Getting thrifty in the city
From left, Claudia Corsino and Christine Kratzenberg work the front register at Consigning Women, a Dunwoody community staple since 2011, within the Mount Vernon Shopping Center. Corsino, an Alpharetta resident and the third owner of Consigning Women, bought the business in October because of how much the store and its community means to her. See story and more photos, page 4.
By JON WILCOX jon@appenmedia.com
ATLANTA — North Metro Atlanta residents cranked up their heaters and grabbed an extra blanket, or two, after a winter storm swept through the Southeast last week.
The National Weather Service issued an extreme cold warning and cold weather advisory for North Georgia ahead of frigid temperatures Jan. 20-22. The weather prompted school closures and warnings from local officials.
It was deja vu after a similar winter storm hit weeks earlier. Residents have endured a lingering cold spell that has stretched for weeks.
Known for its sweltering summers and often mild winters, Metro Atlanta has experienced its fair share of cold weather.
This winter
The area experienced its coldest temperatures on Jan. 20 with a low of 18 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
The bitterly cold low was still a far cry from the lowest ever recorded temperature.
Meteorologists recorded a low of -6 degrees on Jan. 20, 1985.
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Officers arrest suspect for disorderly conduct
DUNWOODY, Ga. — Dunwoody Police arrested a 39-year-old homeless man Jan. 17 after he allegedly jumped on a vehicle in the Chick-fil-A drivethru and tried to grab a customer’s meal.
Dispatch told officers that a man had entered the store twice and was being disorderly.
A Chick-fil-A employee said the man walked toward Perimeter Mall after harassing customers for money, jumping on a vehicle and trying to pull him out of the drive-thru window.
Shortly after, officers said they located a man matching the suspect’s description.
After the man claimed he did nothing wrong, officers said the returned to Chick-fil-A to review security footage of the incident.
After confirming the incident with security footage, the Chick-fil-A employee said the store did not want to press charges.
Officers secured a warrant for disorderly conduct and transported the suspect to DeKalb County Jail. He was released Jan. 25.
— Hayden Sumlin
Metro police departments catch suspect in auto theft
DUNWOODY, Ga. — Dunwoody Police assisted the Atlanta and Sandy Springs police departments Jan. 16. with the arrest of a wanted 29-yearold Acworth man.
Dunwoody officers said the Atlanta Police Department issued
a “be on the lookout” for a stolen Honda Pilot after an attempted kidnapping incident at an Atlanta mall.
After Flock Safety cameras spotted the vehicle at Ashford Dunwoody Road and Meadow Lane, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs officers searched the surrounding area.
After Sandy Springs officers detained the suspect, a Dunwoody officer said the man made statements about being in danger and hacking Russian information.
When the vehicle’s owners arrived with Atlanta Police, they said an American Express credit card was missing and used for a $151 Target purchase.
Dunwoody officers said they found a receipt corresponding to Target merchandise found in the stolen vehicle.
After returning the vehicle to its owners, an officer transported the suspect to headquarters for an interview with a detective.
Fulton County jail records show the suspect was booked Jan. 17 for kidnapping, false imprisonment, robbery and theft by taking.
A Dunwoody officer set out to obtain Target’s security footage of the alleged financial transaction card fraud.
— Hayden Sumlin
Officers arrest suspect in Roswell gym theft
DUNWOODY, Ga. — Dunwoody Police arrested a 23-year-old Marietta man Jan. 17 after the manager of the Crunch Fitness off Olde Perimeter Way reported him for suspicious activity.
The Dunwoody Crunch Fitness manager said the manager of the Roswell location contacted him about a suspect who had stolen credit cards from patrons the prior day. The Dunwoody gym manager told officers that he was not certain if the
man had stolen anything from his location.
When officers spoke with the suspect inside the gym, they said he told them that he was from the Bahamas and did not have identification with him.
After being unable to locate anyone matching the suspect’s information in law enforcement databases, officers used a fingerprint scanner to identify him as a 23-yearold Marietta man.
While detaining the suspect, Dunwoody officers said the Roswell Police Department contacted them. They said Rowell detectives secured two felony warrants for financial transaction card theft and fraud stemming from the incident in Roswell.
Because the Marietta man had a suspended license for failure to appear, Dunwoody officers secured warrants for providing a false name and date of birth and driving with a suspended license. He was transported to DeKalb County Jail.
— Hayden Sumlin
Haim Haviv Owner
Consigning Women charms local community
By HAYDEN SUMLIN hayden@appenmedia.com
DUNWOODY, Ga. — Claudia Corsino moved from Belgium to Dunwoody in 2015 to be closer to her son at Virginia Tech and fell in love with the community.
With her husband working in Duluth and daughter attending the Atlanta International School, the Corsino family chose a spot in the middle.
While she and her husband moved to Alpharetta before the pandemic, the Dunwoody Running Club and her best friends kept Corsino coming back to Dunwoody every week.
When she found out the prior owners of Consigning Women were looking to sell and move closer to their grandchildren in Florida, Corsino said she loved it too much to let it shutter.
“I do everything here, it’s still my area,” Corsino said with affection in her voice.
Consigning Women has six longtime employees, some within walking distance of the store in the Mount Vernon Shopping Center.
“They just love the store, and they treat it like their own home,” Corsino said. “You can feel that when customers come in.”
Typically, someone will walk in the store and ask to see a specific item or speak with an employee they’ve known for a decade. Corsino said there are new items in the store each day, and the most unique treasures and popular new items have competition.
The consignment store specializes in upscale resale, and its structure lends itself to more of a community
environment. Consigners bring items in and often start shopping afterward.
“We have both sides of the community,” Corsino said. “We always have really cute stuff you cannot find in any other store.”
Back when she first moved to Dunwoody, Corsino said she started volunteering at the Community Assistance Center’s Canopy Thrift Shop off Roswell Road in Sandy Springs’ North End. Her time volunteering with the Perimeter nonprofit gave her experience with the operations of clothing store.
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“It’s a thrift store, the only difference in the concept is we receive donations [at the Community Assistance Center] and here we take consignments,” she said. “The selling process is the same.”
Corsino said Dunwoody stands out in Metro Atlanta because of her former neighbors and the wonderful friends she made. For the local business owner, the people in Dunwoody make it what it is.
“The important thing is to let people know we have new items every day,” Corsino said. “We have five appointments, so we take in new items and put them on the floor;
The prices...you cannot match them at a normal store; you always find good deals here.”
CLAUDIA CORSINO New Owner, Consigning Women
every time you come shop, you can find something new, something different.”
After a month, merchandise gets a 25 percent knock down. Consigning Women cares and sells for local Metro Atlantans, giving them 40 percent of each sale.
To get started, consigners need to call 770-394-1600 to set up an appointment (with a maximum of 25 items). The store accepts almost all women’s clothing and accessories with exceptions for wedding dresses, vintage items, lingerie and most jewelry, unless it’s signed or unique.
The items remain the property of consigners until they sell or 60 days pass. After that point, expired items may be donated.
“There’s always lots of items, some 50 percent off,” Corsino said. “The prices ... you cannot match them at a normal store; you always find good deals here.”
The consignment store, owned and operated by local women, makes its mission to create a unique shopping atmosphere of hospitality and friendship.
Corsino said she’s encouraged that a recent rezoning of the Mount Vernon Shopping Center will help generate more foot traffic for the other small shops around Consigning Women.
She attended rezoning meetings in the fall and said other small business owners within the shopping center need more customers too.
HAYDEN SUMLIN/APPEN MEDIA
The Consigning Women storefront sits on the Jet Ferry Road side of the Mount Vernon Shopping Center. Owner
Claudia Corsino says she is encouraged the shopping center will get more foot traffic after its January rezoning.
Happy Hollow Road home survived area’s evolution
Whenever I write about a subject where more history is needed, the best result is for someone to reach out to me with their memories and knowledge.
That happened after I wrote about the house, well and red cedar tree at 5326
Happy Hollow Road. Shari Dickerson sent me an email saying she and her husband Charlie purchased the home in 1970. The street number at that time was 5324.
Shari said Charlie was the family historian and may have had more history to share, but unfortunately, he died March 19, 2018. However, Shari found documents that show the home was purchased from real estate developer Brantley Katz, who developed the Fontainebleau West subdivision.
Shari recalls that the previous homeowner was W.N. Hall, who built the two-bedroom, one bath house in 1955. This answers the previous question of when the home was built. William Newman Hall and Jennie Stevens Hall, originally from Dalton,
Georgia, built the home. Hall had retired from Mercedes Benz. He previously worked for the Packard Car Company in Jacksonville, Florida, according to his World War II draft registration card.
The Hall family kept cattle on their Happy Hollow property.
Jennie Hall died in 1968, and W.N. Hall sold the home and land to Brantley Katz, who added a bedroom and bathroom before offering it for sale. The Dickersons paid $25,000 for the house in 1970 and moved in with their son Chip.
Chip started school at Hightower Elementary School on Tilly Mill Road and continued at Kingsley Elementary. Daughters Kelly and Beth were born while the family lived on Happy Hollow Road, and they also went to Kingsley Elementary School. Chip graduated from Peachtree High School, while Kelly switched from Peachtree High School to Dunwoody as a senior, when Peachtree became a middle School. The couple’s youngest daughter Beth was in the first class at Peachtree Middle School and graduated from Dunwoody High School.
DICKERSON FAMILY PHOTO/PROVIDED Charlie and Shari Dickerson, together in the backyard of their 5324 Happy Hollow home.
VALERIE BIGGERSTAFF Columnist
On Jan. 20, 2017, the area enjoyed a balmy 74 degrees.
The cold temperatures at the start of last week are part of an ongoing spate of below-freezing weather. So far in January, at least 13 days have seen lows below freezing.
Temperatures dipped to 22 degrees Jan. 9 ahead of a winter storm that blanketed the area with more than 1 inch of snow and ice, closing roadways, schools, businesses and government offices.
Last month, the coldest day was Dec. 6 with a low of 24 degrees. About two weeks later, Atlanta experienced its warmest day of the month at 74 degrees on Dec. 17.
Recent years
Atlanta’s coldest temperatures in recent years was 13 on Jan. 17, 2024 and Jan. 2, 2018.
On Dec. 8 and 9, 2017, an exceptionally heavy snowfall brought inches of frozen precipitation to the city, causing widespread power outages. Some parts of North Georgia recorded more than 1 foot.
A year later, snow again fell in Atlanta on Jan. 1617.
The infamous “Snowpocalypse” in late January of 2014 left Atlanta with several inches of snow and ice, causing “tremendous” impacts for the region, according to the National Weather Service.
Thousands of motorists were stranded on roadways and highways for hours, and many simply abandoned their vehicles. According to the Georgia State Patrol, there were more than 1,500 storm-related crashes in
Snow blankets the landscape north along Lake Forrest Drive in Sandy Springs Jan. 10, 2025. Some traversed the hilly corridor, but law enforcement encouraged motorists to stay at home
the state with over 180 injuries. At least two people died.
Historical cold
On March 13, 1993, “The Storm of the Century” slammed the Eastern U.S., killing 15 in Georgia. It brought 4 inches of snow to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and as many as 3 feet in some parts of Georgia.
According to the National Weather Service, the storm was one of the most intense mid-latitude cyclones to hit the Eastern U.S.
From Jan. 18-22,1985, record-breaking cold affected every state east of the Rocky Mountains,
freezing Atlanta with temperatures as low as -8 degrees. At least 165 deaths across the country were attributed to the weather.
In mid-January 1982, a weather event since dubbed “Snow Jam,” brought about 4 inches of frozen precipitation, paralyzing the city. Gov. George Busbee declared a state of emergency and mobilized the National Guard to aid motorists and clear roadways. At least 10 people died in the state.
One of the most devastating snowstorms in the history of the Southeast occurred from Feb. 9-11, 1973, dropping as much as 2 feet of snow across the region. Atlanta was spared from much of the carnage as the heavy snow remained mainly south of the city.
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“My children have wonderful memories of the house and especially the well house,” Shari recalled. “It was their fort. The long driveway saw many a big wheel drag race.”
There were several families with young children in the neighborhood.
In the 1970s, she remembers a Winn-Dixie on Winters Chapel Road, where Walmart Neighborhood Market is today. In the large space at the recently rezoned Mt. Vernon Shopping Center, where Lidl was the last tenant, the grocery store was A&P. Orchard Park and Kroger opened in 1982, as advertised in the Oct. 24, 1982, Atlanta Constitution.
Shari Dickerson remembers Dunwoody Club Drive was a dirt road between Happy Hollow Road and
Winters Chapel Road during the years they lived on Happy Hollow.
The Dickersons needed more space but decided to move to a home on North Peachtree Road in 1979 rather than build an addition to their Happy Hollow home. They rented the home for seven years before selling it to the Kelly family in July 1986.
One of Shari’s vivid memories is of the 1973 ice storm in Atlanta. The family had no electricity for several days. Charlie saved the day by cooking not only for his family but for many neighbors on their outdoor grill. The red cedar tree that is part of the property lost one huge limb but survived the ice storm.
Award-winning author Valerie Biggerstaff is a longtime columnist for Appen Media and the Dunwoody Crier. She lives in Atlanta. You can email Valerie at pasttensega@gmail.com or visit her website at pasttensega.com.
Consign:
Continued from Page 4
Business was better during the holidays than it has been during January’s notorious retail slump. Corsino said business has been good, and she wants to keep growing.
Next door, Southern Comforts Consignment, shuttered last January and consolidated to its Mountain Park Plaza location. A former comanager said the shopping center needs some work to make it more attractive.
The philosophy of the Consigning Women is as important to its employees and owner as it is to the customers and consigners that keep it running. With new ownership, loyal customers were quickly won
over by Corsino’s infectious smile and energy. She also kept the interior of the store the same, which longtime customers appreciated.
Christine Kratzenberg, celebrating a decade working at Consigning Women this year, said she loves Corsino for stepping up and buying the business. She said the community was worried when they heard the prior owner was looking to sell.
Kratzenberg said the best thing Corsino has done for business was getting Consigning Women on social media and spreading the word about the neighborhood consignment store.
You can follow Consigning Women at facebook.com/p/ConsigningWomen-Atlanta-100057294286434/ and at instagram.com/ consigningwomen.atlanta/.
DICKERSON FAMILY PHOTO/PROVIDED
Charlie Dickerson with daughter Kelly, standing in front of the red cedar tree in their Happy Hollow yard.
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Respiratory diseases hit seasonal heights, health agency says
By ALLEN SIEGLER Healthbeat Georgia
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ATLANTA — As the new year begins, Atlanta and Georgia respiratory disease spread has accelerated to some of the highest levels seen this winter.
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Over the last week of 2024, flu cases hospitalized 220 residents in the metro Atlanta area, according to the latest report from the Georgia Department of Public Health. That week alone makes up over a third of the region’s count since October.
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Statewide cases appear to be paralleling that trend. Preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that Georgia’s hospitalization rate for the virus also rose at the end of 2024 to its highest level in recent months. Additionally, the state percentage of health care visits for suspected flu cases has continued to increase and outpace the national average.
Respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, and Covid-19 are infecting many Georgians as well. Wastewater surveillance sites detect high levels of the viruses in communities across the state. RSV levels appear to have remained at the new heights they reached last month.
These state benchmarks show yearly rises in the three viruses, but many also indicate a less severe season so far relative to recent winters. In the last three months of 2023, metro Atlanta area health care centers hospitalized about 1,000 more people for the flu than they did at the end of 2024.
And while CDC numbers indicate that December’s final week was a recent peak for Georgia hospitalizations related to any of the three viruses, that rate is significantly lower than it was any of the past four years at the same time.
Still, there are other respiratory diseases that have outpaced recent Georgia recordings. One of them is pertussis, also known as whooping cough. The bacterial disease, most common in children, can compromise babies’ breathing and cause coughing strong enough to break ribs. For 2024, the CDC has recorded 280 Georgia cases — nearly three times the count of 2023.
The system used to detect whooping cough is updated frequently, and the 2023 and 2024 counts could
DISEASE, Page 13
PRESERVING THE PAST
A bell tolls in Georgia for Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter was our 39th president. His funeral motorcade stopped at his boyhood farm in Plains, Ga., on Jan. 4 at the start of a three-day remembrance of his life. There, an old farm bell was rung 39 times in his honor. That prompted me to write about the history of farm bells.
Many kinds of bells have played important roles throughout history. They were made in different sizes and different metals for various uses: farms, churches, fire departments, schoolhouses, factories, carillon bells, marine bells and more. Farm bells were typically 10 to 20 inches in diameter and weighed between 25 to 100 pounds. Most farm bells were made of cast iron.
Farm bell manufacturing was big business in the 1800s and early 1900s. Several large foundries manufactured bells but stopped production when they became less popular once telephones became available or during wartime when raw materials were scarce.
Farm bells were used primarily for notifying farm workers in the fields that it was time to gather for dinner. After all, they had no other means of communication. The bells were typically mounted on posts near the farmhouse and rung by pulling a chain or rope. They also served to alert farmhands of tragedies such as fires.
There is a famous scene in the 1985 award-winning movie “Witness,” starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis where the young boy Samuel secretly rings the family’s farm bell to alert the neighbors working in the fields about a criminal threatening the family. The neighbors dramatically rush to the farm and confront the criminal who is forced to surrender.
According to the authoritative website Tower Bells, more than 300 bell foundries have existed in the United States in the past three centuries. Some 200 of them produced traditional cast bronze bells while others worked with cast iron, cast steel or a combination of metals. Very few of the old companies still exist.
One notable exception is Bevin Bells, the oldest bell producer in the United States, founded in 1832 in East Hampton, Connecticut. At one point there were 30 bell companies in the town. Bevin Bells is the town’s sole survivor and the only company remaining in the U.S. exclusively
A worker at the White House gardens rings a bell in this historic photo dated September 12, 1922. The bell notified workers of important daily activities such as meals. mer people gather from Cherokee, Fulton, Forsyth and other counties for 10 days of “prayer, preaching, hymn singing, and fellowship.”
devoted to making bells. Although today, the company’s largest bell is 8” in diameter, at one time they forged large bells up 21” or greater that were likely also used on farms, in addition to ships, trains and other places.
Another pioneer company was C.S. Bell Company founded by Charles Singleton Bell in Hillsboro, Ohio, in 1875. One of the greatest and longest-lasting bell foundries, known as “America’s Original Farm Bell Manufacturer,” its bells were used on many of the 6,000 Allied vessels that took part in the invasion of Normandy. The company still exists but makes other products today. Many of its original bell molds and patterns were purchased in the 1990s by Prindle Station Bells a company that today casts bells using the C.S. Bell molds.
Yet another example is the American Casting Company in Birmingham, Alabama, founded by Dan B. Dimick in 1903. It produced a range of cast iron products including farm bells. The company no longer exists, but its farm bells are highly collectable.
The most famous bell in the U.S. is the Liberty Bell which weighed 2,080
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The historic farm bell at former President Jimmy Carter’s boyhood farm in Plains, Georgia, is rung 39 times by the National Park Service to honor the former president. Randy Dillard and Karen Barry, the NPS’s longest-serving members in Plains, rang the bell.
NATIONAL BELL FESTIVAL/PROVIDED
A Sears, Roebuck and Co. spring 1912 catalog lists farm bell options for bells ranging from 35 to 90 pounds. Bells were mounted on posts or attached to porch railings and used to summon farm workers for dinner. The bells cost about $2 each. The ad says “Every farm, no matter how small, should have a good bell.”
pounds when cast in England in 1752. It was transported by boat to Philadelphia. The bell cracked the first time it was rung during its initial test ring. A substitute bell, known as the Centennial Bell, was cast in 1876 and hangs in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It did not replace the original bell because the original had by then become a powerful symbol of our freedom.
Many presidents were known for the gardens they or their wives kept on the White House grounds. Plants were grown in greenhouses or in glass conservatories adjacent to the White House. An article published in several newspapers in September 1922 had titles such as “Bell Calls President’s Gardeners to Daily Task.” The article says “In the heat of Washington hangs this old-fashioned bell…located in the ‘Propagating Gardens’ where all flowers and plants for the White House gardens are grown…. It is rung at 7:30 a.m., 12 m., 12:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. The bell originally hung in the State, War and Navy Building” which is today’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House.
Paul Ashe is director of the National Bell Festival, a charitable organization dedicated to the preservation of bells. He says that the Propagating Gardens are long gone, and one of the most historic bells of the U.S. has disappeared. His organization is dedicated to finding the bell if that is possible.
Bob is director emeritus of the Milton Historical Society and a Member of the City of Alpharetta Historic Preservation Commission. You can email him at bobmey@bellsouth.net. Bob welcomes suggestions for future columns about local history.
BOB MEYERS Columnist
COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND NATIONAL BELL FESTIVAL
The changing face of eastern U.S. forests
In March 2020, Americans became keenly aware of a fastspreading, globally transmitted disease called COVID-19.
Soon pandemic became a household word, and everyone became concerned about its transmission and possible deadly consequences.
Most Americans in 2020 never encountered a disease that had spread so rapidly and had such dark consequences. Going back in history, in 1952 there was an epidemic of polio, a viral disease that attacks the human nervous system. As a result of donations to the March of Dimes and the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines, the risk of a polio pandemic in the U.S. is now zero!
Reaching further back into history, you probably remember studying about the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-19 and the Bubonic Plague that rapidly spread throughout Europe, killing an estimated 50 million people, or 50 percent, of the European population in the 1300s and 1400s.
Pandemics are not isolated to humans. Pandemics have ravaged the population of a wide variety of plants and animals as well. I would like to concentrate on three tree pandemics.
American Chestnut
As a child, I lived near a mountain range in western Pennsylvania called Chestnut Ridge. Even though we hiked in the forests near our house, I never saw a chestnut tree. Soon, I became curious about the catastrophic loss of the American chestnut tree in the wild. Before 1930, an estimated 4 billion American chestnut trees existed in the forests of the eastern U.S. These trees were the dominant hardwood species, and their large, high energy content chestnuts provided a food source for a wide variety of insects, microorganisms, birds and mammals.
The chestnut forests were rapidly changed by a microscopic package of bad news! A dying American chestnut tree was first observed in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in 1904. It promptly was determined to have been infected by a foreign invader, a fungal disease that was given the common name American chestnut blight.
Fungal diseases can spread rapidly because they reproduce by microscopic spores. The wind spreads these species-specific, microscopic messengers of death quickly. In three short decades, the wind carried the chestnut blight spores throughout the entire eastern U.S., causing an American chestnut pandemic. By 1930, so many American chestnuts died from blight that the logging industry began to clearcut all the remaining healthy American chestnuts, devastating Appalachian forest ecosystems from Maine to north Georgia and Alabama. By 1940, they were declared extinct in the wild. This event has been described as the “most devastating forest event ever!”
Today if you walk in any eastern U.S. forest, you will find that oak trees now occupy the habitats once populated by the life-sustaining
About the author
This week’s “Garden Buzz” guest columnist is Carole MacMullan, a Milton resident and Master Gardener since 2012. Carole describes herself as a born biologist. Since childhood, she loved to explore the out-of-doors and garden with her mother. When she entered college, she selected biology as her major and made teaching high school biology her career for 35 years. Shortly after moving from Pittsburgh, she became involved with the philanthropic mission of the Assistance League of Atlanta (ALA), and in 2014, completed the Master Gardener program and joined the North Fulton Master Gardeners (NFMG) and the Milton Garden Club. Carole uses her teaching skills to create a variety of presentations on gardening topics for the NFMG Lecture Series and Speakers Bureau.
of creating a healthy, viable and disease-resistant American Chestnut. The hope is to create hybrids of both species that will grow and thrive in their former habitats.
Southern pine beetle
American chestnuts. Nutritious, high-energy acorns produced by over 70 species of oak trees, 28 of which inhabit the forests of Georgia, now sustain a diversity of microorganisms, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. As a result, oak trees are now the dominant or keystone trees of eastern U.S. forests.
American Elm
There are more than 30,000 Elm Streets in the United States and many town and city parks, such as Central Park in New York City, that enjoy the beauty and cascading form of the American elm tree. These highly desirable urban trees also encountered a deadly fungal disease, Dutch elm blight. As the name suggests, the disease was first detected in the Netherlands in 1921 and was introduced to the U.S. for the first time in the 1970s. Many towns were forced to cut their streetscape trees. Currently, my hometown of Westmont, Pennsylvania, has the longest continuous tree-lined street of American elms in the United States. Luzerne Street is home to approximately 195 well-tended American elm trees. Through the efforts of selective breeding for resistance to Dutch elm blight, two new, disease-resistant elm hybrids are now available. Additionally, the American Chestnut Society is engaged in a two-pronged approach using both selective breeding and bioengineering with the goal
One of the most common forest diseases facing Georgia landowners and foresters is the Southern pine beetle. Pine beetles bore through the bark of pine trees and create tunnels as they consume the xylem tissue that makes up the annual rings. Without the xylem tissue needed to transport water throughout the tree, the tree will die. Since I moved to Milton in 2008, I have witnessed the death of hundreds of young, venerable pine trees in the forest behind my house. If you see a pine tree with peeling bark and exposed tunnels made by the pine beetles, please consult an arborist to confirm the extent of the beetle infestation. If confirmed, please take action to destroy and remove the tree or trees from your yard to prevent the spread of this disease that is devastating our southern pine forests,
Let me end with this quote, “We are all interconnected - people, animals, our environment. When nature suffers, we suffer. And when nature flourishes, we all flourish.” Dr. Jane Goodall
Happy gardening!
North Fulton Master Gardeners, Inc. is a Georgia nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose purpose is to educate its members and the public in the areas of horticulture and ecology in order to promote and foster community enrichment. Master Gardener Volunteers are trained and certified by The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Learn more at nfmg.net. Previous Garden Buzz columns are featured at: https://appenmedia.com/opinion/ columists/garden buzz/.
Save the dates for NFMG’s 2025 signature events: Garden Faire on April 12 and Garden Tour on June 7. Learn more at nfmg.net.
CAROLE MACMULLAN Guest Columnist
CAROLE MACMULLAN/PROVIDED
American Chestnut Tree with disease canker caused by the American Chestnut Blight at Berry College
Tracking another benevolent former president
PAT FOX Managing Editor pat@appenmedia.com
The monthlong mourning for Jimmy Carter has ended. What a blessing it would be to see Carter’s post-presidency spirit survive him. Chances are slim in today’s fractured America, but history has shown that charity and humanitarianism are not exclusive to liberal Democrats. Carter is not the only former president with a stellar humanitarian resume.
On the morning of May 28, 1945, first daughter Margaret Truman brushed past an elderly gentleman entering the White House as she rushed to class at George Washington University. Years later, she told historian Thomas Fleming that, at dinner that evening, she asked her father what the distinguished-looking man had been doing at the White House.
Harry Truman, a mere high school graduate, used the opportunity to teach the college history major a lesson. He instructed Margaret to go downstairs and scan portraits of the presidents in the main hall.
Others at the White House that same morning also paid little notice of the portly, 70-year-old man. Over the past dozen years, he had been all but erased. But, he knew his way to the Oval Office.
President Truman, five weeks into office, invited Herbert Hoover inside where they discussed relief efforts for the starving millions in Europe following Germany’s defeat.
Truman had chosen well.
Before his disastrous Republican presidency, Herbert Hoover had acquired notoriety for engineering one of the greatest relief efforts in history.
A self-made man
Orphaned at age 10 in 1884, Hoover
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became a multi-millionaire by age 40 through his acumen in the mining business. From humble beginnings, he graduated from Stanford, then established mining consulting services throughout the world with offices on three continents.
A devout Quaker, Hoover was moved by reports of mass starvation in Belgium in 1914 after German forces overran the country in the First World War.
Operating out of his London office, Hoover won the blessing of President Woodrow Wilson and a Belgian relief organization to launch the Commission for Relief in Belgium. Through private donations and government grants, the CRB accumulated 5.7 million tons of foodstuffs for distribution in areas suffering most.
The CRB had its own factories, its own navy and railroads. It had its own flag.
Hoover worked 14-hour days, overseeing food distribution to millions. Still a private citizen, he crossed the English Channel 40 times pressing German leaders to allow the food shipments into Belgium and occupied northern France in 1915. In London, he negotiated safe routes through Britain’s shipping blockade of the continent.
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His efforts were a textbook in efficiency, going so far as to salvage the flour sacks for Belgian trade schools where students turned them into clothing.
Hoover assembled volunteers to fundraise for the campaign. Not a penny of that money found its way into his pockets.
He extended relief into areas of the new Soviet Union besieged with famine in 1921. When one critic posed whether he was helping communism, he replied that 20 million people are starving. “Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!”
During and after the war, Hoover’s efforts were credited with having saved more than 9 million lives.
And, while he shunned acclaim, he became known worldwide as “The Great Humanitarian.”
Downfall within a decade
Tragically, less than a decade later, as president, Hoover was painted as heartless to the helpless during the Great Depression. Like many conservatives at the time, he held a core belief in separating government from domestic social safety nets.
Few presidents have been so vilified.
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Tent cities for the homeless became “Hoovervilles.” His successor, Franklin Roosevelt, obliterated his name from the crowning public works achievement of his presidency. Hoover Dam became Boulder Dam.
In point of fact, Hoover had pursued private unemployment insurance as Secretary of Commerce in 1922. He pushed for a safety net negotiated between insurance companies, employers and workers, without “the blighting hand of government.”
As president, he supported a handful of major public works projects to provide jobs, but he would not abide channeling public money directly to the poor.
He believed charity came from the heart, and he practiced what he preached, discretely donating his presidential salary and untold amounts of his personal wealth to charities during his term. From the time of the great Belgium relief effort until his death in 1964, Hoover kept not one dime of public money.
Truman recognized Hoover for the man he was. In that May 1945 visit, he asked Hoover to mount another massive relief campaign in Europe. This time, it was Germany and Austria that lay in ruin.
At Truman’s behest, Hoover visited 38 nations in an effort to avert mass starvation among war victims. Over three months, he traveled more than 50,000 miles.
Rescuing Europe again
Hoover also helped sway the prevailing tide of high-level U.S. government sentiment that called for reducing Germany “into a pastoral state” that could never wage war again. Instead, Hoover argued that Germany was essential to the economic prosperity of Europe, and he promoted plans to rebuild the country into an exporter. This, he argued, would “relieve American taxpayers of the burdens of relief and for economic recovery of Europe.”
Truman, himself, was apt to leaving Germany adrift, but his regard for Hoover helped sway him.
The result was the Marshall Plan which infused billions into western Europe, revitalizing industry, blunting the spread of Soviet communism and creating a thriving economy.
In a final benevolent act for the man who had restored his dignity, Hoover accepted the presidential pension when it was first enacted in 1958. He accepted because Truman publicly claimed to be on poverty’s doorstep after leaving office – a claim historians today dispute. Nevertheless, Hoover did not want his Democratic friend to suffer the shame of being alone on the public dole, so he also took the pension.
Then, he discretely donated it to charity.
A soft heart needn’t be tethered to political persuasion.
GRAPHIC BY JACOB TOMBERLIN/APPEN MEDIA
OPINION
Here’s a detective series that never fails to deliver
KATHY MANOS PENN Columnist
Can you recall getting hooked on a series and having to wait a year for the next installment to appear? Or perhaps stumbling across book five or six in a series and enjoying it so much that you went in search of the earlier books?
Michael Connelly’s Bosch series is one I started from the very beginning with “The Black Echo.” At the time, there were several books out. Only after that did I have to wait patiently for the next installment to appear. If you haven’t read the books, you may know his name from the show on Prime Video. This review is of book 25.
“The Waiting” by Michael Connelly
Renée Ballard, who appears in the last five Bosch books, heads LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, investigating cold cases — some decades old, others more recent. As happens in the previous books with Ballard as the main character, Harry Bosch contributes to solving the case.
This time, Bosch’s daughter Maddie, who is now a patrol officer, joins the unit as a volunteer. Before you know it, the unit is investigating the never solved Black Dahlia case from the ‘40s. The twists and turns in trying to solve the case while also dealing with department politics combine with investigating another cold case that hinges on DNA
Disease:
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continue to change. But in a health advisory last month, the state health department warned providers to be on the lookout for any patients presenting with severe coughs. The CDC recommends five doses
analysis.
This one is a suspenseful roller coaster ride, and, of course, I stayed up way too late several nights to get to the end. I had barely finished the book when the wildfires erupted in California.
Now, as I watch the coverage of the LA fires, I’m flipping back through the book and wondering how the areas in this series have fared. Harry’s neighborhood of Laurel Canyon had escaped unscathed as I began writing this column. The news reported that one Malibu trailer park was devastated, so I thought of Renée, who is an avid surfer and lives in a trailer park in Malibu.
So much of what I know of the LA area comes from Connelly’s series and visits with two friends who live there. One lives far from the devastation, but my Altadena friend was in the thick of it. He evacuated before his neighborhood was engulfed in flames, and miraculously, his house was still standing when he last heard.
The images on the news are horrific, and reading Michael Connelly’s vivid descriptions of the areas I see in flames make them all the more real to me. Gut wrenching, poignant—words fail me. My heart goes out to those who are living this horror.
Award-winning author Kathy Manos Penn is a Sandy Springs resident. Find her Dickens & Christie cozy mysteries on Amazon or locally at The Enchanted Forest and Bookmiser. Contact her at inkpenn119@gmail.com and visit her website www.facebook.com/ KathyManosPennAuthor/.
of vaccines throughout a child’s first six years that helps protect against whooping cough. The organization says besides some groups like pregnant people and seniors, most adults don’t need to seek additional immunizations.
Healthbeat (Healthbeat.org) is a nonprofit news organization covering public health.
Janis
(Jan) Venice Mercer In Memoriam
Janis (Jan) Venice Mercer passed away unexpectedly on December 26, 2024. She was 75.
Jan was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania to her parents, Kathryn (Kay) and Harry Yecies. She grew up in McKeesport with her two older brothers, Louis (Lou) (of Chicago, Illinois) and Paul Yecies (of Sharon, MA), and graduated from McKeesport High School in 1967.
Jan graduated from Youngstown State University with a degree in elementary education. After graduation, she was an elementary education teacher in the Cleveland School District for several years before moving to the Atlanta, Georgia area. In Atlanta, she worked as a Human Resources Executive for several organizations until she and her best friends Will and Traci Fleck started Spectrum Recruiting, a recruiting and executive placement firm. Jan was an expert recruiter and relationship-builder; she helped match thousands of people to the perfect job while helping organizations fill hard-to-find positions in the healthcare, biomedical, consumer products, and insurance industries.
her love for kids and sports, she became a founding board member and helped JCYFA become the fastest growing youth sports organization in the north metro area.
The most important things to Jan were her family and friends. Jan was kind and caring, she was always willing to help and always put others first. Jan could brighten a room with her beautiful smile and joy for life shining through. Jan met the love of her life, the late Paul Mercer, in Atlanta. Jan and Paul were happily married for almost 25 years, until he passed away last year. Jan enjoyed the roses Paul picked for her from the rose garden in their yard that they cherished together. They lived an amazing love story and their home was always filled with love, laughter, and roses!
Over the years, Jan also enjoyed her time volunteering at several prominent organizations, including the Atlanta Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, the security detail for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the personnel operations team for the Georgia State Defense Force, the BlueHair Technology Group whose mission was to educate adult seniors about technology and tools, and the Johns Creek Youth Football Association where through
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Jan and her husband Paul enjoyed watching and supporting the Atlanta Braves, and as a native of Pennsylvania, Jan was the Pittsburgh Steelers biggest fan. Jan got to enjoy home games with her family growing up in nearby McKeesport and after moving to Atlanta, seldom missed a broadcasted game – her neighbors always knew when the Steelers were playing! She also loved college football and enjoyed cheering-on her favorite team, the Michigan Wolverines – Go Blue. Jan left us too soon, and is dearly missed. But we are comforted in knowing that she has been reunited with the love of her life, Paul and her sweet Saint Bernard, Duchess. Jan was always a positive ray of light and will forever be remembered for her hearty laugh, her beautiful smile, and her genuine kindness.
The City of Dunwoody Zoning Board of Appeals will meet on Thursday, March 6, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. in the Council of Chambers of Dunwoody City Hall, located at 4800 Ashford Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody, Georgia 30338, for the purpose of due process of the following:
ZBA 25-01, 5064 Winding Branch Drive, Dunwoody, GA, 30338: Variance from Sec. 16-78 to allow a porch and deck to encroach into the 75-foot stream buffer.
Should you have any questions or comments, or would like to view the application and supporting materials, please contact the City of Dunwoody Community Development Department at 678-382-6800. Members of the public are encouraged to call or schedule a meeting with the staff in advance of the Public Hearing if they have questions or are unfamiliar with the process. The staff is available to answer questions, discuss the decision-making process, and receive comments and concerns.
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