Columbia Cheek, Dunwoody Postmaster 1906

Columbia Cheek operated the post office in Dunwoody from 1906 until 1920. I loved that this photo shows the photographer name of Adams and the address, 40 ½ Whitehall Street, Atlanta

Columbia Cheek is usually referred to as Postmistress of Dunwoody in the early 1900s. According to the United States Post Office, “By the end of the twentieth century, more that half of all Postmasters were women. Although sometimes popularly called Postmistresses, their official title has always been Postmaster.”

The Cheek family built and lived in a home at the corner of Chamblee Dunwoody and Mt. Vernon Road that is well-known as the Cheek-Spruill house today. The home and another across the road were both built by Columbia’s brother Joberry.

Although the Cheek-Spruill home that still stands is given a date of 1906, the Cheeks are located in the Shallowford District of Georgia in 1870. (1870 census records) Perhaps they lived on this property as early as that date. The Cheek-Spruill home had an additional floor added by raising the existing floor of their home in 1906.

Columbia Cheek was born September 10, 1848 in Jackson County, Georgia. Her parents were Martha Bruce Cheek and Samuel Perryman Cheek, both born in South Carolina.

The 1860 census shows Columbia along with her parents and siblings JoBerry Url Cheek (1850-1935),  Robert Bruce Cheek (1857-1932), and Susan Moore Cheek living in Jackson County, GA. From ancestry.com records, it appears Susan was born in 1841, married and moved to Mississippi. She died there in 1896.

Columbia became Postmaster in December 1906 and kept that position until Dillard Blackwell took over February of 1920. There was no mail delivery yet, but she would have operated the post office, which was in a small building on the Cheek family property.

Before she was Postmaster of Dunwoody, she taught at a local school. The 1870 census shows her occupation as “teaching school” and she lived with her family in the Shallowford District which later became Dunwoody. This places more questions in my head because there is no other documentation (that I am aware of) of a Dunwoody school dating back to 1870. The post office listed on the 1870 census for Shallowford is Cross Keys.

By 1930, Columbia Cheek had moved to live with her brother Robert and his wife Carrie in Oklahoma. She died in 1933 and is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Oklahoma alongside other family members who relocated there.