Created in 2007 from an unused bedroom, the office has become a place for recordkeeping, reading, collecting, and watching television.

A large partners desk anchors the space. Mary and I have shared the desk and have a “wall of fame.”

It’s apparent that we have collected family memorabilia throughout our lives. Liddell and Donley family objects are displayed or placed in archival storage. Some of the objects are over two hundred years old. Some are from the childhoods of Mary, our sons, and myself. The collection includes the original 1818 Gwinnett County land lot deed that my great-great-great-great grandfather, William Liddell, received as a perk of having served as a soldier in the American Revolutionary War. The wax seal of the State of Georgia that hung from the document is still on its cloth tape. Original tintype portraits of ancestors find safe storage in acid-free boxes.

I researched the genealogy of my mother’s family from an early age. When I started teaching at Duluth High School in 1976, I was lucky to have a gifted artist as a student in one of my English classes. Gregory Jarrell took my rough charts and created a large family tree that I have kept framed and displayed for over forty years. I made sure that each of my Liddell aunts and uncles received full scale copies of the family tree.

A weasel’s gear ratio is usually 40 to 1. The circumference of the reel is usually two yards. The weasel pops after 40 revolutions. An 80-yard skein is wound around the yarn winder.

The chest is a pioneer piece from the Liddell plantation in Gwinnett County. It may have been used on a horse or mule-drawn wagon for storage of valuables as the family traveled from the Carolinas into Georgia in the early 1800’s. It is constructed of hand-planed pine and has dovetailed joints, wooden hinges, and a hand-forged hasp and latch.

This working toy steam engine was purchased in Germany by William Donley Green while on a 2009 Stetson University Summer Study Abroad Program. It replicates an older version (missing parts) that was originally purchased for Michael Perry Green from Lenox Toys and Hobbies at Lenox Square in Atlanta, Georgia in the 1960’s.

The chair was probably part of a bedroom suite used in the 1840 Liddell house. It remained in use in the 1957 Liddell house. The chair was repaired, recaned and gently refinished in 1977. The original finish was not stripped.

The office holds artifacts from family history. Mary Donley Green and I have enjoyed preserving old and interesting objects from our families. Some of the pieces merit more detail, but that might best be done in future blog articles.

Michael Green

January 29, 2022