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The 1924 home of Elon and Lizzie Jordon sat on Spalding Drive just west of where Georgia 400 is today. When traveling on Spalding Drive from Roberts Drive towards Roswell Road the home was on the right side of the road. Larry Jordon, grandson of Elon and Lizzie shared this history several years ago.
Elon and Lizzie Jordon in front of the home they raised their family in along Spalding Drive. They had to move out when Georgia 400 was built. This photo is included in the “The Story of Dunwoody” by Ethel W. Spruill and Elizabeth L. Davis.
In “The Story of Dunwoody,” by Ethel W. Spruill and Elizabeth L. Davis, Mary Jordon, daughter of Elon and Lizzie, shares some early history of the Jordon family. Elon Jordon and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. James D. Jordon, came to Dunwoody from Rex some time around 1919. They moved into the former Larkin Martin home which is located where Mill Glen subdivision and Glenrich Drive are located today off Roberts Drive.
The recorded history says they moved in 1917, however Elon Jordon enlisted with the Army at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia in June of 1918. He was discharged in 1919, so sometime after that makes more sense unless his parents had already moved in 1917 and he joined them after discharge.
A few years later they built a one-room house to live in temporarily while they built a larger home along Spalding Drive. The materials for both homes came from the property itself. Elon Jordon purchased the land from John W. Ball, Lizzie’s great uncle. Sarah Elizabeth Spruill married Elon Jordon on December 14, 1924 at Dunwoody Methodist Church.
The couple had three children, Mary Pauline, John David, and Betty. Elon was a skilled carpenter and his son John David (known as J. D.) followed in his footsteps, as well as grandson Larry Jordon who makes the same children’s rocking chairs his grandfather made. Elon was best known for his birdhouses, made from the bark of poplar trees. They were sold at Hastings Nursery in Atlanta between the 1930’s and 1960’s. When Elon Jordon died in 1972, he was referred to as Elon M. “Birdhouse” Jordon in his obituary.
When Georgia 400 forced the couple out of their old home in 1967, they moved into a brick home built on the property. The old home was close enough to 400 that they couldn’t live there, but it remaining standing until 1986. Lizzie would sometimes go back in the old home to cook on the wood stove she loved so much.