This Craftsman-style home was built, circa 1910, by a local bank president who soon thereafter sold it to a Mr. Lee, who was a member of the bank’s board. Robert E. Lee [no relation to the Confederate general I presume] seems to have been the primary owner at least through the 1940s. His wife operated a private kindergarten in the house for many years. It was likely a rental property for some time thereafter. In the mid-1970s, Steve & Joanie Young began a restoration of the house which is still evident today. My good friend, Blaine Bostelman lived in the house in the early 1990s and completed cosmetic restorations. I appreciate him sharing some of the history.
Frances Hiers (Coota) Whitworth shared this: My life long friends,”Brother” Massee, Edna Earl Steed, James Lineberger, Eleanor McClendon, Mary Ellen Newcomer and Jerry Heller went to Mrs. Lee’ s kindergarten! I have pictures of a rust color house with ‘ chillun posing on the front steps and also on the seesaw in the back yard. Also had a goldfish pond. Lyman Brewer tells the story that he got expelled from Mrs. Lee’s kindergarten the first day he went because he pushed a little girl in the goldfish pond!!! Our snack was graham crackers and orange Kool-Aid!! We played a lot OUTSIDE and colored inside! Learned to take turns and always do what Mrs. Lee said to do!!! I’m so thankful and blessed to have been brought up in Fitzgerald in the 1930s and 40s!! -“Coota” Hiers Whitworth. F.H.S class of 1947
South Main Street-South Lee Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 
Thanks I still have my diploma can’t hardly read it.
I was in Fitzgerald recently and noticed this home is for sale. I checked it out online and it’s beautiful inside and out! I hope someone with an eye for history buys and lovingly cares for it…hate it when historic homes are leveled and replaced with a new but “historically accurate” replacement.
For my birthday, my daughter gave me a book, Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. He goes all over the South checking out War of Northern Aggression history. There is a section on Fitzgerald and how the city tried to bring North and South together in the 1890’s. He cites the Lee Grant Hotel and a North South museum. He states the town solicited Yankees to come down and settle in Fitzgerald. Do you know any about this history and are there any of the buildings left.
Thanks
I love that book, Victory, and have a nice letter from Mr. Horwitz regarding his visit to Fitzgerald. As you may know, I’m from Fitzgerald myself, and I’m a member of the board of our Blue & Gray Museum. The Lee-Grant is sadly long gone, the result of a terrible decision that replaced it with a Piggly-Wiggly! But many of the early structures are still standing.
Thank you. I knew you were from Fitzgerald. As I have related before, my maternal grandfather was a Methodist minister and he moved every four years. I have often heard my mother and aunts talk about Fitzgerald.
Just beautiful. Thank you for all the wonderful information regarding the house. It is one thing to see a picture but it is so much more to have some information with it.
I remember the naps on the floormats and the saltine crackers and sitting in a ring next to Nancy Harp. Someone banging the piano. Hated kool-aid! I also liked Bill Daniel. The house was across, catty-corner, from my grandparents.
It had a fish pool in the back yard. I don’t know why kindergarteners didn’t fall or jump in. As you went out the back door a swing set stood on the right side. That’s where I met jim when I was not yet 3 and he was almost 5. I went with my neighbor Andrea Chalverus on take a friend day. Everybody there that day got measles so I remember for that reason but I also remember the boy with the cotton top hair.