up and
flying again and he invested in one-half interest in a Cessna 172 that cruised
at 120 mph. Next he started building an
air strip east of his father’s house.
Years that followed included fond
memories of many motorcycle trips and plane trips with various members of the
family. Everyone had a
Frances Storman Dabbs
4/30/1931 – 1/13/2002
motorcycle and everyone knew how to fly a
plane. Interestingly enough, ten of the Dabbs descendents have gotten their
pilot licenses. A fascination with
planes runs deep in the family.
In 1994 tragedy struck when Frances
After Frances Sumter Brick Church
