Built on a Rock: A Memoir of Faith, Family and Place

Jerry Neal's parents met as teenagers on a big flat rock by a rutted, red-dirt road in Randolph County, N.C. Both lived on small Depression-era farms, and the rock became their refuge, a symbol of their bond. After they married and built their own small home nearby, the rock became a flagstone of their memories.

Neal grew up in a closely-knit extended family, his values instilled by their Quaker faith, hard work and commitment to the land on which they had lived for generations. Those values guided him to success in business-and to a dream of his own. In 2001, on land at the spot where his parents met, he and his wife, Linda, began construction of Linbrook Hall, a Greek-Classical Revival mansion that is to be a center of giving, a place for important conferences and charitable events. Completed in 2004, its first event in November raised more than $50,000 for Victory Junction Gang Camp for chronically ill children.

Jerry Neal's parents didn't live to see Linbrook Hall. But the rock on which they met now stands in its garden, a monument to family, faith, and place.