Lillian Webb: She is 'Miss Lillian of Norcross'

“It’s a bit like Mayberry – only better than Mayberry.”

The petite and charming Lillian Webb laughs at her descriptive of the town she dearly loves as she admires her flowers in the front yard of her Academy Street home.  Lillian Webb, born Essie Lillian Hicks, is the long-time former Mayor of Norcross; though most people just know her the way former Atlanta Journal-Constitution associate publisher and Norcross resident Elliot Brack once described her in an article - “Miss Lillian of Norcross, a distinguished, courteous, generous and gracious mayor.”

A child of the Great Depression, Miss Lillian is the product of a society that raised children to be respectful and responsible – to serve for the greater good and to serve whenever needed.

She and her young classmates really didn’t understand that times were tough during the Depression--or that there was such a thing as “prejudice.”  Of course, she realized that the schools then were segregated, but discrimination was not something she and her friends seemed to be aware of.

“We didn’t know anything about that sort of thing,” Miss Lillian says with a surprised look on her face. “We all played together, black children, white children - it just didn’t matter to us.”

It was a much simpler time; a wonderful time for Miss Lillian who enjoyed reading, playing with her friends, swimming and welcoming new people to town. 

“We’d go over to someone’s house as they were moving in and watch,” say recalls. “We could tell by their furniture and things if they had children and we’d go meet them and tell them about the school and our teachers and so forth.”

Her fondest memories of her childhood include the train that stopped in Norcross.  Her father worked for the Southern Railway.

“So, we had passes and could sit in coach,” recalls Miss Lillian, her deep brown eyes twinkling like a child as she remembers going to Atlanta on the train and seeing Atlanta in all of its bustling glory. 

“The train station was down there, where the federal building is now, and it was a beautiful place, lots of people coming and going,” she describes in her soft, Southern voice.  “We could get off the train there and go shopping at Rich’s.”

Back in Norcross, Miss Lillian and her little friends knew everyone and they all knew her.

“We didn’t have to worry about talking to strangers and wherever we went, the adults knew us and knew our parents,” she reminisces with a chuckle. “Of course, if you got into trouble, everyone knew about it, too.  My parents might get a call long before I got home from school saying ‘Well, I hear Lillian got in trouble at school’ and that might be how my parents found out about it.”

But Lillian Webb was not likely to get into trouble at school very often.  She was, in fact, a good student.

“We all were,” she says, crediting her teachers with being very dedicated educators who cared about and truly loved their students. 

Her fourth grade teacher, Jewel Adams, was a favorite teacher of hers.  But Jewel Adams had an interesting idiosyncrasy; she kept the lost marbles of the boys in her classes.

“Sometimes, after the boys came in from playing marbles at recess, one might get loose and go to rolling across that old wooden floor in the classroom and make us all laugh,” Miss Lillian explains. “Jewel Adams had a rule; if one fell on the floor, it was hers - and she really kept them!”

Years later, when Jewel Adams passed way, her family noticed two glass jars that were filled with colorful marbles on her fireplace mantle; a reminder of each of the children she had taught – and loved.

In 1946, having completed the 11th grade, which was the highest grade in the public school at the time, Miss Lillian and her 18 other classmates graduated.  Miss Lillian as the class valedictorian. 

She would go on to get her degree in Chemistry at what is now Georgia College and State University, located in Milledgeville, before marrying her husband James Howard Webb – whom everyone knew as Jack and whom Lillian had known since the first grade in Norcross.

After she and Jack were married, they had four children: two boys and two girls.  Over the next two decades her family would make a life together in a home within a block from the one in which she grew up – and Miss Lillian would be a devoted wife and mother. 

But in 1968, she decided to add “public servant” to her list of titles – without telling her husband.  He would discover her decision to run for city council while reading the newspaper.

In Part Two of our profile of on Lillian Webb, we explore how Miss Lillian got into politics and made big changes in Norcross and Gwinnett County, as well as her thoughts about the future of the city in which she grew up and so dearly loves.