The Glenns
Glenridge Hall holds many
ties with Atlanta history. TK’s sister Flora married Asa Candler’s
eldest son Charles Howard Candler, and they built the Tudor-style “Callanwolde”
(1920), now the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center of DeKalb County.
TK’s first wife Agnes (1882-1914), by whom TK
had two sons Wadley Raoul and Wilbur Fisk, was a daughter of Captain
William Greene Raoul who built the Mexican National and the
Southern railroads.
After thirteen years as
a widower, in 1927 TK married Elizabeth Ewing (1887-1970),
who among many other achievements organized and funded the building
a wing called “Memory Lane” onto the original High Museum
of Art (now Woodruff Arts Center).
In partnership with Ernest Woodruff, TK Glenn is best known as president
and chairman of the Trust Company of Georgia, today
Sun Trust Bank. The eldest son of a Methodist minister, TK
began his career as a clerk in Atlanta in 1887 and then became executive
secretary to Joel Hurt in developing the Atlanta Electric Streetcar
Company, today known as Georgia Power. TK
was also a driving force in founding and/or developing Atlantic Steel,
the Rabun-Gap-Nacoochee School, the Fulton-Dekalb Hospital Authority
(today Grady Hospital), and many other business and philanthropic interests
in the Southeast.
Dr. Wadley Glenn
(1905-1985), TK’s eldest son, lived in Glenridge Hall
from 1929 to 1951. As well as a surgeon, Dr. Glenn was also Medical
Director of Crawford Long Hospital for over forty years.
Glenn Memorial
Chapel on the Emory campus, as well as the “Glenn”
buildings at Grady Memorial Hospital, Crawford Long Hospital, and the
“Wilbur & Hilda Glenn” building at Children’s
Healthcare’s Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital all exemplify
a strong history of Glenn family philanthropy.
It was the intention of
Frances Glenn Mayson (1946-1987), TK’s only granddaughter,
that Glenridge be preserved in perpetuity and maintained as a “living”
home as closely as possible to its original appearance and natural park-like
setting. It was also her intent that Glenridge serve the Atlanta-Sandy
Springs community, especially by hosting civic and charity events. Frances
Glenn Mayson moved back into the Hall in 1980 to begin restoration,
but tragically died in childbirth in 1987, leaving her husband Joseph
Mayson to carry on her dream.