If you lived in Dunwoody in 1970, you might have noticed a two story home which stood at the corner of Mount Vernon Road and Chamblee Dunwoody Road, about where Panera Bread is today. The home was built in 1886 by Joberry Cheek. He cut the pine trees, sawed them at his own sawmill and built the home. The ceilings were twelve feet high and 7/8 inches thick.
The home stood out in the 1960s and 1970s because it had fallen into disrepair. Some people thought noone lived there, but Lizzie Cheek Newhard did. Joberry Cheek was her father.
This home, built by Joberry Cheek in 1886, was still occupied by his daughter Lizzie Cheek Newhard in 1970.
In the 1970’s, Lizzie Cheek Newhard and her husband Norris Newhard were still using a pot belly stove for heat and a wood burning oven. Water for the home came from a spring near the Dunwoody Grammar School. They were proud to say that their family was one of the first to have an indoor bathroom. It was added in 1904.
The Cheek family moved from North Carolina to Marthasville (Atlanta) and then to Dunwoody some time between 1860 and 1870. Joberry married Laura Eidson and they had six children.
Joberry Cheek owned cotton gins and a flour and corn mill which were along Chamblee Dunwoody Road at the southeast corner of the intersection with Mount Vernon Road. In the 1970s, the foundations from these structures were still visible. There is street behind the businesses on Mount Vernon Road named Joberry Court.
Mr. Newhard was an engineer who worked in South America for a while and crossed paths with Miss Lizzie Cheek in Kingston, Jamaica.
Lizzie Cheek Newhard grew up writing property deeds for her father and helping run the mills.
Mr. and Mrs. Newhard were very content to stay in their old home while Dunwoody sprung up around them. She just wanted to stay in the family home and continue her sewing. She was known as an accomplished seamstress. As she put it, “I like my old-timey things. They’re what I’m used to. I don’t want to move anywhere else.”
Thank you to Ken Anderson and Lynne Byrd for sharing their knowledge of Dunwoody history. Other sources cited include: The Atlanta Journal, November 18, 1970 and The Story of Dunwoody.