When my great-great-grandfather Amos Giles Rhodes moved to Atlanta with less than $100 in his pocket, he had no idea the impact he would have on senior care that now spans 120 years. 

Originally from Henderson, Ky., Rhodes came to Atlanta in 1875 while laying crossties for the L&N Railroad — a post-Reconstruction time when Atlanta, a city of 20,000 people, was becoming the leading city of the “New South” and preparing to surpass Savannah as Georgia’s largest city. In 1879, he founded Rhodes Furniture, which paved the way for his success, prominence and generosity in the community.

Knowing he was a charitable man, officials from the hospital of the Atlanta Circle of the King’s Daughters and Sons, a philanthropic organization that cared for patients deemed to have “incurable diseases,” approached him and asked for money to repair the roof of its building at 42 Church Street — now Carnegie Way; the 1929 Rhodes-Haverty Building downtown, also named for him, would coincidentally be located around the corner — in Atlanta. 

Rhodes refused, stating that the building was in such disrepair that he wouldn’t sink a dollar into it — but instead, he donated land and money for a new building, which opened in 1904 at the corner of Boulevard and Woodward Avenue in Grant Park — the same year he built the historic Rhodes Hall, which we can still tour today.

Though it’s been through many changes, the home eventually became A.G. Rhodes, one of the state’s first nursing organizations and now one of Atlanta’s oldest nonprofit organizations. 

Today, A.G. Rhodes serves more than 1,100 seniors each year at its three locations throughout metro Atlanta, including its flagship location still located in Grant Park, its Cobb location that opened in Marietta in 1992, and its Wesley Woods location near Emory University that opened in…