Advertisements for land in the Atlanta Constitution both in 1920 and 1946 list land on Balloon Road and Dunwoody Road, both described as being off Peachtree Dunwoody Road. In 1920, all local roads were dirt. Roads began to be paved in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration.

A piece of the Balloon Road remains today. It is called Old Balloon Road, located to the east of the complex that includes Emory St. Joseph’s Hospital and the surrounding office buildings. It is no longer directly connected with Peachtree Dunwoody Road but does lead to Johnson Ferry Road.

Advertisements for land in the Atlanta Constitution both in 1920 and 1946 list land on Balloon Road and Dunwoody Road, both described as being off Peachtree Dunwoody Road. In 1920, all local roads were dirt. Roads began to be paved in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration.

A piece of the Balloon Road remains today. It is called Old Balloon Road, located to the east of the complex that includes Emory St. Joseph’s Hospital and the surrounding office buildings. It is no longer directly connected with Peachtree Dunwoody Road but does lead to Johnson Ferry Road.

Thanks to a reader of pasttensega.com, I can now share the journey of Abraham (Abe) Koppel during World War II. Koppel wrote down a narrative of his experiences when his granddaughter was working on a school project. The family also shared a photograph of Koppel and the X-ray section he trained with at Lawson General Hospital, along with an image of the back of the photograph with messages from several men.

In 1944, the land that is now DeKalb Peachtree Airport in Chamblee was home to Naval Air Station Atlanta. Men came from all over the U. S. to train at Naval Air Station Atlanta beginning in 1941 and women began to arrive in 1942 to work as link instrument trainers.

Lawson General Hospital sat adjacent to Naval Air Station Atlanta, where the IRS and CDC Chamblee offices are located today. The hospital opened in April of 1941.

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.