A Special Gift: The Story of the Legacy of Emily Fisher Crum and Remer Hamilton Crum

In October 2000, Emily and Remer Crum announced that they planned to bequeath the sprawling 83-acre Century Center Office Park in Atlanta jointly to Mercer University and LaGrange College. The administrations of both schools were thrilled with such a remarkable gift and the future possibilities it presented to both schools. However, few people knew that the seeds of the gift were sown nearly 200 years earlier in a tiny northeast Georgia community and were nurtured through five generations of a very special family.A Special Gift takes the reader on a long, winding trip from a hardscrabble farm in the North Georgia mountains through wartime Hawaii to present-day Atlanta. Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century the book follows the lives and fortunes of the Hemphill, Ayers, Fisher and Crum families. From the unwavering loyalty of Nancy Hemphill and the irrepressible spirit of orphaned Bessie Ayers to the adventurous lives of Bessie and T. Orr Fisher and Emily and Remer Crum, this is a fascinating tale of everyday people who accomplished extraordinary things.