When Pete Risse began working for Georgia Power, Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House. Elvis Presley was on his way to international fame. And the Civil Rights Movement was underway.

The Beatles had not yet formed. The United States had not yet launched an astronaut into space. Spider-Man’s comic book debut was still years away.

Since starting his job in 1955, Risse has helped keep the lights on for millions of people across Georgia. An electrical engineer, he made many of his contributions underground, out of public sight, where he helped plan, design and maintain Georgia Power’s networks.

Seventy years later, “Mr. Network” is retiring as a principal engineer for the utility. Most people don’t hold the same job that long. Many don’t live that long. On Friday, Georgia Power will honor the Georgia Tech grad by naming one of its buildings in Atlanta after him.

The secret to his longevity at work and in life? Pursuing his passion. Eating healthily. And square dancing for 45 years.

“I enjoyed the location, the people, everything out there,” the Atlanta-area resident said of his engineering work. “It kind of gets into your blood, more or less, and you just can’t let go. It’s like a hobby you do. And you get so involved in it that you just can’t quit it.”

None of this would have been possible had it not been for his mother’s courage and some twists of fate at the end of World War II, when they were separated in Germany and their fate was uncertain.

Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

St. Barbara

Barbara Roney told her harrowing story in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine in 1963 amid America’s Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Roney’s husband, a pharmacist who was drafted into the Germany artillery and deployed to Italy, died from peritonitis near the end of WWII. As the Soviets invaded East Germany, Roney was separated from their only child, Pete.

During the war, Roney worked as a nurse in a German military hospital near the Elbe River. That was about 10 miles from where Pete, then 9 years old, was living on a farm in the care of his grandmother.

“There had been rumors that the enemy was closing in, and we were told to have no fear of the Americans but to try to prevent capture by the Russians,” Roney told the magazine. “I was on duty at the hospital when I heard the order at 4 a.m.: ‘Evacuate! Enemy troops are coming in.’”

Roney hid in the woods until the sun rose. As she began the journey back to her son, she encountered a group of war refugees. One warned her to turn around, adding he had spotted Pete fleeing with his grandmother.

For five days, Roney traveled at night and slept in deserted barns. She inadvertently strayed into Czechoslovakia, where she boarded a hospital train and tended to the wounded.

In May of 1945, the Soviets detained her. Roney lost 50 pounds during her monthslong captivity. She heard the Soviets were preparing to send her to work in a coal mine. Roney prayed to St. Barbara, a Christian martyr and the patron saint of artillerymen, like her late husband. Three days later, the Americans freed her. They employed her as a translator in a hospital before smuggling her out of Czechoslovakia inside some wine crates.

Roney appealed to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for help finding her son and obtained a pass to reenter Soviet-occupied territory. Finally, after more than two years, she reunited with her son.

Pete Risse still remembers his mother’s bravery and their emotional reunion in a railway station.

“She was determined to get me out of East Germany,” he said. “If she had not gotten me out, I would not be here today.”

By then, his mother had fallen in love with a “sandy-haired, soft-spoken” American soldier. She married Sgt. Maj. Raymond Roney of Big Sandy, Tennessee. She took Roney’s family name and later changed her first name, Gertrud, to Barbara in honor of the saint. Raymond Roney adopted Pete. In 1948, the trio started a new life together in the United States, eventually settling in the Atlanta area.

Raymond Roney passed away in 1968. Barbara Roney survived him by 21 years.

Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Keeping time

Risse started working in Georgia Power’s transformer repair shop, while he was studying for his electrical engineering degree at Georgia Tech. Next, he created distribution maps for the utility. Finally, he went to work in the company’s electrical network section, where he remained for the rest of his career.

“He has always been one of those dedicated engineers who was not afraid to go out and go into the manholes and go into the vaults and render his assistance,” said Willie Martin Jr., a technical training instructor for Georgia Power. “He has definitely left his mark on the underground network system.”

A widower with two children, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, Risse will turn 90 next month. Mentally, he said, he is ready for more work, but his body is sending him a different signal. He quit square dancing two years ago when he could not keep up with the tempo.

“I still feel like I want to do some more stuff down there,” he said of his job at Georgia Power. “But my body is telling me I need to quit.”

A recent visit to his modest DeKalb County home revealed he will have plenty of things to keep him busy in retirement. One room features a display of radio receivers he built by hand. Occasionally, he listens for signals with them. A woodworker, he built the desk upon which he displays his handiwork. Across from that desk sits a station where he repairs watches.

And situated throughout his home are eight old-fashioned windup clocks he painstakingly maintains. His home hums with their ticktocks. Their rhythmic sound simultaneously ties him to the present and the past. He explained that he learned clock repair from an uncle in Stuttgart after his mother rescued him in the aftermath of WWII.