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.
Dr. Mendenhall was born in 1906. He attended Georgia Tech and Emory University. In 1936, he married Ruth Eddelman of Chamblee.
On November 14, 1996 Ruth Eddelman Mendenhall shared her memories as part of I Remember Hour, a program of the DeKalb Historical Society to gather memories of the older generation of DeKalb County. Mrs. Mendenhall shared her experiences as the wife of a small-town doctor. She often drove her husband to his house calls on unpaved roads. The doctor charged one dollar for office visits and two dollars for house calls.
“I knew every pig path in and around Chamblee. We carried a shovel in the car for when we got stuck in the mud,” recalled Ruth Mendenhall.
There are a lot of memories among those who grew up with Dr. Mendenhall as their family doctor. Ralph Glaze recalls that the Glaze family went to Dr. Mendenhall and the Chamblee Hospital when he was a child. Glaze had three occasions growing up when Dr. Mendenhall took care of him. The first was at his birth. The second time was when Dr. Mendenhall took out Ralph Glaze’ tonsils, and the last time was when the doctor removed his appendix. Glaze remembers the one-story brick building where Dr. Mendenhall had his offices.
Siblings Carolyn Parker, Jane Autry, and Ken Anderson all remember Dr. Mendenhall. In the 1940’s and 1950’s the Dunwoody family relied on the doctor and remember his Chamblee Hospital. Dr. Mendenhall brought penicillin to the Anderson home when Jane Autry had pneumonia as a child. J. C. Finley grew up in Dunwoody and also remembers that Dr. Mendenhall was the family doctor.
Dr. Mendenhall’s parents were known throughout Chamblee as well. His father, William Wesley Mendenhall, was a science teacher at Chamblee High School and his mother taught school at Chamblee and was principal at Doraville Elementary.
In 1972, Dr. Mendenhall was named Chamblee’s Citizen of the Year, according to historian Vivian Price Saffold. He received another honor in 1975, when he was named Family Physician of the Year for Georgia. Dr. Mendenhall died one year later and is buried at Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs.
His address is identified as 3830 and 3834 Chamblee Dunwoody Road. Nearby, just off Harts Mill Road is a street named Mendenhall Drive. I think we can assume this road is named for the doctor and perhaps his parents as well, two dedicated teachers.
Other sources cited include: The Story of Dunwoody, by Elizabeth Davis, Ethel Spruill, Lynne Byrd and Joyce Amacher