Many times as you look at the stuff that makes a legend you find the apple did not fall far from the tree. This is the case with Juliette Gordon Low the founder of the Girl Scouts. To understand the woman Ms. Low was, one only has to look as far as her mother.

Eleanor Lytle "Nellie" Kinzie was born on June 18, 1835 in Chicago, Illinois. The Kinzies were one of the first families to reside on the area's frontiers. She would come to Savannah to live in December of 1857 when she married William Washington Gordon Jr. a native of Savannah. Gordon Jr. was the son of former mayor, West Point graduate, and founder of Savannah’s Railroad and Canal Company. There is a large monument to Gordon Sr. in Wright Square placed there by grateful railroad men.

While in Savannah she authored several books including "The Chicago Massacre", a book about the birthplace experiences of her father, a government agent who worked on the western frontier. She and William had six children; their most famous was Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the United Stated Girl Scouts in 1912.But her writing, painting, and piano skills, can be seen as an inspiration to Juliette Gordon low who explored her artistic side with blacksmithing, sculpting, and painting.

Nelly was known in Savannah for her charm, wit, and sharp tongue. She used all of these in her many efforts in Savannah and elsewhere. She showed her organizational genius during the Spanish-American War. When she saw the poor medical care her Brigadier General Husband’s troops received she stood in the gap and started a hospital.  Because of this she was acclaimed across the country as "the Angel of the Boys in Blue". Her efforts were heralded by the press across the country. All of this can be found in the journals she kept found today at the Georgia Historical Society. She would follow her husband and his brigade to Mobile, Alabama, then to Camp Miami, Florida, and finally to Puerto Rico. All the while working to afford the troops the best medical care possible.

These organizational skills could also be found in her daughter Juliette. In the summer of 1858. Nellie had earned her medical organizational skills while expecting her first child. Savannah faced a yellow fever epidemic. Nellie refused to leave as most of the elite did. Instead she remained behind with Willie, who for business reasons, was obliged to remain there. During this epidemic she gained valuable experience that would help her as she addressed the needs of Gordon Jr.s’ brigade.

 Nellie's son, Arthur, described his mother’s actions were "Like a flash." He added: "With her, action followed thought at once, and inevitably. Obstacles and difficulties merely stimulated her." She was always busy with bettering the worlds she found herself in. She was no wallflower. She would remain in Savannah during the civil War and help the blockaded suffering city. Some would even say her connections to several of the Union Officers from her Chicago connections would help deter Sherman from burning Savannah.

Her most consequential act was probably helping to preserve a little of Savannah’s soul. As previously mentioned Gordon SR. had a monument place in his honor in Wright Square. The problem with that was the grave of Tomochichi (a Native American) who some have called the co-founder of Savannah was in the center of the square. The monument to Gordon Sr. was placed on top of Tomochichi’s grave. Gordon Jr. and others in Savannah were in dismay over this sacrilegious act. Nellie who was the President of the Colonial Dames of Savannah at the time took action and organized a monument for Tomochichi. In keeping with the simple lifestyle of the Native Americans placed in the corner of the square is a huge granite boulder from Stone Mountain in honor of Tomochichi. This monument which could never make up for the dishonor done to Tomochichi’s grave at least salvaged some honor for the city of Savannah.

Nellie was also the host in November 1909 to the U.S. President William Howard Taft. During his political tour of the South he stayed with Nellie and Willie. As one sees the prolific tenacious organizer, artistic soul, active social conscience, and leader in the community of Nellie; we can hardly be surprised at the woman Juliette Gordon Low would become.
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Nellie died on February 22, 1917 at the age of 81. She is buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery in the Gordon family lot. Juliette Gordon Low is also buried there.
 

​ I remember the first time I saw Mayor Susan Weiner. It was the grand opening of the new Social Security Offices on the southside ofs Savannah. I was fairly new to Savannah as she was to her mayorship. She was giving a speech about the glories of Social Security. When a  squadron of fighter jets flew over drowning her out. She politely waited and after they had flown by she declared, ”That is the sound of freedom.”  Then she spent a few minutes expounding on the United States great military. Needless to say the boy fresh off the non-violent farm of Koinonia did not take a likening to this diatribe.

But for a brief moment she captured the hearts of a violent crime ridden city in need of a hero. She had come to Savannah via Broadway. Weiner once played 17 different women in a stage play that toured internationally and was written by her husband Al Weiner. She spent 15 years as an actress. The Savannah murder rate had reached until this moment unheard of new heights because of the infamous Ricky Jivins gang. Savannah’s Mayor John Rousakis, who was completing his fifth term of office, had been ineffectual in stopping the crime wave that had hit Savannah. The black community had been taken aback by his proclamation of I will bring tanks in to patrol neighborhoods. This and what many in the black community interpreted as tin ear to deaths in the black community had the black community ready for a new face. The economy was in a slump. And the people of Savannah were looking for a new face. Susan Weiner with her dramatic and different New York Broadway ways made her very appealing.

She had lived in the city only for seven years. But she had never before run for office but she had served as chairwoman of Savannah's Private Industry Council. This gave her key connections in the city. So she ran as a tough on crime Republican in 1991. She worked hard in the black community. The combination of fear, desire for a new face, and her outreach to the black community and she won. She became the first woman mayor and the second Jewish mayor and one of the few Republican mayors in modern history.

The Ricky Jivins and many in his gang did go to jail during her term. As did several on the dole police officers. The crises had been abated. It was at this time that her husband demonstrated his New York City brashness and left many a feather ruffled in the more gentile Savannah. Mayor Weiner was likable but was not proving very adept at the ongoing running of the city. She ran for a second term against Floyd Adams. The black community because their part in Mayor Weiner’s election realized their untapped power in the mayoral election. Floyd Adams would defeat Weiner to become the first black mayor of Savannah by fewer than 260 votes. The black community would have their choice of mayor for the next twenty years.

Susan Weiner was someone who did not let grass grow under her feet. In 1996, she helped U.S. Senator Paul Coverdell establish the Coverdell Leadership Institute, a training program designed to increase the number of Georgia Republicans in elected and appointed government positions.Over 300 people would complete the training.

In 2004, Gov. Sonny Perdue named her as the executive director of the Georgia Council for the Arts, a position that brought together her two careers together politics and the theater. She became an advocate for the arts in Georgia.
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She died in Gainesville, Georgia on August 11, 2012 at the age of 66. “If you knew her, you would remember her,” Linda Scher said of her sister. “She was just dynamic, remarkable, kind, bright, electric, dramatic and then quiet, sweet, sincere - a beautiful human being who died too young.” She was a shooting star in Savannah’s history who crossed Savannah’s path in a time when she was needed to create change.
 
 
 

​Pin Point is a small but vibrant community located a few miles south of Savannah. It was a place founded in 1896 by freed slaves after the American Civil War, They came from Ossabaw, Green, and Skidaway Islands. Oh the hopes, joy and dreams that must have been present at its beginning. They had nothing and yet they had one thing they had for so long prayed: freedom. Their sweat would now be for their families, fortune, and future. A church once named Hinder Me Not came to be founded in Pin Point. But they were freedmen now and the name did not seem appropriate anymore. So in 1897 they founded Sweetfield of Eden Baptist Church. The legendary Moon River runs by the community. The land is graced with beautiful oak trees and coastal marshes. Many a painter would ennoble their canvases of the lands found around the Sweetfields that grew the crops they ate. It was no longer a bitter land. It was a land that had the primal look of an Eden.
The church was used as the school. Where once in Savannah it was illegal to educate their ancestors and they had met in back room, they now taught their children in the open. In 1926, a Rosenwald School opened.These were schools Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist and president of Sears Roebuck built to improve the segregated school crumbs Jim Crow allowed. The Rosenwald were state-of-the art schools for African-American children across the South. The effort has been called the most important initiative to advance black education in the early 20th century. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was born and raised in Pin Point, would be one of the beneficiaries of this new school.
In 1925, a plot of land was purchased by the Brotherhood of Friendship Society to house a community center, named Pin Point Hall. Many residents still consider the center to be the glue that holds the community together. The Brotherhood itself continues to be an influential group in Pin Point. 
Because they knew labor and were proud to work and earn a fair wage, industry came to Pin Point. Coastal Industries such as shrimping, crabbing, and oyster harvesting came. Seafood factories opened with the most prominent being A. S. Varn and Sons which operated from 1926 to 1985. They were the perfectors of ‘making do’ with what they had. So life was filled with good things and they had the satisfaction of knowing how to be self-sufficient.
The community of African Americans brought with them the heritage of the Gullah/Geechee cultures. For over 100 years they were isolated in their own world. Today, they are bearing witness to a simpler time and a heritage of the Gullah/Geechee culture that many say is the closest unvarnished lineage of their African ancestors. The Pin Point Heritage Museum, located in the old A.S. Varn & Son Oyster and Crab Factory. Next to the church is the area’s original cemetery, housing the remains of Pin Point’s founding African American owners. The history found in this one small community is astounding.
The Pin Point community is still owned by the ancestors of the original purchasers, making it the largest area of waterfront owned by African Americans in Georgia. The stories in part can be found in the museum but the volumes that could be written of this community that did overcome would be endless. Pin Point, alive as it ever was, today stands as testament to a people who kept their hearts, heritage, and hearth close to their bosom.