A grand opening ceremony was held at the new Briarcliff Village on Thursday, March 25, 1965. A full page ad in the March 24, 1965 Atlanta Journal announced the new shopping center with details about the 26 stores and services. The ad describes Briarcliff Village as “set amid an intimate courtyard.”

Carlton Renfroe and Jeff Porter grew up in Dunwoody in the 1940’s and they both shared their memories of being part of a Boy Scout troop which met at the Dunwoody Grammar School, located where the Dunwoody Library is today.  The troop was started in 1946 by Reverend Reynold Greene of Dunwoody Methodist Church.

The August 13, 1962 Atlanta Constitution featured a story about dried peaches, “Home Dried Fruit Wakes Memory.” You need some dry, sunny weather to dry peaches. Apparently peaches don’t handle a rain shower well. The instructions read, “To dry peaches, you simply wash the peaches, cut in about 1/8 inch slices, lay on a piece of tin and place in the hot sun. Bring in at night and put in a cool, dry place and return to sun the next day. The peaches should be dry. If not, place in a very low oven and stir occasionally until completely dry.”

I have returned to the subject of Lawson General Hospital again and again. It is intriguing to me that during WWII this hospital was located in Chamblee, adjacent to Naval Air Station Atlanta. Also, the people involved were sometimes from Atlanta, Chamblee or other nearby towns, but most of the people who worked, trained, or were treated at Lawson General Hospital were there for a brief time. They went home or to another hospital after being treated or they received their orders and left to serve their country using the skills received as part of the MDTS, Medical Department Training School.

When Ethel Warren Spruill married Stephen Spruill in 1933 and moved to Dunwoody, she became a member of the Dunwoody Home Demonstration Club. At the time, Katherine Strong Rudeseal was the Home Demonstration Agent for DeKalb County. (“Story of Dunwoody,” by Elizabeth L. Davis and Ethel W. Spruill)

Home Demonstration Agents traveled around their assigned county demonstrating methods of preserving food, such as canning or freezing. They sometimes shared other skills including sewing. Many counties in Georgia had agents, but not all.

In the fall of 1995, newspapers across the country announced three ways to become one of 10,000 torch bearers in the 1996 Olympic Torch Relay, which was sponsored by Coca-Cola. 5,500 community heroes would be selected by United Way chapters.

The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and the U.S. Olympic committee selected 2,000 present and former Olympians and other VIPs to complete the list of torch bearers.  According to olympics.com the total number of torchbearers for the 1996 games reached 800 in Greece and 12,467 in the US.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 to help the country during the Great Depression by providing jobs. It was part of a group of policies, programs and projects known as the New Deal. Many public works projects were part of the program, as well as projects in the arts. Over 8.5 million people participated in the WPA.

As a survivor of the Holocaust, Ratonyi now shares his story with groups of middle and high school children, as well as adult audiences. He has presented at The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and other venues. He wrote a book about his life experiences, “From Darkness into Light: My Journey through Nazism, Fascism, and Communism to Freedom,” published January 12, 2022.

Roswell Road was once a forty-foot-wide concrete road known as Roosevelt Boulevard between 1925 and 1927. The road was named for President Theodore Roosevelt, whose mother’s childhood home was Bulloch Hall in Roswell. Roosevelt returned home by way of the Roswell Railroad in 1905. You can read more about Roosevelt’s visit here.

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away, I enjoy thinking back to the holiday during my childhood years. Since I grew up in Atlanta, we had a southern traditional meal with turkey, sweet potatoes, dressing, other side dishes and of course pie. My mom sometimes baked a cream cheese pound cake, two kinds of pie, and some chocolate chip cookies when she became a grandmother.

The McDonald’s restaurant at 5220 Buford Highway was one of the earliest McDonald’s in Georgia. The June 23, 1961 Atlanta Constitution had a short announcement, “McDonald’s hamburger chain has announced the start of construction on its third Atlanta area restaurant unit, a $125,000 facility on the Buford Highway in Doraville, in its 265 restaurant chain covering 34 states.”