2015 marks 50 years since United States troops entered Vietnam and 40 years since the war ended. A group that has worked for years to promote patriotism, assist new veterans, and honor the families of those who lost their lives serving in Vietnam is the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association. Two members of that organization, Art Katz and Bryan Tate, shared some of their personal experiences from the war.

In 1917, the soldiers of Camp Gordon were having a Thanksgiving different than any other they ever experienced. Camp Gordon was a World War I encampment built earlier that year in Chamblee, Georgia. The soldiers missed their family and friends, but the camp made it a special occasion by planning a sumptuous Thanksgiving feast and printing a program with the menu.

This is the home of Carlton Renfroe, who moved there with his family in 1941. Mr. Renfroe, his parents, two brothers and three sisters lived in a home at the intersection of Techwood Drive and Harris Street in Atlanta prior to moving to Dunwoody. They had bought the Tilly Mill Road home in 1925, but Mr. Renfroe’s mother said she would only move there when the road had been paved and phone service was available. That happened in 1941 and the family became residents of Dunwoody.

The DeLong family once owned one hundred fifty-five acres in the Dunwoody community along what is now Spalding Drive. Today this land is part of Sandy Springs in Fulton County, but when the DeLongs lived there it was part of Milton County.

In the 1920s through 1940s, there were several summer homes in the Dunwoody and Sandy Springs area. These were homes, often with many acres and referred to as farms, of wealthy Atlanta families. This blog post will share history of three of these properties.

Dr. William Alfred Mendenhall is remembered fondly by folks that grew up in Chamblee, Doraville, and Dunwoody in the 1940’s and 1950’s. He had an office and small hospital, known as Chamblee Hospital, where Chamblee Dunwoody Road met Peachtree Road, just across from the railroad tracks.

Read my Past Tense column in the Dunwoody Crier newspaper titled Camp Gordon, Football and the Spanish Flu by following this link, Past Tense article. Here are some additional photographs from the time of World War I, Camp Gordon, Spanish flu and even some football.

According to history at dekalblibrary.org, the bookmobile first came about around 1940 as part of Roosevelt’s Work Progress Administration (WPA). Maud Burrus put books in the back of her car and visited readers in small towns and farms throughout the county. Louise Trotti followed in Maud Burrus footsteps and became the first supervisor of bookmobile services.

They always had a big garden and lots of fresh green beans, sweet potatoes, and corn every summer. Sometimes we helped pick vegetables from the garden. At dinner time, which is also known as lunch, or supper time, which some people call dinner, my cousins and I would devour multiple ears of corn.