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The Death of a Young Boy Brings Trials and Tribulations To Chalybeate Springs, Georgia & The Rock House !!
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Chalybeat Springs, in Meriwether County, cira: 1831; was a thriving Spa Community from 1870 to 1924. It's Iron and Mineral tanted waters in which to bath, the Grant House with it's 500 rooms and cabins, lake, skating deck and band pavilion with dance floor, extensive swimming pools, and it's late night carrage rides on Pine Mountain; made this a grand vacation spot for the wealthy and the romantic.The town was doing so well that it incoporated in 1908. The surounding area was made up of farms and ranches and a lot of locals made their income supplying goods and services for the Spa and Hotel. People came from all over to partake the beauty and the activies provided by the area around the Spa and Pine Mountain Ridge. As times do change, so did Chalybeat Springs. The use of spa's died out as a popular thing to do (1924), the iron ore mine in the mountain was not productive enough to continue to mine; so Chalybeat Springs begain to fade back in time to a beautiful farm community, that it is today.
The Callaway family built a textile mill on the west side of the City of Chalybeat Springs in 1908 and the Rail Road made inprovements and put a crossroads of tracks running east and west, north and south; Depot, Shop and warehouses. This brought People, Housing and Busnesses with it and the booming City of Manchester, Ga. formed in 1910. Chalybeat Springs Community still exist around its beautiful lake. Gone is the Grant House, the pools and spa's, the city blocks have fewer houses but yet it is still thriving, with friendly loving families and churches as a suburb of the City of Manchester. p>Now you know where this true story takes place, but before I start with the story I need to give you information on the people involved in this true but sad story.
James Christian Kendrick== born 1903, lived on a farm near Chalybeat Springs, off what is now Kendrick Road in Talbot County, just east of the Spa area toward Pleasant Vally off (old Ga. Hwy 190). As the Spa was slowing down James some how meet the Dannenberg Family that owned a large Department Store in downtown Macon, Ga. James was offered a job as a chauffeur in New York City by Walter Dannenberg, for his brother Simon who was a buyer for the Department Store. James Kendrick moved to New York City (Queens) in 1924. James was soon to find that Simon Dannenberg wasn't the only one he would be a chauffeur for!
Alice Josephine Siegert== was born in New York City in 1889. In 1900 she was sent to live at the Sheltering Arms Orphanage along with her older sister Josephine and a younger brother, William. Their mother died in the consumptive ward at St. Luke's Hospital in 1901. Their father had left and moved to New Jersey. Alice was released from the orphanage in 1904 and went to live with her sister, in Jamaica,( Long Island), New York. Family members report that Alice lived a troubled young life that led her into prostitution. A friend of hers named George Allen introduced her to a wealthy gentleman named Walter Dannenberg, a married man from Macon, Georgia; who made frequent business trips to New York. He owned a department store in Macon and eventully employed Alice as a buyer for his company. She was also his Mistress! Beginning in 1914, Walter and Alice made frequent trips to France together. He bought her nice homes, a car and provided her with a chauffeur ( You may have guessed it--James Kendrick). She worn fur coats and diamond rings, and owned many pieces of real estate throughout New York.( As told by some-- she owned a brothel and had ties with the gangsteer mob and racketeers!)
The Kindrick Children==In 1923 Alice Siegert answered an ad about adopting a child. Alice could not have children-as the story goes- because of a botched abortion in her youth. She took possession of this child, Edna a girl, (in 1923 )from Sheltering Arms Orpan's Home, but did not legally adopt her until 1930; after she got married. She married James Kendrick, (her chauffeur) from Manchester, Ga., in 1928. She keep Edna in a Catholic Girls School, while they lived in New York City.
Again, in 1929 Alice and James found another child to adopt. A Boy his birth name was Edward. It is not known if they ever legally adopted him but they did change his name to James Christian Kendrick Jr. His nick name was "Nookie" but Alice sometimes call him "Little". James and Alice built a log cabin at Greenwood Lake, in upstate New York, to serve as a vacation home for their family. They and the children went there often. Times were good for the Kendricks!
Sometimes in 1931, Alice and James moved from New York City to Manchester, Ga., but stilled maintained the residence in the Burrough of Queens at . They first lived in a small brick house on Broad Street in Manchester. While living there, 1934, Alice and James found another child (a girl) in New York to adopt. Her name was Bernice Ruby Hines, she was about 3 months old. They changed her name to Dorothy Denyse Kendrick but James and Alice never legally adopted Denyse.
Around this time the log home, in New York at the lake, burned down. Some in the family say Alice burned it for the insurance money but nothing was found to support that claim. Alice then purchased the lot next door to the brick cottage house and James built a white wood-framed house on the lot off Broad Street believed to be between and east of the block of 3rd and 4th street. They moved in to this home when it was completed.
Around, 1941-42, Alice and James bought the Rock House on Ga. Hwy190 in Chalybeate Springs, just a few miles east of Manchester. James added a boat house to the lower lake. This property was very close to the farm of his mother and father. James and the son "Nookie" often worked at the farm.The oldest daughter, Edna, was attending school at Brenau Academy; Nookie was sent to Georgia Millitary Academy, and Denyse attended school locally. Alice tried to adapt to the county life and living in rural Meriwether Couny.
Part II : The Death of Nookie Kendrick
