NEW for 12/23: Levengood award; Christmas carol; 2023 wish

GwinnettForum  |  Number 21.96  |  Dec. 23, 2022

GOOD CITIZEN WINNER: Laura Drake, executive director of the Southeast Gwinnett Cooperative Ministry in Grayson has been awarded the Button Gwinnett Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, Bronze Good Citizenship Medal in recognition of 20 years of service to families of Gwinnett. She has served at the Southeast Co-op since 2008.  Prior to this, she spent seven years at the Lawrenceville Co-op. From left are Drake and Button Gwinnett chapter President, Don McCarty. The Bronze Good Citizenship Medal was authorized in 1895 by the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, as a way to recognize persons whose achievements are noteworthy in their school, community, or state.

EDITOR’S NOTE:This is the last GwinnettForum of 2022. The next edition will be on Jan. 3, 2023. There will be no Dec. 27 or Dec. 30 publication.

IN THIS EDITION

TODAY’S FOCUS: J. Michael Levengood to be honored with Benham Award
EEB PERSPECTIVE: About the carol: It Came Upon the Midnight Clear 
ANOTHER VIEW: Wish for 2023 is for no more corrupt politicians
SPOTLIGHT: Centurion Advisory Group 
FEEDBACK: Peachtree Christian Health thanks donors for saving center
UPCOMING: Jaletta Long Smith is seventh judge of State Court of Gwinnett
NOTABLE: Be alert to imposter posing as Water Department employee
RECOMMENDED: Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Thornton Marye was key architect and preservationist in Atlanta
MYSTERY PHOTO: Mystery: When is a lighthouse not a lighthouse?
CALENDAR: Andrews Raid presentation to be at The Georgia Archives January 13 

TODAY’S FOCUS

Levengood to be honored with Benham Award

ATLANTA, Ga.  |  Lawrenceville attorney J. Michael Levengood is to be honored with the Justice Robert Benham Community Service Award by the state Bar of Georgia and The Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, to be presented on March 2, 2023.  This is the top award and Levengood is the first Gwinnett resident to be honored by this statewide honor.

Levengood

The award is named for former Justice Robert Benham of the Georgia Supreme Court, and first awarded in 1998. The award is focused on the community service of an attorney, not on legal services.

Several people suggested Levengood for this award.  Among their comments: 

Craig Pett of Suwanee: “Mike’s impact on Gwinnett County is remarkable and seldom seen. Mike has volunteered as a community leader in the areas of healthcare, education, community leadership development, public transportation, politics, recreation and as a leader in the Boy Scouts of America in the Northeast Georgia Council that includes not only Gwinnett County but 25 other counties in northeast Georgia.”

David McClesky of Hoschton: “Mike has distinguished himself by preparing future leaders to recognize and celebrate Gwinnett’s rich diversity. Modeling the pioneer examples of success Justice Benham championed….Mike also has beaconed, by design, opportunities for persons of color to be successfully engaged in the pursuit of a positive transition of leaders in the greater Gwinnett community.”

Wayne Sikes of Snellville: “Around 2016, the Medical System board, led by Chair Mike Levengood, made a bold move: they decided to act while Gwinnett Medical Center was financially strong, and seek a large partner to match the Gwinnett culture. After an exhaustive search, they chose Northside Hospital. What followed was two years of gut-wrenching, detailed work to win approval. (Without this approval, it would have been a disaster for GMC.) Though Northside had to spend a fortune on lawyers, they did not walk away.  And in 2019, the Federal Trade Commission granted approval of the merger.”

Mike Levengood was born in Miami, Fla., and grew up in New Jersey and New Mexico, before his family moved to Georgia. His father was a senior electrical engineer for Western Electric Company when it opened its cable plant in Norcross in 1970.

He is a 1977 graduate of the University of Georgia, then graduated from the UGA law school in 1980. While on campus, he was a member and president of Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity and winner of the J. Edward Zollinger Outstanding Senior Award. He was also a member of Blue Key, national honor fraternity, and president of the Gridiron Secret Society.

His professional accomplishments focus on estate planning and administration, and counseling business clients and helping them resolve their commercial disputes through negotiation, litigation, workouts, and corporate reorganizations.

Prior to his solo practice in Lawrenceville, he was associated with McKenna, Long and Aldridge of Atlanta and its predecessor firms as a partner since 1986. He has been an adjunct professor at the UGA School of Law and at the Emory University School of Law.  

His community service is extensive.  He has been on the board of directors and in leadership roles of many institutions: Northside Hospital, Gwinnett Health System, Georgia Hospital Association; Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce; Leadership Gwinnett; Partnership Gwinnett; Community Foundation for Northeast Georgia; Gwinnett Parks Foundation; Northeast Georgia Boy Scouts Council; and the University of Georgia Young Alumni Council.

The Benham Awards also recognizes district winners of this award.  Only three attorneys from Gwinnett have been recognized as district winners. They include Terry Franzen, Duluth, who now lives in Jasper;  Chung Lee, Duluth; and Kathryn M. Schrader, Lawrenceville.

EEB PERSPECTIVE

About the carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”

By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum

DEC. 23, 2022  |  At this time of year, words of Christmas carols reverberate in my mind, giving me pleasure.  This carol, “It came upon the midnight clear,” has particularly been on my mind this year.

The carol comes from 1849, when Edward Sears, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Mass., wrote the words in a poem. It is said that the poem was first heard by parishioners gathered in Sears’ home on Christmas Eve. 

A year later, Sears asked Richard Storrs Willis, who had trained under Composer Felix Mendelssohn, to write music for it. Sears wrote the poem at the request of another pastor friend, Williams Parsons Lunt, for Lunt’s Sunday school at the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Mass.

Sears had graduated from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. in 1832, and later enrolled in the Theological School, in Cambridge, Mass., graduating in 1837. He married in 1839, and settled down to country life as a pastor in Wayland.  He accepted a call at a church in Weston, Mass.in 1866. From 1859 to 1871, he served as the editor of The Monthly Religious Magazine. He died on January 16, 1876, from his injuries two years earlier on felling a tree. 

The words Sears penned came during a period of personal melancholy, and with news of revolution in Europe, Sears portrayed the world as dark, full of “sin and strife.”  Some experts feel that Sears poem was written ”…. not hearing the Christmas message.”

Yet even a cursory reading of the poem immediately has passages that reminds us of the days of Christ’s birth. Plus, add in the message of peace on earth. We liked this part of the carol: “The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing,” this at the time of the birth of Jesus. Oh, how still and peaceful it must have been!

The full song comprises five stanzas. Several variations also exist to Sears’ original lyrics.

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold;
“Peace on the earth, good will to men
From heaven’s all-gracious King” –
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o’er its Babel-sounds
The blessed angels sing.

But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing; –
Oh, rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

We hope you and your family have a fulfilled and joyous Christmas.

ANOTHER VIEW

Wish for 2023 is for no more corrupt politicians

By Tom Fort

SNELLVILLE, Ga.  |  My wish for 2023 is for no more political officeholders to be revealed as corrupt. 

Fort

One of my pet peeves about politicians is how many are shown to have used their public office for personal gain, whether financial “hand in the cookie jar” or otherwise. Embezzlement of public funds, abuse of power, cronyism, nepotism, bribery, extortion – political corruption undermines the integrity of democratic institutions, erodes trust in government, and can have negative consequences for economic development. 

Here in Gwinnett, we have the corruption shenanigans of Commissioners Charles Bannister, Kevin Kenerly, and Shirley Lassiter and that left a stain on Gwinnett’s reputation.

Recent news about Gwinnett’s neighbors impacts the image of Gwinnett to outsiders :

  • It’s not a good look that, just a couple of years after incorporation, the first and now former mayor of  Stonecrest, Ga., its former senior economic development manager, and his wife, a bookkeeper, pleaded guilty to charges related to the theft of pandemic relief funds. (Was incorporation an intended path to have access to city funds? We’ll never know.)
  • A former DeKalb County commissioner from Stone Mountain was convicted for extorting a subcontractor in connection with a $1.8 million contract, demanding monthly payments of $500 and later increasing her demand to $1,000 per month.
  • A Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport vendor from Lilburn has been sentenced to more than one year in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to bribing a city official to win a contract. (The unnamed city official should have been charged as well but was not.)
  • The Atlanta mayor’s office has had its share of bad public “servants.” One, in the 90s, drained city funds with cronyism and overseeing a culture of civic corruption. He was indicted by a federal grand jury for multiple bad action and convicted on three counts of tax evasion. A more recent mayor was investigated for corruption which led to several high-ranking members of the mayor’s administration being charged and so far, one conviction. This former City of Atlanta director of human services was sentenced to 14 years in prison for accepting approximately $3 million in bribe money to influence government contracts, money laundering, lying to the City of Atlanta to maintain her salary and cabinet-level position, and failing to disclose more than $600,000 in income on her federal tax return. The former mayor himself was never charged. 

Quid pro quo” or “a favor for a favor,” such as “I’ll vote for yours if you’ll vote for mine,” happens often in politics.  It is not illegal unless it breaks the law by crossing the line into bribery (“Vote for the bill and I’ll pay you $1,000.”) Or extortion (“If you don’t vote against the bill, I’ll kick you off my committee.”)

I would like to see corruption addressed and prevented. Here are some thoughts on it: 

  • Strengthen oversight and accountability mechanisms, such as requiring independent audit agencies and anti-corruption commissions to investigate allegations of corruption and hold politicians accountable.
  • Enhance transparency measures, such as public disclosure of financial interests and lobbying activities to ensure that politicians are not using their positions for personal gain. 
  • Similarly, enact codes of conduct and training programs to promote ethical behavior.
  • Enhance penalties for corruption offenses and asset seizure provisions to deter corrupt behavior and hold politicians accountable for their actions.

Unfortunately, I fear all too many elected officials (politicians) think that enacting these reforms would go against their own self-interest.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Centurion Advisory Group

The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Centurion Advisory Group serves successful individuals and business owners who choose to live on purpose. We bring our perspective and processes to bear on strategies which help them build wealth, transfer assets and values across generations, give to causes meaningful to them and their families, reduce their tax bill, and allow them to invest in ways which align with their values.  

  • For more details, go to www.CenturionAG.com.         
  • For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here.

FEEDBACK

Peachtree Christian Health thanks donors for saving center

Editor, the Forum: 

Over the past few weeks, we at Peachtree Christian Health have truly witnessed a miracle by the enormous success of our emergency fund-raising campaign. Many have stood alongside us in faith, hope and love and did not allow closures to be an option. Many poured their blessings upon us, inspired others to give and made enrollment referrals, encouraged our staff, and most importantly, covered us in prayer.

I am thrilled to report, thanks to the generosity of 492 donors, we raised $594,749, exceeding our fundraising goal of $500,000.  We also secured an anticipated 66 additional participants days that are critical to growing our census. Clearly God was not done! Thanks to your support, Peachtree Christian Health Life Enrichment Center will continue to serve the community and remain faithfully committed to the charitable mission God has called us to do.

There will never be enough words to express the depth of gratitude we feel at this time. Thank you for not giving up and being a living testimony to the fact that God’s love and faithfulness are bigger than our earthly worries,

We must now focus on building on this momentum, filling our program to capacity and rebooting our business plan for long-term sustainability.  The “Save Our Center” campaign has now sunsetted and reverted to our annual Caregiving Support Fund, so please continue to share with others the opportunity to give to our mission. If  you would like to explore how you can get more engaged to ensure our success moving forward, please call 770-624-2727 or email me at amancini@pchlec.org. We have lots of exciting opportunities ahead.

– Anne Mancini,  president

Watching two Republican congresswomen go at each other

Editor, the Forum: 

Georgia’s Marjorie Greene (MTG) and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert were big buddies in 2021, but they turned on each other earlier in 2022. Hasn’t it been fun to watch? 

MTG easily retained her Georgia Republican district in the 2022 midterms, while Boebert barely retained the Colorado Republican district she won handily in 2020. It should prove interesting to watch their antics in 2023. 

I expect them to go at each other even more and guess the sparks will begin escalating with their different votes for Speaker of the House candidates. Given the recent reporting about her extra-marital affairs with CrossFit trainers, I expect MTG now stands for Marjorie Trashy Greene. So much for “candidate quality” among Republican House candidates.

– Michael L. Wood, Peachtree Corners

Review of movie brought back fond memories

Editor, the Forum: 

Regarding Cindy Evans’ review of the movie, I Heard the Bells, I have always loved the song.  It is seldom heard anymore, which is very sad, because it is so powerful.   

– Elizabeth Truluck Neace, Dacula

Send us your thoughts:  We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum.  Please limit comments to 300 words, and include your hometown.  The views of letters are the opinion of the contributor. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length.  Send feedback and letters to:  elliott@brack.net.

UPCOMING

Smith is 7th judge of State Court of Gwinnett

Smith

Jaletta Long Smith of Peachtree Corners is the new judge of the State Court of Gwinnett, named to the post by Gov. Brian Kemp. The position is a newly-created one, giving Gwinnett seven State Court Judges.

A litigation associate with the Gwinnett firm of Andersen, Tate  Carr, she previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Kristine G. Baker, judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas; the Honorable Britt C. Grant, former Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court; and the Honorable Robert L. Brown (retired) of the Arkansas Supreme Court. 

Ms. Smith, 39, is a native of Lawrenceville who grew up in Dacula and graduated from high school there.  Smith attended Clemson University where she earned a bachelor’s in Communication Studies and Spanish. She was the featured twirler with the Clemson band. Her grandmother is the late Mary Frazier Long of Gwinnett County.

Smith attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law as a Bowen Scholar, a full academic scholarship, while her Air Force husband was stationed there.  She graduated with high honors in 2010 as one of the top three students in her class. Smith served as the executive editor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review, received the Dean’s Certificate of Distinguished Service, and was one of six students selected to compete as a member of the Bowen Trial Team. She was also a student member of the Judge Henry Woods Inn of Court in Little Rock

She and her husband, Andy, a pilot with the Air Force, live in Peachtree Corners.

Braselton hires Birmingham firm for strategic planning

The town of Braselton, Ga., has appointed Downtown Strategies, a division of Retail Strategies of Birmingham, Ala. , to develop a five-year downtown strategic plan on behalf of the city. 

The Downtown Strategies team will host a Strategic Visioning Workshop that includes a walking tour of downtown and gathering input from community leaders, business owners, stakeholders and elected officials. The workshop provides the necessary input to create a customized and strategic action plan for the city.

Jennifer Scott, town manager, says: “Braselton jumped at the opportunity to have the Downtown Strategies team tap into the potential our downtown holds. We began to set our focus on Downtown Strategies because of the wealth of knowledge their team showcased at a Georgia Downtown Association conference. This partnership will capitalize on market driven opportunities to help strengthen the local economy. 

The plan will focus on five major pillars including market analysis, policy and administration, design, tourism and promotion and economic vitality.

NOTABLE

Be alert to imposter posing as Water Department employee

Watch out for an imposter saying he represents Gwinnett County Water Resources attempting to enter homes. The person is trying to gain access inside customers’ homes by offering to collect free lead and copper samples. Residents should be aware that the county does not send employees to test water inside residents’ homes. 

Most of the failed attempts have been targeted towards Spanish-speaking families in the Norcross area. While the Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources tests water quality around the clock, they won’t send employees inside customers’ homes to test the tap water.

If anyone claiming to be a Gwinnett County employee asks to take water samples from inside your home, please do not let them in. As always, if you feel unsafe or if someone is trying to break into your home, call 911. 

Gwinnett County has received several inquiries regarding the activation of our Warming Stations. You may find the current status of the warming stations at the following link:  Health and Human Services – Gwinnett | Gwinnett County

Thompson is new mayor pro-tem in Lawrenceville

Thompson

Austin Thompson, Lawrenceville City Councilman, has been selected to serve as the Mayor Pro Tem (Vice Mayor) during 2023.  This role fulfills the duties of the mayor if the mayor is absent. Thompson was elected to the Council in 2021 and has been a Lawrenceville resident since 2012. He is a former Adjunct Professor at Shorter University, where he taught business and project management courses for eight years. He has over 20 years of active community service in the Guyanese and Caribbean community, and has been a volunteer with the Latin American Association for the past 15 years. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Telecommunications Management and also a MBA degree from DeVry University. 

JEMC Foundation grants $114,919 to local charitable agencies

$15,000 Jackson EMC Foundation check to Mending the Gap, will provide for its Saving Our Seniors program for Gwinnett families. At the check presentation were, from left,  Jeff Diefenderfer, treasurer; Beauty Baldwin, Jackson EMC Foundation board member; Fay Josephs, executive director; and Jennifer Fennell, Jackson EMC district manager.

The Jackson EMC Foundation board of directors awarded a total of $114,919 in grants for organizations during its November meeting, including $87,500 to organizations serving Gwinnett County.

  • $15,000 to For Her Glory, a Gainesville agency that provides breast cancer patients throughout the Jackson EMC service area with items that are not covered by insurance, such as wigs, bras, compression sleeves, gloves, and nutritional supplements.
  • $15,000 to Mending the Gap, Inc., for its Save Our Seniors Program, which delivers a monthly care package of nutritious food, personal care items, cleaning supplies and toiletries to low-income seniors in Gwinnett County.
  • $15,000 to Nothing but the Truth, Inc., to purchase food for its Weekend Food Bag Program for Gwinnett County public school children who have been identified by counselors as food insecure.
  • $15,000 to St. Vincent de Paul Society—Flowery Branch, to fund direct aid for housing assistance Gwinnett, Hall and Jackson County families in crisis and food for their food pantry.
  • $15,000 to Step by Step Recovery, Inc., an addiction recovery organization that provides a safe and structured environment for men and women in Barrow, Gwinnett and Hall counties as they complete a 12-step program for drug and alcohol addiction, to provide rent for the men’s and women’s units.
  • $7,500 to NOA’s Ark (No One Alone), for its Trauma Counseling Program, designed to serve adults and children in Gwinnett, Hall and Lumpkin counties recovering from family violence, child sexual assault, and dating violence.
  • $5,000 to Burn Foundation of America, to provide patient and family services for burn victims throughout Jackson EMC’s service area.
  • Have a comment?  Send to: elliott@brack.net

RECOMMENDED

Confidence Man, by Maggie Haberman

From Raleigh Perry, Buford: This book reads easy, but there is a lot in it. It runs to 511 pages of text, with addenda. If you want to know all about Donald Trump, this is about the best source. Ms. Haberman followed Trump for years, starting with her job at POLITICO, and later with the New York Times. All of the nuances of the man are covered. It is a long read, but written in such a way that you can put it down for a while, and read more later. I recommend it. This is a man who lives for lawsuits, which is quite interesting, since he loses a lot of them. The full title is: CONFIDENCE MAN: The making of Donald Trump and the breaking of America.

  • An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next.  Send to: elliott@brack.net 

GEORGIA TIDBIT

Marye was key architect and preservationist in Atlanta

Architect and preservationist P. Thornton Marye built many notable domestic, commercial, and civic buildings in Atlanta during the early 20th century, including the Fox Theatre.

Philip Thornton Marye was born in 1872 in Alexandria, Va., and raised at Brompton, the family mansion built in 1836. (The mansion was later home to the dean of Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Va.) He studied from 1888 to 1889 at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and from 1889 to 1890 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. During the Spanish-American War (1898), Marye served in Cuba and was a member of the Fourth Virginia Volunteers. In World War I (1917-18) he rose to the rank of major, serving in the U.S. Army Constructional Division and the American Expeditionary Forces Transport Corps until 1919. 

During the early years of Marye’s architectural career, he practiced in Newport News, Va., after training briefly with Glenn Brown in Washington, D.C. He married Florence King Nisbet of Savannah in 1900. In 1904 Marye moved to Atlanta to build his Atlanta Terminal Station (1903-5), which became the symbolic gateway to the city during its railroad age.

The Atlanta Terminal Station was also a pioneer work in reinforced concrete. Marye structured wide-span enclosures for offices and waiting rooms, and he developed a saw-toothed roof over the concourse, which looked forward to the modern folded-plate construction of 50 years later. The Atlanta Terminal Station, located on the current site of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building (1979-80), was demolished in 1971.

After the Atlanta Terminal Station was completed, Marye established his office in the Equitable Building, a noted skyscraper built in the Chicago style during the early 1890s by Burnham and Root. In association with A. Ten Eyck Brown, Marye built St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta (1906), one of the fine Gothic revival churches of the early 20th century in Georgia. 

In 1910 Marye built the Walton Building in the Fairlie Poplar district of Atlanta, where he later maintained his practice with Barrett Alger and his son Richard Alger in various partnerships. 

In 1926 Ollivier Vinour arrived in Atlanta, and the firm of Marye, Alger, and Vinour was formed. Following a competition that attracted major Atlanta firms, Marye’s firm won the commission to build the structure that began as the Yaarab Temple but ended up as the Fox Theatre, with Vinour serving as project architect. The Fox Theatre opened at the end of 1929. In 1916 Marye had designed a terra-cotta-clad palazzo for Southern Bell’s New North Exchange (razed), and during the late 1920s the firm won another major telephone commission, to build the downtown Southern Bell Telephone Building (later the AT&T Building). The building was advertised as Atlanta’s “first modernistic skyscraper,” and it displayed the firm’s mastery of the new ornamental style of art deco.

Marye also played an important role in historic preservation in Georgia, serving as district officer of the Historic American Buildings Survey and as consultant to the American Institute of Architects Commission for the Preservation of Historic Buildings in America. He traveled statewide to photograph and sketch Georgia landmarks of note, and his work provided an important archive documenting the state’s historic buildings during the 1930s. Marye died of a heart attack in 1935 at the age of 63.

MYSTERY PHOTO

When is a lighthouse not a lighthouse?

OK, let’s round out 2022 with a question for you: when is a lighthouse not a lighthouse, as in this edition’s Mystery Photo.  This one comes from a reader, and poses this question. Send your thoughts to elliott@brack.net, including your hometown. 

Sara Rawlins of Lawrenceville recognized the recent Mystery Photo: “Aha, a place I actually visited. It’s the back side of the Swan Coach  House in Atlanta. In fact, you go through the Swan Coach House gift shop to get to the restaurant and out through some patio doors to the garden outside. 

“As impressive as the front of the Swan House itself is, this area behind the house is quiet and peaceful. This garden area makes for a lovely backdrop for weddings and has been used numerous times for lucky couples who want to have their weddings there. The Swan Coach House restaurant has some unique menu items. For instance their signature frozen fruit salad is to die for as well as their cheese straws and chicken salad in pastry shells. (I went there with a group of ladies before the pandemic and I hope to return sometime in the near future with my husband.) The Swan House is part of the Atlanta History Center, which could make it a full day’s activities to visit. PS: There are decadent desserts, but none compare with the frozen fruit salad.” 

Others getting this mystery correct include George Graf, Palmyra, Va.; Stew Ogilvie, Lawrenceville; Lou Camerio, Lilburn; Dee Spivey, Fitzgerald; and Susan McBrayer, Sugar Hill; 

Allan Peel, San Antonio, Tex., gives us some context of the building: “Designed by Philip Trammel Shutze in 1928 for Edward H. Inman (1881-1931) and his wife, Emily (1881-1965), the Swan House and Gardens is one of Atlanta’s best-known and photographed sites. Edward Inman was an Atlanta businessman with interests in real estate, transportation, and banking and was the heir to a large cotton brokerage fortune amassed after the Civil War. He and his wife moved into the Swan House in 1928, just three years before Edward’s sudden death at age 49. Emily Inman lived in the Swan House until her passing in 1965, after which the Atlanta Historical Society purchased the home and most of its furnishing in 1966, then opening it up to the public in 1967.”

CALENDAR

Andrews Raid: The Georgia Archives Lunch and Learn presentation, The Andrews Raid – Great Locomotive Chase Bicycle Touring Route,” by Dr. William H. Bailey, will be held at the Archives.  The presentation is on Friday, January 13, 2023, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Georgia Archives, 5800 Jonesboro Road, Morrow, Ga.  The Lunch and Learn presentation is free. Call (678) 364-3710 after 9 a.m. for reservations. Dr. William H. Bailey will discuss the 109-mile bicycle route and historic stops and attractions along the way, from Marietta, Ga., to the place where the Great Locomotive Chase ended, two miles north of Ringgold in the Appalachian Ridge and Valley region of Georgia. Bailey is a retired professional geographer who resides in Auburn, Ala. He is also an avid bicycle tourist, especially along historical routes, and has been published in numerous bicycle touring publications.  

OUR TEAM

GwinnettForum is provided to you at no charge every Tuesday and Friday.   

Meet our team

More

  • Mailing address: P.O. Box 1365, Norcross, Ga. 30091
  • Work with us:  If you would like to learn about how to be an underwriter to support the publication of GwinnettForum as a community resource for news and commentary, please contact us today.

SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE

Subscriptions to GwinnettForum are free.  

  • Click to subscribe.
  • Unsubscribe.  We hope you’ll keep receiving the great news and information from GwinnettForum, but if you need to unsubscribe, go to this page and unsubscribe in the appropriate box.

© 2022, Gwinnett Forum.com. Gwinnett Forum is an online community commentary for exploring pragmatic and sensible social, political and economic approaches to improve life in Gwinnett County, Ga. USA.

Share