The original Whitfield Memorial Methodist Church . . . at 2000 Woodley Road, now a Christian Science Church. It was built in the early 1950s, but less than a decade later Whitfield decided its site was too small and too close to First Methodist, so it relocated out onto Fisk Road, where many of us “SE Midtowners” vote. The real name of the church is “Willie V. Whitfield Memorial United Methodist”, named in honor of the wife of Louis Whitfield of pickle and syrup fame. My wife’s grandfather headed up Whitfield pickle operations in Texas. Willie Vandiver Whitfield is credited with persuading her husband to change the name of his Georgia-Alabama Syrup Company, located in North Montgomery, to Alaga Syrup. Louis and Willie built and lived in the grand mansion on South Perry that gambling mogul Milton McGregor now calls home. I’m surmising that Louis Whitfield Jr was instrumental in the formation of Whitfield Church, that he gave to it the triangular city block bounded by Woodley, Narrow Lane and Glen Grattan, and the church was thereupon named in honor of his mother. Louis Jr lived right around the corner on Allendale Road.

-Charles Humphries