I first researched Glenridge Hall when I wrote about a 2011 Dunwoody Nature Center “Monarchs and Margueritas” fundraiser event. The article was for the Dunwoody Crier newspaper.

The historic home was designed by Samuel Inman Cooper for Thomas K. Glenn. He began his career as a clerk in Atlanta in 1887, later becoming executive secretary to Joel Hurt during the development of the Atlanta Electric Streetcar Company.  That company eventually evolved into Georgia Power. 

Cephas Sentell Spruill was born in 1909 in Dunwoody to James Cephas Spruill and Alice Abernathy Spruill. He married Emma Moore of Henry County, Georgia. After World War II broke out, Spruill served as a Marine from 1944 until the end of the war. In 1949, he became postmaster of Dunwoody and remained in that job until 1968.  

I was sorting through some old family documents this week and came across a few diplomas of the women in my family including one for the Georgia Normal School in Milledgeville, Georgia. Which brings up the question-why did they call them “normal”? Normal Schools were established in Georgia towards the end of the 19th century to prepare teachers to teach elementary aged students.  It was usually a two-year program and the term normal referred to establishing clear standards or “norms” for public schools.

I was recently told that Ed Labon of Woodville, Greene County, Georgia, a Black soldier who reported to Camp Gordon in 1917, is buried at Wilson Cemetery in Penfield, Georgia. He died April 13, 1940. Like many Black recruits, Labon was in the 157th Depot Brigade during World War I.

The development will be called Lulah Hills, a name which was originally planned for a neighborhood north of Decatur decades ago. Decaturish.com says the name originally came from landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

According to documents in the DeKalb History Center archives, Pearidge refers to an area of Tucker between Lawrenceville Highway and North Druid Hills Road, Burnt Creek and north to the railroad. Several farms were in the area, including the 250-acre R. F. Sams Truck Farm and the Honea dairy farm on Montreal Road.

The Ashford in Ashford Dunwoody came from the W. T. Ashford family, who owned the home and land that is now part of Peachtree Golf Club as well as land extending across Peachtree Road.  The Ashfords operated a nursery business on this land.  The Ashford home was inherited by Mary Ashford who married Cobb Caldwell and led to another street name, Caldwell Road. The first owner of the home was Samuel House and Windsor Parkway was once known as House Road.  

Recently, while visiting Atlanta History Center, I noticed a plaque for the Frank A. Smith Memorial Garden. The plaque states “The Azalea Chapter, American Rhodendendron Society at the Atlanta Historical Society, designed by C. Gordon Tyrrell, AHRHS. Developed under the direction of Ben W. Sims, Chairman, Azalea Chapter Garden Committee, 1987.” Frank Smith died in 1985.

There is a small, old home on Chamblee Dunwoody Road that was once one of three railroad section houses in Dunwoody. In 1994, two were demolished. It happened very suddenly and without warning. The houses were part of the Roswell Railroad line that ran from Roswell, through Dunwoody, to Chamblee from 1881 until 1921. They were built as housing for men who worked on the railroad line.