Not far from the crossroads of Mt.Vernon Road and Chamblee Dunwoody Road was the home of George Washington Lord and Dicey Ann Wade Lord. George Washington Lord was born in 1852 in Madison County, Georgia. Dicey Ann Wade (full name Dicey Ann Sarah Frances Wade) was born in 1856 in the Oak Grove community of Fulton County, which is now part of Sandy Springs.
George and Dicey Lord married in 1875 and had twelve children. Sometime before 1900, they moved their family to the Shallowford District of DeKalb County, or Dunwoody. They established a home and farm in the area where Mount Vernon Road and Wickford Way intersect. Their neighbors were the Cheeks to the west and the Warnocks to the east.
Three of the Lord children married members of another early Dunwoody family-the Mannings. Margaret Adella Lord married John Manning, Effie Elizabeth Lord married Starling Manning, and William Alexander Lord married Mary Angie Manning. These children each owned land in the same area along Mount Vernon Road, then known as Lawrenceville Road or Norcross Road.
In The Story of Dunwoody by Ethel Spruill and Elizabeth Davis, some of the memories of Fannie Mae Lord were shared through daughter-in-law, Cletis French Jackson. Fannie Mae Lord was one of the other children of George and Dicey Lord.
When Fannie Mae grew up in Dunwoody, she attended the old Dunwoody School, located where the Dunwoody Library and Spruill Center for the Arts are today. It was the only school in the area, sparsely populated with farmhouses.
She remembered the day the boiler at the Cheek cotton gin exploded on the southeast corner at Mount Vernon Road and Chamblee Dunwoody Road. It was November 21, 1920, the day before Thanksgiving. Her brother-in-law, John Manning died from injuries during the explosion.
William Edward Jackson was visiting his sister in Dunwoody in 1906 when he met Fannie Mae Lord. Jackson worked for the Southern Railway as a switchman. He rode the Roswell Railroad to visit his sister and later to visit Fannie Mae Lord. Southern Railway had taken over operations of the Roswell Railroad at this point.
Fannie Mae and William did most of their courting while on buggy rides. They married in 1910 and had eight children. At one time, they lived in a home where the first Austin Elementary School was located on Roberts Drive. According to ancestry.com, in 1959 they lived in a home on McDonough Street in Roswell. The home was known as Sleepy Hollow.