Piedmont’s story has a humble start

Piedmont Hospital’s humble beginnings can be traced to a Jewish immigrant from Austria-Hungary specializing in gastrointestinal disease.

Dr. Ludwig Amster and his wife Fannie founded Amster Sanitarium in 1904 to treat stomach and intestinal disorders in a grand, 15-room brick-and-stone home on Capitol Avenue.

One year later, he partnered with Dr. Floyd McRae, an abdominal surgeon, changing the name to Piedmont Sanitarium with a bit of a broader scope — medical and surgical needs.

The landmark home called the Swift House, was located at 267 Capital Avenue, which today is approximately the site of the former Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

Piedmont began with just eight rooms and three doctors — Dr. James Edgar Paullin was the third.

It grew rapidly as medicine transitioned from home remedies, healers and almshouses to more advanced practices. It acquired all the properties on its block and used the houses for nurses’ dormitories. In 1922, it built a five-story annex. In 1925, the board changed the name to Piedmont Hospital.

In 1944, the board approved the purchase of 11 acres on the corner of Peachtree and Collier roads for $60,000; land Jack J. Spalding had purchased from the Collier family, the original owners.

The wife of Dr. Floyd McRae was a Collier descendant. Mr. Spalding was the founding partner of the law firm King & Spalding and among Atlanta’s leading residents. He called his home Deerland.

Progress necessitated the move. The hospital did not have air conditioning and had grown to its maximum capacity. The area around the hospital was deteriorating as well.

On Nov. 29, 1954, ground was broken on a $5 million, 217-bed hospital on the Spalding property. John W. Vaught designed the six-story facility with four wings, nine operating rooms, three delivery rooms and two emergency rooms. An aerial view of the hospital looked like a cross, perhaps influencing the recently retired logo; a light blue cross.

Meanwhile, the old hospital was still up and running. The Atlanta Housing Authority eventually purchased it as the city eyed the land for a new municipal stadium. On March 26, 1957, 15 ambulances moved the 64 patients 10 miles to the new hospital.

The patients and the staff had breakfast on Capitol Avenue and lunch on Peachtree Road.

The modern history of Piedmont is better known. The hospital has continued to grow. Today the Buckhead campus is one of five hospitals operating under the Piedmont banner. Practically every square inch of its Buckhead campus has been used to offer more services to more patients to the point where someone like myself, who was born there — and who worked there for a summer as a college student, and whose children were born there — still needs to stop and ask directions when inside.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention my grandmother, Mrs. Gina Kennedy, who chaired the first two Piedmont Balls, the principal fundraiser for the hospital, which Town & Country magazine called “one of the most successful charity balls in the country” at the time.

Tragic story of first head Buckhead Baseball umpire nearly forgotten

For over a decade, a plaque hung in the concession stand at Buckhead Baseball that read, “Hoyle Dye; A Friend of Boys.”

It disappeared many years ago, according to Ray Mock, whose father, Jim Mock, was one of the founders of the youth baseball program. With it, generations of coaches, players and supporters never learned the tragic story of the first head umpire of Buckhead Baseball.

Since 1952 Buckhead Baseball has been teaching the game to generations of young boys on the fields of Frankie Allen Park on Pharr Road.

One of the first names associated with the program is Dye’s. He was an outstanding athlete at Boys High School in the 1930s and played baseball professionally as a catcher in Richmond, Va., before World War II. After his playing days were over, Dye began refereeing sports as a way to spend time with his son, Robert. He officiated high school and little league football, basketball and baseball games. He was the first head umpire for Buckhead Baseball.

He was also an outstanding police officer.

On Nov. 9, 1960, his hobby and his profession intersected with terrible consequences.

According to the local newspaper report, Dye switched shifts that day so that he could umpire a game that evening. Just after noon, he and his partner J.R. Weldon received a call about a suspect who had beaten his sister. The brother, George Gray, had left the scene and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

The officers went to the house and got a description of Gray. Their search led them to a corner grill at the intersection of Northside Drive and Simpson Street. As Weldon talked to the owner, Dye walked to one of the booths in the back, where a man was sitting alone. Weldon said he heard Dye ask a question when suddenly the man jumped to his feet, drew a gun and shot Officer Dye. Weldon was able to hit the suspect several times, but he fled the scene.

Dye died on the way to Grady Hospital.

Weldon apprehended the killer a short time later. He showed no remorse in the killing of the popular Buckhead Baseball umpire. He told officers he was minding his own business when the officer started asking him questions.

Perhaps Buckhead Baseball will one day find that old plaque in a store room somewhere, and the real story of Hoyle Dye – police officer, first head baseball umpire and a ‘friend of boys’ – will regain its rightful place.

Turn of events helped establish city as cultural capital

A seminal moment in Atlanta’s cultural history occurred almost by accident over 100 years ago.

In 1895, the city of Atlanta held the Cotton States and International Exposition, a major public event showcasing economic opportunities in the emerging capital of the South. In an attempt to replicate the success of that venture, business leaders raised more than $350,000 in 1909 to produce another exposition.

Ultimately they decided to spend the money on the city’s cultural enrichment. These forward-thinking boosters concluded the city needed a world-class concert hall.

The city built the Auditorium and Armory on the corner of Courtland Avenue and Gilmer Street as a result. To bring world-class concerts befitting the 6,000-seat hall, the Atlanta Music Festival Association was formally incorporated. In May of 1909, it brought the Dresden (Germany) Philharmonic to Atlanta to open the building.

The Atlanta Music Festival Association scored a coup the following year when it lured the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York to Atlanta for four performances in May, bringing grand opera to the capital of the South for the first time.

The performance of “Aida” drew an over-capacity crowd of more than 7,000 patrons.
The following year, the Met added shows, and opera became a significant cultural and annual social event for Atlanta.

The supporters from those early years found in tattered programs are the founding families of our city.

In the words taken from the program dated 1910: “[The music festival of 1909] marked the beginning of a new era in the musical development of the South and never before in the South has such a large audience gathered at the shrine of music.”

The Atlanta Music Festival Association continued to raise funds to bring the Metropolitan Opera to Atlanta, hitting its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. The productions moved from the Auditorium and Armory, incorporated into the Georgia State University campus, to the Fox Theatre and eventually the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center.

“The Met visits were one of the things that helped define Atlanta as the unquestioned cultural capital of the South,” said Alston & Bird attorney Robert Edge, who has been the chairman of the Atlanta Music Festival Association since 1971.

But the fat lady eventually sang. In the mid-1980s, it became too expensive for the Met to tour.

Around that time, two community opera groups, the Georgia Opera Company and Atlanta Civic Opera Company, joined forces. Through the support of many of the people who supported the Met, the newly created Atlanta Opera began its successful run as a regional opera company.

The Atlanta Music Festival Association supports opera in Atlanta and New York. The legacy of those early leaders and the supporters of the Atlanta Music Festival Association and the Atlanta Opera has had the cultural impact of helping a city fall in love with classical music and opera.

Rushton dolls dominated toy isles for decades

In 1957 the Coca-Cola Co. gave their bottlers plush Santa Claus dolls made by the Rushton Toy Company at Christmas time. 
They were dressed in red suits with fluffy white fringes, a black belt around the waist and black boots. The red hat was topped by a white pom pom. The Santas’ faces were vinyl, hand painted with a twinkle in their eye and reddened checks. In their hand was a tiny Coke bottle. 
Through the 1950s and ‘60s these promotional dolls were available in stores for $3 each. Today one in good condition is worth upwards of $125, according to the Coca-Cola Co. 
The Rushton Santa reflects the story of Atlanta’s Rushton Toy Company. Mary Phillips Rushton founded the company during World War I. At the time she worked as a commercial artist. As a result of the war the popular European dolls were no longer being shipped to America. Rushton overheard one of the neighbor children talking about how much she missed them. She stitched together a stockinet doll for the little girl. Soon all of the neighborhood children wanted one and their mothers were willing to pay. 
The then-Mary Waterman Phillips hired a few employees and founded Mawaphil Company, a contraction of her name. She opened a factory and started manufacturing dolls en masse. After she married W.W. Rushton she changed the company to Rushton Toy Company because she got tired of explaining the name “Mawaphil.” 
She quickly rose to become the “Queen of the Toy Makers,” a name bestowed by her competitors out of respect. By the 1950s her factory in Atlanta was turning out 10,000 plush toys a day for distribution in the United States and abroad. The 100,000-square foot factory was one of the largest of its kind. The company also had a factory in Haiti. 
They made stuffed animals representing every creature conceivable from skunks to elephants to bears. The company benefited greatly from deals with the influential television industry as well. Through contracts with National Broadcasting Company and Columbia Broadcasting System Rushton Toy Company created Howdy Doody, Jackie Gleason, Zippy the chimpanzee and Davy Crockett dolls among others. 
One of the distinguishing features of the dolls was the use of vinyl for the faces. Rushton was an incredibly successful business woman but she was an artist first and foremost. The vinyl, hand-painted faces allowed her to capture expressions and looks that had not been seen before. She found inspiration in nature and in children’s faces, she told a newspaper back in 1958. 
My grandparents always had a few Rushton dolls at their homes on Brighton Road and in North Carolina. I remember in particular being terrified of Zippy the chimp with his multi-colored beanie and his permanent mischievous grin on his plastic face. It wasn’t until I was doing research for this piece that I realized he was a Rushton toy. 
The company continued creating plush toys into the 1980s. I found a magazine clipping about Rushton making large shark dolls in conjunction with the “Jaws” movie, for example. 
Mary Rushton lived in the home that is known as the Mary Patterson Goodrum house on the corner of West Paces Ferry and Habersham roads. I believe she was responsible for the peacocks that made the home infamous. 
She will always be known for her dolls and her incredibly lucrative company, which ranked in the top three in terms of plush toys along with Ideal Toy Company and Gund. Her creations were so well made they have a strong following among collectors today.

Major James McConnell Montgomery

Major James McConnell Montgomery first came to Buckhead towards the end of the War of 1812 – really the Red Stick War – when he was charged with building boats to ship supplies down the Chattahoochee to Fort Mitchell in Columbus. A small band of soldiers under the leadership of Lieutenant George Gilmer – a future governor – stationed at Fort Peachtree protected him. He returned around 1820, and raised his family around what had the Creek village of Standing Peachtree. The United States employed him and his brother to keep white settlers from encroaching on the Cherokee Nation, which was on the other side of the river.
He also served as a road commissioner, kept the records for the Court of the Ordinary, was a commissioner for the “poor school,” a mail carrier, a census taker, a justice of the peace, a tax receiver and a tax collector. He also operated the ferry, a saw mill and a grist mill.
The first post office in the area is said to have been in his house.
He died on Oct. 6, 1842 and is buried in the Montgomery Family Cemetery, one of the most significant historic sites in Atlanta. This obelisk marks his final resting place, which is just off of Marietta Boulevard north of Bolton Road.
In 1853, the Montgomery family sold what had been Standing Peachtree to Martin DeFoor, who took over the ferry operations. Those names – Montgomery Ferry and Defoors Ferry – remain to this day, know best for the roads bearing their names.

Ritz-Carlton Buckhead Transformed Community

More than anyone else, Bill Johnson transformed Buckhead from a community with a few impressive homes into the “Beverly Hills” of the South, as Sam Massell would say. The Atlanta native purchased the Ritz-Carlton in Boston in 1983, and with it the domestic rights to the name and the brand, including the iconic lion and crown symbol. He paid $75 million. That same year, he renamed his soon-to-be-open luxury hotel across from Lenox Square the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead. The hotel and its restaurant The Dining Room lifted Buckhead to rarified air.

The Temple

In honor of Yom Kippur, I thought it would be appropriate to give a brief history of that important and historic Atlanta institution The Temple. Founded as the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation in 1867, it was Atlanta’s first official Jewish institution. Its founders worshipped in a building on Garnett and Forsyth streets, a few blocks from the state capitol building. The Temple then moved into a building at Pryor and Richardson streets near the Georgia State stadium. In 1931, it moved into the Philip Trammell Shutze-designed building on Peachtree in Midtown. The floor plan is modeled on King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. Outer courts, represented by the foyer, led to inner courts, represented by the worship hall itself. All of these led to the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, represented in The Temple by the raised bimah and golden ark wherein the Torah scrolls are kept. G’mar chatima tova.

Clark Howell’s Mills by Wilbur Kurtz

More people know of Judge Clark Howell’s mill than ever “made use of its facilities,” theorized historian Franklin Garrett in “Atlanta and Environs.” Howell, a former Atlanta city councilman who became known as “Judge” for his service on the Fulton County Inferior Court, moved to the area around Peachtree Creek in 1852. He operated two mills just south of where Howell Mill Road crosses the creek today. They were in a low-lying area on the northern bank. One was a grist mill, the other a sash-sawmill. This painting of Howell’s mills is by Wilbur Kurtz, 1933. Kurtz was a notable artist and historian, but his claim to fame was ensuring the film “Gone With the Wind” reflected the Atlanta of the Civil War.

Vinings ‘playhouse’ served as self-taught artist’s canvas

When Nellie Mae Rowe moved to Vinings in 1930, she may well have been an artist deep down inside, but to the wider world, she was a wife and a housekeeper, cleaning up and cooking for other people. 

That is, if the wider world knew she existed at all. 

Her father had been a slave freed in the aftermath of the Civil War. Her mother was born “the year of freedom,” Rowe once told her ardent supporter, Buckhead gallery owner Judith Alexander. 

Her father rented land in Fayette County, which he farmed, while also working as a blacksmith, syrup maker and basket weaver. Her mother was a seamstress and quilter. 
But they were destitute. For their ten children, there was always work to do. 
Into this world, Nellie May was born in 1900. 

Despite the hardships, she found moments to draw on found scraps of paper with broken pencils. When she was supposed to be picking cotton out in the fields, she would hide so she could make dolls out of the dirty laundry, often drawing her parents’ ire. 

When she was 16, she ran away. 

She married a gentleman named Ben Wheat. In 1930, they moved to Vinings, where Rowe found domestic work in other people’s homes. Her husband died in 1936. The following year, Nellie Mae married Henry ‘Buddy’ Rowe, who built the three-bedroom house in 1939 that would become one of the area’s most interesting landmarks. 
Buddy Rowe died in 1948, which would become a watershed moment in the life of Nellie Mae Rowe, the Atlanta arts community and the art world. 

After his death, Nellie Mae Rowe returned to her favorite moments from her childhood — laying on the floor and drawing pictures and creating something out of nothing, as with her dolls. 

She started creating all day, every day. She started one project, put it down, worked on something else, then something else, and eventually, maybe days later, finished her first project and found a place for it. 

She drew colorful pictures. She made dolls. She played music, She sang. She didn’t have much, so she created out of what others saw as nothing. To Rowe, there was no trash. She could take anything and make something out of it, even pieces of chewed gum.
By the time a documentary filmmaker from Memphis showed up at her Paces Ferry house in the 1970s, it seemed she had covered every inch of every wall in her with her self-taught art. 

She told Alexander — the Buckhead gallery owner who promoted Rowe’s work around the country and gave her her first solo show — she never knew what she was drawing. Her pencil went the way it went, and a picture revealed itself to her. She could see things in her work others could not. She let her tools and medium guide her worn hands. 

Her spirit took over her yard as well. She hung found objects from the branches of the trees in her yard and created installations all over the place. Strangers would even leave discarded materials at her fence, which she used to decorate her yard and house. 
She created what she called her playhouse. 

Some Vinings residents thought it looked like a junkyard and even vandalized it, breaking windows with rocks. She didn’t mind. She was dealing with a higher power, she told Alexander. She had a strong faith and believed God gave her her talent. 
That talent led people like Alexander to her, who first saw her work in an Atlanta Historical Society folk art exhibit. From there, Rowe’s work appeared in galleries and exhibitions from New York to Washington, D.C. to Dallas and just about everywhere in between. 

Alexander ensured she received the proceeds from her art, which Rowe used to buy better art supplies and create more complicated, colorful works.
Today some of those pieces are in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the American Folk Museum in New York City and many others. Her works sell for tens of thousands of dollars. 

Her Vinings playhouse, perhaps her most extraordinary project, has been lost to the progress of time, replaced by a hotel on Paces Ferry Road today. 

Thanks to her art, the world now knows who Nellie Mae Rowe is. 

On Sept. 3, the High Museum of Art will open Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe, and you can see for yourself what she accomplished over the next three decades of her life. She died in 1982 at 82.

Learning to Relax in the Time of Coronavirus

Stress Weakens Immune System, Which is Kind Of Important for Fighting Virus

We need to relax.

Seriously. 

Stress, according to the Cleveland Clinic, occurs when life events surpass our ability to cope. Well, with everything going on, from a collapsing stock market to the local grocery store running out of stuff to a virus that is going to kill us all, “life events” have way surpassed most people’s ability to cope.

All that stress isn’t good for us.

I know you are saying “duh,” but it’s physiological. 

Stress is a defense mechanism. It causes our bodies to produce higher levels of cortisol. In short little bursts, cortisol boosts our immune systems by limiting inflammation.

But, when the stress is persistent, our body adjusts to the constant high levels of cortisol. And that, my friends, causes greater inflammation. 

Stress also decreases lymphocytes; those all-important white blood cells that fight infections.

So, following the logic here, the lower the lymphocytes level, the higher the risk of getting a virus.

It’s a Catch-22. Virus fears cause stress, white blood cell counts drop because of stress, as does our body’s ability to fight a virus. That’s the opposite of what we need to be doing right now. 

Go back to what is causing the stress — Coronavirus — and we are placing ourselves at greater risk by being stressed out.

We need to turn off our TVs, put down our devices and listen to a great symphony — I’m listening to Beethoven’s Ninth at the moment — and practice meditating and relaxing. There are some great apps out there. I use Headspace and it has changed my life. There are many tools to help you relax.

I go on YouTube sometimes and type in relaxing sounds, put on my headphones and lie down for 20 minutes. It’s an easy, free coping mechanism. It completely clears my head. 

My friend — who has a degree in health and nutrition — also recommends taking absorbable Vitamin C, which boosts the immune system. 

These are stressful times to be sure, but it is super important to learn how to relax. I’m seeing it with my own family. 

It’s literally for your health.