Roosevelt Warm Springs historic cottages

ROOSEVELT WARM SPRINGS HISTORIC COTTAGES
WOODRUFF COTTAGE (PHYSIO) This house is shown on the 1909 map of Warm Springs. It was owned by the G. M. Williams family. G. M. Williams was one of the founders of Excelsior Mills in Columbus in 1882. That company became Swift Denim, one of the leading denim manufacturers in the world. It is now Swift Galey. G. M. Williams was also a director of the Central of Georgia Railway Company in 1895. Southern Railway had the controlling interest in this company. The cottage was acquired by the Woodruff family in 1914 from the G.M. Williams family. James W. Woodruff sold this cottage to the Foundation in 1931. The Woodruffs were the Coca-Cola family. James Woodruff's uncle, Ernest Woodruff, together with W. C. Bradley, orchestrated the take over of the company from Asa Candler in 1919 for a price of $25 million. His sons, Robert W. Woodruff and George W. Woodruff, ran the company for years. George and Robert Woodruff gave Emory University $105 million in 1979, the largest single gift ever to an educational institution, according to Guinness Book of World Records. The family was involved with the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation in various ways. George was a commissioner of the Foundation in 1963. Robert served on the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation Board of Trustees from 1943 to 1970. He gave the money to build Wilson Pool in 1942, but as was common practice with him, the Foundation Annual Report listed the gift as being from an anonymous donor. His personal creed was: "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." James W. Woodruff's obituary says that he "played a key role in the creation of the Warm Springs Foundation, making a contribution of property to this foundation." He was also chairman of the Georgia Hall and the Colonnade fundraising campaigns in Columbus. The house has been used for many years as housing for therapy interns.
BRADLEY COTTAGE The Foundation purchased this cottage in 1930 from Mrs. S. H. Bradley and Minnie Scarbrough for $2,800. The 1930 Annual Report said that this cottage provided a place "much more accessible and suitable for the walking exercises on cold and rainy days than the Playhouse." W.C. Bradley had also owned the house at one time. Bradley began his career in Columbus in 1885 in a cotton factoring firm. In 1888, he and G. Gunby Jordan founded the Third National Bank and the Columbus Savings Bank. In the 1890's he bought two of the largest textile mills in the South. He also became General Manager of a steamboat line and a dominant figure in the Chattahoochee River's steamboat history. In 1917, he purchased five plantations 30 miles south of Columbus.

In 1919, he and Ernest Woodruff purchased the Coca-Cola Company. Bradley became Chairman of the Board and remained active for 27 years until 1946, just one year before his death.
In 1925, he acquired control of the Columbus Iron Works which manufactured cannons, cannon balls and gunboats during the Civil War. The Meriwether Inn lamp posts were manufactured by the Columbus Iron Works.
In 1930, the Third National Bank and the Columbus Savings Bank merged to form Columbus Bank and Trust Company which is now the lead bank of Synovus.
W.C. Bradley died in 1947. The site of his estate in Columbus is now the site of the Columbus Museum, the Bradley Library and the headquarters of the Muscogee County School District.
In 1948, the Columbus Iron Works manufactured the first cast iron Char-Broil grill, marking the birth of the present day Char-Broil Company.
In 2001, Zebco, a leading designer and marketer of fishing tackle, was purchased by The W. C. Bradley Co. (Information taken from the W. C. Bradley Company website.)
JOSEPH COTTAGE This house has been owned by several members of the Joseph family of Columbus, Georgia. Louis Joseph is the young man whose story of recovery from polio by exercising in the pools at Warm Springs first enticed FDR to visit the resort. Isaac Joseph purchased this property from Charles Davis in 1894. This is one of two houses owned by the Joseph family at Warm Springs. This one was owned by Louis Joseph's aunts. Another home owned by his father, Charles Joseph, stood directly behind this house and next door to Pierson Cottage. That house burned at some point. Isaac Joseph was president of a successful steamship line, The Columbus and Gulf Navigation Company. One of the steamships owned by the company was the "Fannie Fearn", a stern-wheel steamboat, purchased in May, 1887. (Fannie was the name of Joseph's daughter.) The boats would run from Columbus to the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, then up the Flint to Bainbridge, then return to the junction and run down the Apalachicola River to Apalachicola, FL. At the beginning of the 1891 cotton shipping season, the "Fannie Fearn" was involved in one of the many steamship races on the Chattahoochee and was leading until it ran aground. It was lost on the Chattahoochee River near Columbus in 1902. The Joseph House in Columbus, located at 828 Broadway, was placed on the National Register of Historic Sites and Places in 1969. It is an early example of cottage style Greek Revival architecture. It was built around 1842 and purchased by the Josephs soon after the Civil War. It was inhabited by Joseph family members for over 100 years. Mrs. Isaac Joseph's parents were the Nathaniel Waldrons who owned several of the original lots on First Avenue in Columbus.

DUPLEX (Apartments A and B) Built around 1941 as staff housing
PIERSON COTTAGE This is the first house occupied by FDR at Warm Springs. At the time, it was owned by Mr.& Mrs. William Hart of Columbus. They allowed him to rent it for his first few visits to Warm Springs. Our records indicate that FDR purchased the house from them in May, 1926 and sold it to James T. Whitehead of Detroit in April, 1927. William Hart was on the board of directors of Columbus Savings and Loan Association in 1914. He was also president of the Foundation Savings and Loan. Mrs. Hart was the daughter of Dr. William Lewis Bullard, a prominent eye, ear, nose and throat specialist in Columbus at a time when such specialization was rare. Dr. Bullard's wife was a Blackmar, a family that has lived in Columbus since 1835 and played an important role in the early days of the city. The Bullard-Hart House, located at 1408 3rd Ave., Columbus, GA is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. This three-story, 20 room house was built in1887 by Dr. Bullard. He and his wife raised 3 daughters in the house. One of them, Mary Elmira, was the wife of William Hart and they lived in this house for many years. A history of Columbus says that "One of their more frequent visitors was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who gave a radio talk announcing his decision to run for Governor of New York from the parlor of this house. The announcement was broadcast nationwide. Not only was Mr. Roosevelt a frequent visitor, but other prominent guests were General George C. Marshall, General George Patton and Supreme Court Justice Thomas Murphy." According to one source, Mrs. Hart created the Country Captain recipe especially for FDR, but George Patton also enjoyed it. A story in the Orlando Sentinel said that "While on his way to Fort Benning before going to Europe, Patton sent a telegram... `If you can't give me a party and have Country Captain, meet me at the train with a bucket of it.'" On February 26, 1926, William Hart and Charles S. Peabody, representing George Foster Peabody, visited FDR aboard his houseboat, the Larooco, in Florida. According to the Larooco log entry, "we began talking over the...purchase of Georgia Warm Springs." After FDR built McCarthy Cottage, he sold the Hart Cottage to James T. Whitehead of Detroit, the president of Whitehead and Kales, a manufacturer of structural steel for buildings and bridges. His daughter Elizabeth Pierson had polio and had sought treatment in Warm Springs. Whitehead became one of the founding trustees of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. He died in 1930 and left the cottage to Elizabeth. She gave the cottage to the Foundation in 1951. Elizabeth Pierson was responsible for bringing Mr. & Mrs. Edsel Ford to visit Warm Springs. They were guests in this house when they made their $25,000 donation to enclose the pools. Elizabeth was present at many of the parties, picnics and special events held when FDR was in Warm Springs. She and Mary Veeder recorded many of these events on camera. Because of her closeness to FDR in the early days, her scrapbook and movies are priceless records of life at Warm Springs.

Elizabeth's husband, H. Lynn Pierson, was President-Treasurer of the Detroit Harvester Company.
Henry Toombs designed a house for the Piersons in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Elizabeth Pierson's daughter, Nancy Pierson Gard, of Grosse Pointe, Michigan
died at age 80 on August 29, 2010. Her brother Davison Pierson is still living.
SPENCER COTTAGE This house appears on the 1909 map of Warm Springs. Our records do not indicate which member of the Spencer family of Columbus owned this cottage, but it is clear that they owned it for many years. Somehow the property came under the control of James W. Woodruff and the Foundation acquired it from him in 1927 for $3,800. The Foundation rented space in this cottage for a telegraph office from 1934 through the mid 1950s, which means it was a communications center during FDR's presidential years. Lambert Spencer moved to Columbus from Talbot County, Maryland in 1828, bought land from William L. Wynn and established a cotton plantation. He married Verona Mitchell and built a home at 1846 Buena Vista Road, either in 1834 or 1844 (sources don't agree) which was known as The Elms. It was a simple Greek Revival home detailed with Doric columns. In 1868, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Bowers enlarged and beautified the home, adding Italianate octagonal wings. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. In 1999, Mrs. Maxwell C. Harden, daughter of the local builder Thomas Watson Cooper, returned to Columbus and purchased The Elms for her home. Lambert Spencer and his wife Verona had a son, Samuel, and a daughter, Helena. Helena married Frank Erwin Callaway, a lawyer from Atlanta. Callaway was born in Troup County on April 9, 1870. Samuel Spencer was educated at Georgia Military Academy. During the Civil War, he served in the Confederate Army under General Nathan B. Forrest and General John Bell Hood. After the war, he attended the University of Georgia and the University of Virginia. Lambert Spencer wanted his son to join him in the family cotton business, but Samuel wanted to become an engineer. In 1869, he began working with railroads as a surveyor and rose through the ranks. Samuel became superintendent of the Long Island Railroad in 1878 and headed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1887-1888. While working for J.P. Morgan, he was tapped to head the new railroad, Southern Railway, which was formed by consolidating the Richmond and Danville Railroad and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad. After the war, the southern railroads were decimated. An article found at www.investors.com stated, "Samuel Spencer played the leading role in consolidating the South's disparate railroads into a network connecting Washington, Atlanta and New Orleans. His moves helped give the South the transportation tools to participate in the rapid U.S. economic expansion of the early 20th century."

Samuel married Louisa Virginia Benning, daughter of Henry L. Benning (Fort Benning is named in his honor). Their son was Henry Benning Spencer.
Samuel was killed in a tragic railway accident in Virginia in 1906. He is remembered as the "Father of the Southern Railway System."
Henry Benning Spencer, Samuel's son, was born in Long Branch, NJ and graduated from Harvard in 1895. He, like his father, rose through the ranks in the railroad business. In 1905, he went to Washington, DC as General Manager of Southern Railway and in 1906 became Vice President of Southern Railway. His children were: Violet (married to Benjamin Warder Thoron who was Director of Territories under Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, from Oct. 1942 until June 1945), Louise (married to Roger Cortesi) and Samuel.
CHIEF SURGEON'S RESIDENCE Built in 1937 as a residence for the chief surgeon. This cottage has been dubbed "The Mansion."
VEEDER COTTAGE With the help of his parents, Deering Veeder, a patient, built this house in 1928. This cottage was also the home of Mary Hudson, one of the early physical therapists that came to Warm Springs from Peabody College in Nashville. The women from Peabody College were physical education majors, and they learned physical therapy here from Helena Mahoney and others. Mary had joined the staff in 1928, and provided physical therapy for FDR from time to time. Deering and Mary Hudson were married on July 14, 1933. Mary resigned from the staff in 1939, and the couple moved to Atlanta. They returned to Warm Springs when Deering retired in 1963. Deering died in 1973, and Mary died in 1997. Deering served for a time as co-editor of the Warm Springs Mirror newspaper with another patient named Louis Weinberg. This newspaper gave extensive coverage to Foundation activities in the early 1930s. Deering's family lived in Virginia, and Mary was born in Southwest Georgia. This house is one of five houses on the grounds that are privately owned.
FRYER COTTAGE Designed by Henry Toombs and built in 1938 by Livingston Fryer of Buffalo, New York. He and his wife spent much of their time at their chateau at Arapajon, near Paris and it was there that their son Timothy contracted polio at age 7 or 8. They brought him to Warm Springs to receive treatment and regularly spent the winter here after they built the cottage. Livingston's father was Robert Livingston Fryer, of Buffalo, who became president of Manufacturers and Traders Bank in 1901. According to their website, that bank is "now one of the twenty largest bank holding companies in the United States with more than $56 billion in assets, 650 branches, 1600 ATMs and 13,000 employees serving over one million households in six states and the District of Columbia."

The family is listed in the LINEAR BOOK OF HEREDITARY ORDER OF DESCENDANTS OF COLONIAL GOVERNORS. They are linear descendants of New York Governor Rip Van Dorn. Livingston and his sons (Appleton, born in 1927, and Livingston, Jr., born in 1926) are members of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, Sons of the American Revolution, the Order of Crown of Charlemagne, and the Baronial Order of Magna Carter.
Appleton was appointed as Japan's first Honorary Consul General in Buffalo in 1979.
The Foundation bought the house from the Fryers in 1950.
LEHAND COTTAGE Built in early 1928 by Marguerite (Missy) LeHand, FDR's private secretary. Missy was born in New York but the family later moved to Somerville, MA. She became a secretary at the Democratic Party's national headquarters. When FDR ran for Vice President in 1920, she worked in the campaign's Washington office. After the campaign, she went to work for FDR to help with his personal correspondence. She would be devoted to him for the next 21 years. Missy was with FDR on his first visit to Warm Springs in 1924 and according to the FERI website, while here, she acted as his chef, maid and the general overseer of his schedule and correspondence. In June, 1927, Missy suffered a "nervous breakdown" while in Warm Springs and, according to Doris Kearns Goodwin, experienced "alarming bouts of delirium and depression." She was hospitalized and Dr. Hubbard ordered that any object that she might use to harm herself be removed from her room. This was just after FDR had decided to sell the houseboat, the Lorooco, and had purchased Warm Springs. Perhaps she saw their pattern of their life together being disrupted. She was with him when he took the call at the Meriwether Inn that entered him into the New York governor's race in 1928. She was very much opposed to him running for office that soon, thinking that he should continue to concentrate on his rehabilitation. Within days, she suffered another nervous breakdown. But when he won, she went with him to New York as his personal secretary. She remained as his secretary when he became president. She also often fulfilled the traditional role of the First Lady as hostess at White House functions when Eleanor was away (which was often). Raymond Moley said that "Missy was as close to being a wife as he ever had--or could have." She was his personal and political partner. Harold Ickes wrote, "She sees the issues that are involved and she is so close to the President that she is in a position to keep him steady at times when he needs advice. The President is the kind of a person who needs help of this sort from someone very close to him." It is said that she knew him so well that she could answer his correspondence herself with only a word or two from him. The person receiving the letter would never know that he didn't write all of it himself. She had become the "office wife." Missy suffered a stroke on June 4, 1941 at a White House dinner party and two weeks later suffered a major stroke that left her partially paralyzed and severely

affected her speech. She came to Warm Springs to recuperate and FDR visited her in this house. She returned to the White House for a short while, but was unable to handle the stress. She went to live with her sister in Somerville, MA and died there in 1944. After her stroke, FDR had rewritten his will to leave her half of the income from his estate. According to Doris Kearns Goodwin, he said that was the least he could do. Because Missy died before FDR, her half reverted to Eleanor. The Foundation bought the property in 1940 for $3,000.
MCCARTHY COTTAGE This cottage is the first home FDR built for himself and the first building in the new subdivision he created in 1926. All of his previous residences had been owned by his family. It was designed by Henry Toombs and completed in 1927. One reason for building the house was to induce other patients and friends to locate here. FDR lived in the house mainly during his two terms as governor of New York. The Foundation rented the house for him when he was not here. A document suggests that he would have been willing to sell the house in 1929. This makes you wonder if he was dissatisfied with it or if he just wanted to build again. Perhaps, as his political fortunes rose, he felt the need for greater privacy. In any case, The Little White House was built in 1932. After FDR moved to the Little White House, the Foundation bought this cottage from him and leased it for life to Leighton McCarthy, an official of the Canada Life Assurance Company and his son John. John had polio and received treatment at Warm Springs in the early days. McCarthy became a member of Foundation Board of Trustees in 1930. Probably because of his closeness to FDR, the government of Canada named McCarthy ambassador to the United States during World War II. Leighton McCarthy was on FDR's funeral train to New York. The book FDR's Funeral Train says that McCarthy had a deep- rooted affection for FDR and was "perhaps the only man who had even seen a paralyzed FDR very nearly walk. It was sometime in 1927, when Roosevelt had spent months religiously submersing his legs in the 88-degree thermal pool at Warm Springs. One day, McCarthy returned to his cottage to find Roosevelt alongside a wall with his arms stretched out, concentration and wonder etched on his face. `Look, Leighton,' FDR whispered fiercely. `I'm standing alone." McCarthy's son John and his wife, Ruth, another Warm Springs patient, continued to use the house occasionally until the 1970's. He and his wife received the Alumni of the year award from the Foundation in 1975. Basil O'Connor used the house when he came to Warm Springs as did other officials of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. A cedar closet was installed in the basement to protect O'Connor's clothes. The Foundation expanded the kitchen in the 1950s. HBO used the cottage as a principle set for the movie "Warm Springs" in 2004. The movie won the Emmy award for best TV movie in 2005.

E.T. CURTIS COTTAGE Built by E. T. Curtis and his wife, Barbara, in 1928. Both of them were graduates of Cornell. Barbara Curtis had been a friend of Missy LeHand since childhood. Curtis was the manager of the Meriwether Reserve, the corporation that was established to run both the polio and the non-polio-related commercial activities of Warm Springs. Eventually the Meriwether Reserve and its holdings were folded into the nonprofit Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. The Foundation bought this house in 1942.
HUTTON COTTAGE Mr. George Van Deusen Hutton of Kingston, New York built this cottage in the late 1920s or early 1930s. His family owned a brickmaking factory, the Hutton Company, from 1865 until 1980. It was located along the Hudson River not far from Hyde Park. They supplied bricks for the Empire State Building and many other New York City landmarks. Mr. Hutton and his family used the house occasionally and also rented it to patients. The Foundation bought the house in 1945 for $6000. Mr. George Van Deusen Hutton, Jr. was a graduate of Yale School of Architecture and authored a book entitled THE GREAT HUDSON RIVER BRICK INDUSTRY. He died in 2008.
ORTH COTTAGE # 2 Mrs. Elizabeth Orth built this cottage as a rental property shortly after 1933. J. Couper Lord and his wife Louise bought the house around 1938. Mr. Lord is a member of the family that created the Lord and Taylor department store chain. J. Couper Lord was a classmate of FDR at Groton. They played in golf tournaments together. His daughter, Mary Louise "Cissie" Lord, contracted polio in 1936. According to the book 740 PARK: THE STORY OF THE WORLD'S RICHEST APARTMENT BUILDING, she spent months in one of the only iron lungs in New York. It had been brought to New York on a private train owned by FDR, her father's classmate. She eventually came to Warm Springs as a patient. A LIFE magazine article for December 5, 1938 has a picture of her in the Moore Cottage and calls her the "belle of the Foundation." She improved sufficiently to make her debut in 1938. She married Charles P. Stevenson. Her son, Charles Porter Stevenson, Jr. says that his mother was a New York society "princess." J. Couper Lord died in Warm Springs in 1939 at age 58.

In 1948, his wife sold the cottage to Dr. and Mrs. Hal Raper. Dr. Raper served as director of internal medicine at the Foundation for many years and Mrs. Raper was a physical therapist. They are both buried in the Foundation cemetery.
This cottage is one of the five houses on the grounds still in private hands.
HILLIARD COTTAGE Built in 1959 as staff housing. The application for the National Historic Landmark designation says that this is the only "recent" structure in this subdivision.
HAMILTON COTTAGE The parents of Phillip and Polly Hamilton built this house in 1938 as a wedding present for their children. Henry Toombs designed the house, and it was featured in the Nov. 1939 issue of House and Garden Magazine. The feature was just one page with photos, a floor plan and a brief description. The article on this house was part of a section entitled "20 Houses." It seems that the house was included for no other reason than the editors liked it. The Hamiltons named the house "Upaway." Phillip Hamilton was a native of Detroit, and Polly Daunt Hamilton was a native of Minneapolis. Both were patients of the Foundation in the early 1930s. He died in 1949 and she died in 1969. Both are buried in the Foundation Cemetery. This house is one of five houses on the grounds that are still privately owned.
HUNTINGTON COTTAGE Stuart Chevalier of New York built this house in 1933. A lawyer, he contracted polio, received treatment at Warm Springs and later assisted in the fundraising efforts of the Foundation. He made several large donations including funds to remodel the playhouse. From the records we have, he seems to have had an office on Wall Street and a home on Park Avenue. Chevalier appears in a 1936 lantern slide show made for the annual Thanksgiving celebration. From the gentle way the slide show poked fun at him, it appears that he was a popular person at the Foundation. A bachelor at the time, the slide show creators engineered a photo of him in the Georgia Hall fountain with one of the young physical therapists. In another slide, they artificially placed him with another therapist with the caption "Why Stuart, we did not know that you were not alone!" Chevalier wrote a letter to the "Polio Chronicle" soliciting names for the Foundation roads. According to him, several names had been proposed, names such as "Gleuteus Road" and "Peroneal Lane." Apparently naming the roads after trees was the most popular suggestion. Chevalier became an authority on corporate tax law. He and Robert Miller established Miller and Chevalier in Washington, D.C., the first tax law firm in the United States. It is still in business today and employs over 100 lawyers. Tax issues still represent the core of their business. He was also a pioneer leader on behalf of the United Nations and an authority of international topics. He authored several books on the United Nations.

Chevalier was a member of the Board of Trustees for Occidental College for 19 years. He died in 1956 and in 1957, his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Pickett Chevalier, established the Chevalier Program in Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental in his memory.
Mrs. Chevalier was a film writer, novelist, and producer. She was also very active in Democratic politics. She was known to be on the short list for Secretary of the Treasury during the Kennedy administration.
Rev. George Huntington and his wife Elizabeth purchased the cottage from Chevalier in 1940. They undertook an extensive renovation at that time.
Rev. Huntington contracted polio 1933 while serving as vice president of Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey. He was 55. He came to Warm Springs for treatment in 1936. From then on, the couple spent winters here and became very active in the life of the Foundation. Rev. Huntington preached in the chapel and played violin in the Foundation orchestra. He also preached during the memorial service for FDR just after his death. Mrs. Huntington taught Bible classes and organized recreational activities. Mrs. Huntington also wrote religious articles for the "Crutch," a patient publication.
Rev. Huntington returned to work at Robert College in 1938, but the hilly campus proved too difficult for him. He returned to the United States in 1939.
Elizabeth Dodge Huntington was born on August 10, 1884, in Riverdale, New York. Her Great-Grandfather, William E. Dodge, Sr. and Anson Greene Phelps formed the Phelps-Dodge Company in 1834. Phelps-Dodge remains a huge mining company. In March 2007, it became a part of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, Inc. The headquarters of Freeport-McMorRan is Phoenix, Arizona.
Public service and charity were a tradition in the family. Through the generations, members of the Dodge family helped organize the New York YMCA, the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Garden and several churches. The family was also involved in the establishment of the American University in Beirut. Her brother Cleveland Earl Dodge held leadership positions in the Phelps-Dodge Company, the Near East Foundation, the YMCA and the Protestant Council of New York City. Her brother Bayard Dodge served as president of the American University of Beirut and was a recognized scholar of Moslem history and literature.
Mrs. Huntington's aunt, Grace H. Dodge, was the founder and first president of the National Board, YWCA of the U.S.A. Elizabeth Huntington worked with the YWCA all of her life and held several leadership positions within the organization. She also worked tirelessly for Robert College.
Rev. Huntington died 1953. In his will, he asked that his wife sell the house and give the proceeds to Robert College. The Foundation bought it in 1954 for $30,000 to use as housing for special guests. Mrs. Huntington died in 1976. She left a bequest of $2 million to Robert College. Robert College continues today as a co-education college preparatory school on its campus overlooking the Bosporus. The Turkish government now operates the higher education component of Robert College as a state university.
Jonas Salk and family stayed in this house during a vacation in 1955, the year that his vaccine was announced safe and effective.

KEITH MORGAN COTTAGE Morgan was an accomplished insurance salesman in New York. He was associated with the Equitable Life Assurance Society as was his father before him. Equitable was known for decades as one of the largest life insurance companies in the nation. In 2004 it became AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company and is a "leading financial protection company and a premier provider of life insurance, annuity, and investment products and services." The company's building at 120 Broadway at one time contained the main offices of Basil O'Connor's law firm, the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The Foundation hired Morgan to run its fundraising campaign. Oshinsky, in Polio: An American Story, says that Morgan was "a fast-talking insurance salesman who had made a fortune in the booming bull market of the 1920s. Morgan's job, as spelled out in a personal meeting with FDR, was to `sell the concept of Warm Springs to a lot of wealthy people who've never heard of it.' But Morgan came on board in 1929, the year the stock market crashed. All of a sudden there were fewer rich people with a lot less to give...With the Depression, Warm Springs almost went under...There was no money to pay bills; new patients had to be turned away. In desperation, Morgan sought out...Carl Byoir...At a brainstorming session, Byoir suggested a nationwide party to celebrate Roosevelt's birthday..." Morgan organized the Birthday Ball program from 1934 to 1945, every year of its existence. He also served as treasurer of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and was a co-founder of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis with FDR and Basil O'Connor. He was also famous for putting together the insurance package on FDR's life. The foundation collected $560,000 from this policy in 1945. Later he volunteered his time as a member of the Foundation Board of Trustees serving on the board from 1933 to 1970. Morgan built the house around 1934 and used it as a place to entertain fundraising prospects. The Foundation had given the land and $700 in lumber from the old Meriwether Inn to him for his service to the organization. Only a year later, however, the Foundation bought the house for $13,909. The Foundation minutes suggest that the purchase was made to eliminate some type of conflict of interest.
CARPENTER COTTAGE Arthur Carpenter built this cottage for himself and his family in 1933 or 1934. A graduate of Cornell, Carpenter was working as advertising manager of Parents Magazine when he contracted polio. He came to the Foundation for treatment in 1928. He stayed in Warm Springs to become business manager of the Foundation and later resident trustee. As manager, he took care of the day to day, non-patient care activities of the foundation, such as running the hotel, renting houses and taking care of the grounds. His publishing experience undoubtedly helped make the "Polio Chronicle" the slick, professional publication that it was. He served as its editor, at least for a time.

Carpenter was a close friend of Keith Morgan and invited him to visit Warm Springs. Morgan became the chief fundraiser for the Foundation and a trustee.
Carpenter resigned as resident trustee and trustee as of July 1, 1935. The trustees hired him for five months after this to study the formation of a
national committee to maintain interest in the Foundation. (Could this have been part of the decision to form the National Foundation/March of Dimes?). His salary for this work was $1,250 per month. Carpenter eventually settled in Norris, Tennessee. His son Robert became an official of Cotton States Insurance Company and served on the Roosevelt Warm Springs Foundation board of trustees. (The Georgia Warm Springs Foundation changed its name to the Roosevelt Warm Springs Foundation after it sold the hospital to the state of Georgia in 1974.)
WILSON COTTAGE Alva Wilson, a Foundation patient from the Boston area, built this house in 1933. Wilson contracted polio in 1924 after his junior year at Dartmouth College. He received massage and therapy at home for five years then came to Warm Springs for treatment starting around 1930. He said that three years of physiotherapy here was more beneficial than the therapy he had for the previous five years. It wasn't so much that the muscles came back, but that he learned to use the muscles he had to better effect. He began working as an accountant for the Foundation in September 1931 and also became assistant auditor. At some point he became responsible for the payroll. His wife Maude worked for the Foundation as a physical therapist. They left the foundation in late 1936 so that he could take a job in Atlanta. Wilson sold the house to the Foundation in 1945. The architect was Benjamin V. White of New York City.
DEWEY-JONES COTTAGE Cornelia Dewey was a patient from Minneapolis. This house was built in 1933 and may have been built for her by her father, Dr. Harry P. Dewey, a Congregational minister and pastor for seven years at the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, NY, and for 19 years at Plymouth Church in Minneapolis. This was the largest Congregational Church in the Northwest. He was an eloquent orator and a favorite speaker at colleges and universities. Cornelia was the fourth of five children. The Pierson/Veeder scrapbook describes Cornelia as a shy person who needed to "come out of herself." In the book Closest Companion, FDR's cousin Daisy Suckley describes a picnic at Dowdell's Knob on April 16, 1943 during which FDR asked Cornelia to sit beside him. She said Cornelia "was in seventh heaven." FDR had also mentioned her in his talk to patients after dinner in Georgia Hall the night before. He said he was going to stand by the door and shake hands with "Cornelia Dewey and all the gang...and that will do my heart good, too." In 1948, Cornelia married John Barrows, a teacher from Massachusetts who had worked in the Foundation school from 1938-1940. They settled in the Boston

area and Dewey sold this house to Anne Kinder Jones of Shaker Heights, Ohio (in 1948). Anne Kinder Jones was the daughter of Judge Walter T. Kinder. She graduated from Vassar College in 1944 and married Brooks M Jones, a lawyer in her father's firm. In 1946, at age 25, she contracted polio and was confined to a wheelchair. She divorced Jones two years later. She came to Warm Springs for treatment and was here while Congressman Ike Skelton was also a patient. On December 30, 1957, Anne married Cyrus Eaton. Congressman Skelton described him as one of the wealthiest men in America (steel, iron ore, coal, and railroad tycoon). Anne helped him with his world-famous conferences of the world's top scholars and scientists at his ancestral home in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. They became international peace activists and made many trips to Russia and other countries. She knew world leaders in government, science and industry, including Nikita Khrushchev. At the time of her marriage to Eaton, she had a thirteen-year-old daughter, Alice, known as "Lissy." The Foundation bought this cottage from Jones in 1952. Anne died in Key Largo, Florida on January 21, 1992 at age 69 from complications of polio.
LATHAM COTTAGE J. Frank and Emma Latham of Buckhannon, West Virginia built this house in 1939. Mrs. Latham was a patient. Mr. Latham was vice president of the Central National Bank of Buckhannon and owner of a hardware store. Blanche M. Harrison of Clarksburg, West Virginia, their daughter, sold the house to the Foundation in 1960 for $12,500
ORTH COTTAGE Edward Orth and Elizabeth Freeman Orth of Weekapaugh, RI bought this property in 1930. This cottage was completed in 1932. Mr. Orth was a patient of the Foundation but it appears that he died before the house was finished. Mrs. Orth had him buried in the yard, but the Foundation asked her to move the body. Mrs. Orth removed her husband's body from the lot to a grave site in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1934. The Foundation bought the house in 1948 for $15,000.
SARA ROOSEVELT COTTAGE This house was designed wholly by FDR and was completed in 1928. He often boasted that he had been its architect "with no help." It resembled the servant cottages located near the Meriwether Inn. Sara Delano Roosevelt, FDR's mother, built it as a contribution to the Foundation. It was used mainly as staff and patient housing. We don't know for sure if she ever stayed in it. We do know from a letter that FDR planned to show her the house in early May 1928 even though he feared that it would not be completed until the end of the month.

FDR donated the house to the Foundation after his mother's death in 1941. A fire on March 2, 1947 nearly destroyed the house. It caused $8600 in damage.
The house had been built for $3,550. Insurance paid for the repairs.
PATTISON COTTAGE This house was built by Lee and Gladys Pattison in 1928. Mrs. Pattison was a patient. She was the former Gladys M. E. Cousins of Chapel Allerton, Leeds, England. Mrs. Pattison gave painting and handicraft lessons and served as a hostess of social events. Mr. Pattison was a concert pianist and a native of Grand Rapids, Wisconsin. He was an alumnus of the New England Conservatory of Music, graduating in 1910 with honors. He played in symphony orchestras of Paris, New York, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Los Angeles, etc. He was also a member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music from 1914-1918 In World War I, he enlisted in the 303rd Infantry, U. S. Army and served in Paris. He was the band leader of the District of Paris from November, 1918 until July 1919. After the Armistice, Pattison and Guy Maier gave a recital in Paris which was attended by both Woodrow Wilson and Clemenceau. From 1916 until 1931, Pattison generally performed piano four-hands with Guy Maier. They gave concerts across the country and in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. They held the title of the world's best two-piano team. On Dec. 8, 1933, they participated in a benefit concert for Warm Springs at Carnegie Hall. The concert, which included several other popular performers of the day, raised $20,000. Eleanor Roosevelt attended along with many other members of New York society. Pattison also gave many concerts for the patients at Warm Springs. He would do a lot of his composing here during the summers. Pattison served as regional director of the WPA music project in New York City in 1936 and 1937. He resigned from the WPA to become director of the Metropolitan Opera Spring season. In 1941, he joined the faculty of Scripps College, in Claremont, California. He retired from there in 1962. The courtyard of the school's performing arts center is named in his honor. The library has a large collection of his papers. He died in 1966. Their daughter Patricia, 4, died in Warm Springs. She was the first person buried in the Foundation Cemetery. The Foundation bought the house in 1939 for $4000.
MACARTHUR COTTAGE G.E. and Carolyn MacArthur of Rochester, New York built this house in 1932. George E. MacArthur was a patient. According to the Polio Chronicle, his nickname was "Uncle Mac," and he served as master of ceremonies at the 1933 Christmas Party. The cottage was later owned by patient Beatrice Warbasse, also of Rochester, New York. She was Carolyn MacArthur's niece. While in Warm Springs, Warbasse served as Foundation Librarian.

The Foundation bought the property in 1965 for $12,000.
DENKINGER COTTAGE Marshall and Frances Denkinger of Brookline, MA built this house in 1933. Frances Denkinger, the former Frances Esty, was an early patient of the Foundation. The two were married in 1933. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Carpenter organized a moonlight swimming party reception for the newlyweds at the pool. Marshall Denkinger, a graduate of MIT, worked in the construction business in Brookline and New York City. According to the July 1933 Polio Chronicle, Denkinger had just completed arrangements to purchase the Warm Springs Construction Company, a subsidiary of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation.. Perhaps purchase is the wrong word. We have a document that suggests the purchase price was $1. This is one of the five houses on the grounds still privately owned.
PEABODY COTTAGE George Foster Peabody and his adopted daughter Marjorie Waite built this house as a winter home in 1934. He died here in 1938. Waite continued to use the house until her death in 1944. Their main residence was Yaddo outside Saratoga Springs, New York. Yaddo is famous today as an artist colony. They named the house "Pine Glade." The color of the house was controversial at first. The original color was brown, and this upset some people who thought that all the houses at the Foundation should be white. We don't know when it was first repainted. It is interesting to note that at one time there was a push to make Warm Springs "The Little White City" to compliment the Foundation and the Little White House. Peabody is one of the most important persons in the history of Warm Springs. At the time of his death, a Foundation newsletter called him "the father of Warm Springs" because of his role in rescuing the resort and inviting FDR to try the water. Peabody was a member of the Foundation Board of Trustees from the beginning. Peabody was born in Columbus in 1852. He moved with his family to Brooklyn when he was around 13 years old. There is a historical marker on the site of his boyhood home, located at the corner of 2nd avenue and 15th street. Peabody had little formal education, but he took advantage of libraries and read widely. He became a millionaire as an investment banker. In 1906, at the age of 54, he retired from business and devoted himself to his philanthropic work. He became the controlling partner at Warm Springs in 1923. Tom Loyless, the former controlling partner, sought Peabody out to help rescue the resort. Peabody knew FDR from Democratic politics, and he enticed him to visit Warm Springs with the story of Louis Joseph, a polio survivor who by regular swimming here was able to give up his braces. FDR visited here in 1924 and 1925 and bought the resort in 1926. Peabody was also actively involved in the fundraising for the Columbus Colonnade that was completed in 1934.

Marjorie Waite, her sister Elizabeth Ames and long-time servant Allena Pardee were at Peabody's side when he died here in 1938. His body was taken immediately to Jacksonville, Florida. A simple Episcopal service was held for him in a chapel there. His body was cremated, and the ashes were buried at Yaddo. A memorial service for Peabody was held at Warm Springs on March 11, 1938. The Fort Valley Singers performed a series of spirituals. Rev. H. A. Hunt of the Fort Valley School (a predecessor of Fort Valley State) read the scripture passage from Isaiah 61. The speakers were: Arthur Howe, President of Hampton Institute (now Hampton University); Roland B. Daniel, retired superintendent of the Columbus Public Schools; and Harmon W. Caldwell, president of the University of Georgia.
FDR was not able to attend the memorial service at Warm Springs, but he praised Peabody on April 1, 1939 on the reception of a plaque in his honor at Warm Springs. He said "...all through his life, just as much in his later years as in his early years, he was trying to do good for mankind, not just here at the Foundation but in many other places, such as Saratoga and New York City, trying to do good for human beings, men and women of every color, race and creed. These things will be remembered, not today, but through all the years to come."
A memorial service was also held at Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn on April 24, 1938.
George Foster Peabody's activities cannot be easily summarized. Here are just a few of his accomplishments: 1. He served as treasurer of the Democratic National Committee in 1904. 2. Appointed by President Wilson, he served as a director and vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1914 to 1922. 3. He served for 10 years as secretary of the General Education Board, an organization chartered by congress and funded by J. D. Rockefeller to support education. He also served as secretary of the Southern Education Board. 4. Peabody donated more than $250,000 to the University of Georgia. He is responsible for a new library in 1905 and the establishment of the school of forestry. (The library he built now holds the University of Georgia Museum of Art.) The Georgia General Assembly passed a special law in 1906 so that he, a non-resident, could serve on the University Board of Trustees. 5. The Peabody Awards for broadcast excellence are named for him. 6. He donated $50,000 to the City of Columbus for construction of a YMCA downtown. This building, dedicated in 1903, is still part of the downtown Y complex. He also donated funds for an African-American YMCA there that opened around 1909. 7. One of the most interesting aspects of Peabody's life is his association with the preservation and development of the Saratoga Springs spa. Like Warm Springs, Saratoga has a long history as a health resort. In the early 1900s, carbon dioxide gas wells in the area were lowering the water table. People believed that the springs would be affected. In 1908, the New York Legislature passed laws restricting the wells. The following year it

established the Saratoga Springs Commission to care for the springs and guide the development of the area. Peabody served as chairman of the commission from 1910 to 1915. Under his leadership, the commission studied the carbon dioxide issue and all aspects of the springs, and its report influenced the state to buy the land in 1912 and cap the wells. The water table returned to normal and the springs continued to flow. 8. In 1924, Peabody again became involved with the springs at the request of Governor Al Smith. Peabody engaged Dr. Paul Haertl of Bad Kissengen, Germany to study the springs and make recommendations for further development. Dr. Haertl would later serve on the medical advisory committee of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. 9. One of the first things that FDR did as Governor of New York was to appoint Peabody to another commission to plan more development of Saratoga Springs along the lines of the great European Spas. These plans became reality during FDR's first term in the White House. At that time, the State of New York utilized a federal loan program to construct new facilities at the springs. These buildings include the Roosevelt Spas which are still in use today. FDR dedicated these buildings in 1935. 10. Louis Howe, FDR's political advisor was also intimately associated with the Saratoga Springs Spa. In 1910 Howe and his wife made a fact-finding trip to four great spas in Europe. His impressions of each spa were published in the Saratoga Sun. Howe's final report also contributed to New York's decision to buy the springs property and make it a state park. Mrs. Waite's heirs sold the house in 1945, and it passed through several owners before the Foundation bought it in 1956 for $14,500. Peabody College in Nashville is not named for the same Peabody although Peabody College did provide many of the early therapists at Warm Springs.
M.K. MOORE COTTAGE Mr. M.K. Moore bought this corner property in 1938. The house was probably built about that time. It was designed by Henry Toombs. The Foundation bought the house in 1942 for $15,314.00. Moore's son George was a patient of the foundation and lived on the grounds for about 10 years with his mother Elizabeth. The Moores were from Cleveland, Ohio. Acme Photo Service made an image of George and two other young foundation patients (John Steinhauer and James Stubbs) holding puppies. That photo was published in Literary Digest just before the first Birthday Balls in 1934. The same three patients recreated the photo in 2001 with adult dogs during a reunion for former patients. Both photos are featured in Georgia Hall. George's mother, Elizabeth, was chairman of the New Projects Group according to the Polio Chronicle for April 1932. The group raised money to remodel a "large cottage into an Infirmary annex...which will give the Foundation adequate facilities for new patients who need temporary hospitalization, until they are ready for the regular regime with which all Warm Springs alumni are familiar." George, now a retired teacher from Davis, California, remembers impersonating FDR, cigarette holder and all, in a variety show (probably in the Playhouse). He

didn't know it then, but FDR was in the audience and later complimented him on his performance. Moore says, "He (FDR) inspired us by having done what he did, by the example he set for all of us. There was a spirit that imbued the place, simply because of his own example and spirit." One of the finest homes on the grounds, this house is known as the medical director's residence.
M.L. CURTIS COTTAGE The namesake of this house is Mary L. Curtis of Columbus. She is probably a descendent of N. Walter Curtis, who purchased the lot from Charles Davis in 1897. We don't know when the house was built, but it does appear on the 1909 map of Warm Springs. M. L. Curtis sold the house in 1946 to Kenneth S. Keyes and Roberta R. Keyes of Miami, Florida. Kenneth Keyes, Jr. was born in Atlanta on January 19, 1921 to an affluent family. In 1925 they moved to Miami Beach, Florida because Ken suffered from severe bronchitis. His father, Kenneth S. Keyes, Sr. became an important real estate developer in Miami. He was also involved in the conservative evangelical wing of the Presbyterian Church. Ken entered Duke in 1938 and spent two years there. He then studied voice and music at the University of Miami. In 1941, he enlisted in a naval intelligence unit set up to censor cablegrams entering and leaving the United States. In December 1941, a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he married Roberta Rymer. After the war, he entered the real estate business with his father. Ken and Roberta had two children. Ken, III was born in 1942. Clara Lu (Hardin) was born in 1944. Ken and Roberta divorced in 1959. Ken would marry 3 more times before his death in 1995. In February 1946, at age 25, he contracted polio and the residual paralysis was so severe that he was unable to turn himself over in bed. He was admitted to Warm Springs and after a year in the hospital, he and his wife bought the M. L. Curtis Cottage where they lived for three more years while he continued to receive therapy. During this time he invented an electric bed which, at the touch of a button, could turn him on his stomach, put him in a sitting or reclining position, and even cool or warm him! (Story in Popular Mechanics, April, 1954.) He learned to fly his own airplane by rigging special controls. Ken also invented a motorized wheelchair that moved forward, backward, or sideways. He then started a wheelchair manufacturing company hoping to employ polio survivors. Although the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and the National Foundation sympathized with his goals, they did not support Keyes' effort. The company quickly folded. The Keyes moved away from the Foundation shortly thereafter. The Foundation acquired this property from them in 1949 for $12,000.

Keyes returned to South Miami, Florida and resumed his real estate career and also became the general manager of a radio station. He earned his B.A. in psychology from the University of Miami.
Ken went on to become a personal growth author, lecturer, and peace advocate. He authored fifteen books including How to Develop Your Thinking Ability (rereleased as Taming Your Mind); Discovering The Secrets of Happiness: My Intimate Story; How to Live Longer-Stronger-Slimmer (later re-titled Loving Your Body); Looking Forward; Handbook to Higher Consciousness; The Hundredth Monkey (a call for nuclear disarmament); and Your Road Map to Lifelong Happiness. His books sold more than four million copies overall.
In 1968, he established a national commercial real estate sales operation. During the first year, revenues totaled $25 million.
In 1968, Keyes became involved in the Humanistic Psychology Association and came to believe that it is the mind's reaction to external circumstances, rather that the circumstances themselves, that creates unhappiness. He came to think of polio as a gift that life had offered him and that it had enriched his life.
In 1972, he outfitted a bus to live in, disposed of most of his possessions, including his yacht, and began traveling west. He began holding sessions promoting his "Twelve Pathways" and his "Living Love" methods of personal growth. He settled in Berkeley, California in 1973 and established the Living Love Center there. It was also known as the Clear Mind Training Center.
Ken was one of the leading representatives of the New Age movement. His center offered workshops on magic, "rebirthing," group meditation, acupuncture, shiatsu, and iridology. They believed that each person in an infinitely powerful being.
In 1977, his organization bought a 150-acre property in St. Mary, Kentucky, and named it "Cornucopia."
In 1978, he left Cornucopia and moved to Santa Cruz, California for three years. In 1982, he and the Cornucopia organization relocated to Coos Bay, Oregon
because they thought it was the place least likely to be attacked in a nuclear war. They opened a formal training school, called the Ken Keyes College, for teaching the Living Love method. The school eventually closed and Ken died of kidney failure in 1995. He claimed that he spent almost all of his later life in a state of nearly constant happiness. At the time of Ken's death, his son, Ken III, lived in Miami. His daughter Clara Hardin lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Much of this information is taken from a Wikipedia article.)
W.S. MOORE COTTAGE This old cottage appears on the 1909 map of Warm Springs. The house is named for Mr. and Mrs. William S. Moore of New York City. They owned the house from 1930 to 1946. Their New York address at one time was 7 E. 96th Street. Mr. Moore was a patient. His wife, Edith Pulitzer Moore, was the daughter of newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer. We have a photograph of them standing on the steps of the house. (They were married just six weeks after her father's death

in 1911. She contested her father's will which gave her $750,000, but dropped the claim after her brothers promised her a yearly income of $50,000.) Edith Pulitzer Moore's mother was the former Kate Davis of Washington, D.C. She married Joseph Pulitzer in 1877. In The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony the author, June Hall McCash, says, "Not least among Pulitzer's assets among Jekyll Islanders, or at least in his initial acceptance in the club was his wife. In his rise to fame and fortune, Joseph Pulitzer had the good sense to take time to woo and wed a Washington belle by the name of Kate Davis, a distant relation of Confederate president Jefferson Davis...Kate was the daughter of a Georgetown judge, William Worthington Davis." Mr. Moore was the great-grandson of Clement Clarke Moore, the man who is credited with having written "Twas the Night Before Christmas." William Moore's income came from the management of family property in Manhattan. This large tract of land comprises the Chelsea district. The Moores spent much of their time in Europe. They also had a cottage at Bar Harbor, ME. In the early 1930s, the patients had a trophy called the W.S. Moore Cup. This trophy was awarded to the best bridge players. The winners' names were engraved on the cup. William and Edith had five sons. Two of them died in World War II. Army Private First Class William S. Moore died in France on November 11, 1944 at age 24. Marine Private First Class Richard W. Moore died on Okinawa on June 19, 1945 at age 23. Two other of their sons, David E. Moore and Flight Officer Adrian P. Moore also served during the war. W.S. Moore died in 1944. His wife, Edith died at age 88 in 1975. The Foundation acquired this property in 1946 for just $10. David E. Moore, their son, gave $5 million to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2006 to endow a professorship in politics, government and public affairs and a fellowship program in honor of his mother and his uncle, Joseph Pulitzer II, publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. David lives in Rye, New York. He is a former board member of Pulitzer, Inc. and is on the board of Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. He is also a member of the World Security Institute. Joseph Pulitzer (father of Edith) died on his boat at Charleston, South Carolina in October, 1911 on his way to his home on Jekyll Island.
DESPORTES COTTAGE The house is labeled "Wells" on the 1909 map of Warm Springs. The house was probably built By Mrs. Elizabeth C. Wells who acquired the property from Charles L. Davis in 1894. R.S. Desportes owned the house from 1929 to 1945. He sold this house to the Foundation in 1945 for $10. Desportes was treasurer of the Foundation Savings and Loan Company. William Hart, one time owner of the Pierson Cottage, was president. In the 1940's Desportes was running an automobile finance company under his name. A Richard Smallwood Desportes, Jr. was born in Ridgway, South Carolina in 1875. His father was Richard S. Desportes, Sr. (born Sept. 21, 1841 and died Jan.

23, 1898) who served in the Confederate Army throughout the war and later became a successful merchant in Columbia South Carolina. His mother was Harriet Susan Lowther from Lee County, Alabama. They were married on November 6, 1867. They had a son, William Lowther Desportes.
University of Virginia: Its History..., published in 1904 says, "Dr. William Lowther Desportes was born in Ridgeway, South Carolina the son of R. S. DesPortes and Susan Lowther. On his father's side he is descended from Huguenots who settled in South Carolina, and on his mother's side from the English settlement of Alabama. He received his early education in Barnwell's School of Columbia, South Carolina. He then went to the University of South Carolina, from which he graduated in 1890 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The same year he entered the Medical Department of the University of Virginia, where he spent two sessions, after which he went to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, from which he was graduated in 1894. In 1896 he settled as a physician in Columbus, Georgia where he has since practiced his profession. In 1897 he was appointed Local Surgeon of the Central of Georgia Railway and of the Southern Railway Company, both of which positions he still holds. He is a member of the Georgia Medical Association...In 1898 he married Virginia Margaret Johnston, of Columbus, Georgia and has two children, R. S. Desportes, Jr., and Calvin J. DesPortes. He is a Democrat in politics."
Richard Desportes III (probably the R.S. Desportes, Jr. mentioned above) was born on October 2, 1898. In November 11, 1921 he married Katherine Banks Videau Lowther. Their children were Susan (who died at birth), Caroline (who married Ryland Paul Bryant, Jr.) and Ann Frances. Richard died on September 28, 1982 and is buried in Linwood Cemetery in Columbus, Georgia.
Is it possible that the Desportes knew about Warm Springs because they knew the Spencers through the Southern Railway Company?