Dr. Albert Fleming's Amaryllis Garden brightened Folkston's day.

Photo shows the old Fleming Hospital, which was operated by Dr. Albert Fleming from the 1920s until 1944. At right, Dr. Fleming stands amid his Amaryllis Garden, a beautiful tradition in Folkston from 1932 until the 1950s.

He didn't look like he'd once run a copperhead steam engine into the heart of the Okefenokee. The frail man though, was commanding when he spoke. He was Doctor Albert Fleming. He was speaking to a crowd of his neighbors at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Folkston. It was July 4, 1930.

The nation was into its first half-year of the Great Depression. The stock market had crashed in October 1929. Greyhound Bus Lines began carrying its first passengers, and people in Charlton County were beginning to feel the economic pinch as the Roaring Twenties came to an end.

Speaking to the Folkston Chamber of Commerce was a young man from Orlando. He was R. W. Ragin, of the Amaryllis Growers Association. He was trying to interest Charlton residents in growing the Amaryllis, selling them the plants, with a promise to return the following year to buy the bulb harvest. A process that had done wonders for Holland's economy, with Tulip bulbs.

The Folkstonites listened intently. Three among them bought the Amaryllis plants, and looked forward to cash return for the harvest in 1931. Dr. Albert Fleming, George White, and Marshall Crews pulled out their money in exchange for the Amaryllis plants. The man never returned, but Dr. Fleming saw it as the beginning of an annual event of beauty when his half-acre of Amaryllis bloomed in the spring. Dr. Fleming lovingly tended his Amaryllis garden for years afterward.

That meeting on July 4, 1930 revealed just one more of Dr. Fleming's leadership qualities. Before moving to Folkston in 1919, the quiet, unassuming physician had been Chairman of the Ware County Commission, and had been urged to run for Ordinary (now Probate Judge). A plea Dr. Fleming declined.

Dr. Fleming, at that July 4, 1930 meeting had been in Folkston through the decade of the Roaring Twenties. The native of Cobb County, Georgia was born on November 15.  1866, one year after the end of the Civil War, and moved into Folkston in 1919. He was boarding at the Central House Hotel on Folkston's Main Street in 1920 when it was destroyed by fire. He escaped the fire with all his possessions.

Unsure of what he wanted to do with his life, he took a job right out of high school with the NC & St. L. Railroad. He became an engineer on a steam locomotive, running from Atlanta to Knoxville. Soon, after tiring of the railroad job, he enrolled in medical school at Atlanta Medical College, getting his degree in 1894, still not thirty years old.

As a physician, Dr. Fleming began working with the State of Georgia, treating prisoners. One of his jobs was tending a thousand state prisoners near Fargo, Georgia for four years at the turn of the century in 1900. The prisoners were under lease from the state to Baxter and Company, logging the Okefenokee Swamp. Doctor Fleming eventually wound up in Ware County working as a physician at a new prison there, but resigned in 1902 to enter private medical practice in Waycross.

It was in Waycross that the political career of Dr. Fleming began. An activist, he began to push for the creation of the Waycross Kings Daughters Hospital, where he served as the hospital's first Chairman of the Medical Board. Later in Waycross, he established the Mary Street Hospital and in 1914 was appointed by Georgia Governor Staton to the Georgia Board of Medical Examiners where he served two four-year terms.

In Folkston, Dr. Fleming blended his medical practice with his political drive. He bought the home built by Dr. J. A. Moore on Folkston's First Street and turned it into the Fleming Hospital, which he operated for 20 years.

Still in high gear from his political projects in Waycross, in Folkston he turned his attention to getting the Dixie Highway through Folkston, a project that took years to accomplish. He became Folkston's mayor, and headed up the Chamber of Commerce for nearly a decade.

Dr. Fleming often talked about first arriving in Folkston, and beginning practice in 1921. His first offices were upstairs in the Davis Building, which later housed the general store of L. E. Stokes and Son. Soon afterward he built an office on First Street, a home now occupied by Mrs. Dave Thrift.

In that Fleming Hospital, Dr. Fleming delivered babies, performed surgery, and treated the sick. Most often he would prescribe Calomel and Castor Oil, along with Mustard Plasters for chest colds. He closed his Fleming Hospital in 1944, when Dr. Walter McCoy bought and opened the Sawyer Hospital, which was closed when its owner, Dr. Jim Sawyer, entered the military in World War Two.

As Charlton County's Health Officer, Dr. Fleming worked tirelessly through an epidemic of Brill Fever in the town. Scores of mothers named their newborn boys for the genial doctor: Fleming Huling, Fleming Gibson, and Fleming Wilson, to name a few.

Dr. Fleming, on April 30, 1924, married the daughter of Folkston banker; William Mizell, Sr. Susie Mizell and Albert Fleming were married in the music room of the Mizell home on Palm Street in Folkston. Dr. Fleming had two children, a son and a daughter, by a previous marriage.

Witnesses still recall Dr. Fleming, in the 1950s, driving his big black Chrysler as if he was going to a fire. As he drove on First Street, his car jumped as it struck the pavement on Main Street. Locals learned to look both ways for Dr. Fleming when approaching that intersection. There was no traffic signal there during the "Fleming Years."
Older people still talk of how Dr. Fleming was sold on the healthy quality of waters from an artesian well east of Folkston: East Springs, now covered, in the dip on Kingsland Drive just west of Camp Pinckney Baptist Church. He would send his patients to the springs to get drinking water, which he thought would bring near-miracle cures.

Dr. Fleming retired in the late 1940s, spending his retirement traveling and reading. He had practiced medicine in Folkston for twenty-five years. He died at age 86, on July 7, 1953, twenty-three years after that Chamber of Commerce meeting on July 4, 1930 when he began his cherished Amaryllis garden on the north lawn of his Fleming Hospital. The Amaryllis garden gave Folkston a lift for years, from 1932 until the 1950s, as the colorful Amaryllis bloomed brightly in the spring. Charlton County owes much to Dr. Albert Fleming, his work as a physician, and his work to improve the quality of life for his neighbors in Charlton County.