The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Anne Cox Chambers ‘made a big impact on Atlanta’
Cox Enterprises owner’s passions were journalism, philanthropy, politics.
As a philanthropist, Anne Cox Chambers forever enhanced Atlanta’s civic and cultural landscape. As a political activist and diplomat, her influence spanned the globe.
Yet Chambers, who died Friday at 100, was happiest in her gardens, visiting with family and friends or spending time with her beloved dogs.
“Aunt Anne was a wonderful, kind and elegant lady who cared deeply about her family, her company and her country,” said her nephew, Jim Kennedy, who served as Cox Enterprises chief executive officer from 1988 to 2008 and continues his leadership as chairman. “She took the responsibility of good fortune very seriously and gave back to the best of her ability to the many causes she cared about.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms shared messages of sympathy and tribute on Friday.
“Anne Cox Chambers’ contributions to the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia will be felt for generations to come,” Kemp said.
“She was generous to the community she loved, deeply cherished God’s gifts found in nature, and was a force to be reckoned with,” Bottoms said.
In a past interview, former Atlanta
Mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young said he’d admired Chambers for years. “She had a graceful demeanor,” he said, adding that while he rarely heard her speak above a whisper, “she could be very forceful about her opinions.”
Chambers and her sister, Barbara Cox, who died in May 2007, had owned privately held Cox Enterprises since 1974, when their brother, James M. Cox Jr., died and control of the family trust passed to them. Since then, the company has grown exponentially. Atlanta and the metro area holdings of Cox Enterprises, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, were special to her. Chambers served on the Cox board of directors and retained the title of chairman of Atlanta Newspapers.
“She was an inspiring and special woman in so many ways,” said her grandson Alex Taylor, president and CEO of Cox Enterprises. “She had an extraordinary life and made a big impact on Atlanta. We will all miss her very much.”
Chambers, born Dec. 1, 1919, died in Atlanta with family members at her side.
“We had her 100th birthday in her residence and celebrated Christmas together, and we were holding her hands when she died,” Taylor said.
Chambers’ parents were Margaretta Blair Cox and James M. Cox Sr., who in 1898 launched what was to become Cox Enterprises with his $26,000 purchase of the Dayton Evening News Publishing Co., now the Dayton Daily News. Chambers spent her childhood in Ohio and as a teenager attended boarding schools in Tucson, Arizona, and Farmington, Connecticut, before entering Finch College in New York City. While there, her mother urged her to take a train to Atlanta in 1939 for a star-studded movie premiere.
“Her father had come to Atlanta to finalize his purchase of the Atlanta paper,” Taylor said. “Her mother contacted her in New York to tell her she had to come down immediately for the premiere of ‘Gone With the Wind,’ which was the biggest event in the world at that time.”
In a 2004 interview, Chambers recalled the occasion: “Mayor (William B.) Hartsfield came in an open car with those beautiful people — coming up right in front of the Georgian Terrace. It was just thrilling.”
Political activism
Chambers shared her father’s interest in politics and became politically active herself in the 1960s when she met a state senator from Plains. By the time Jimmy Carter became governor in 1971, their friendship had blossomed. Because the Governor’s Mansion in Buckhead had no swimming pool at the time, Carter would take his daughter, Amy, across the street to splash in the one at Chambers’ home.
“Rosalynn joins me in sharing our condolences to the extended family and friends of Anne Cox Chambers,” Carter said in a statement on Friday. “Ambassador Chambers was an important part of our lives for over six decades. Her life serves as a path for fairness and equality for everyone and especially for women and girls. Atlanta, our state of Georgia and the world have lost a wonderful woman, business leader and philanthropist. Rosalynn and I are grateful to have been among those whose lives were so richly touched by her.”
At age 84, Chambers walked the streets of her hometown of Dayton,
Ohio, on behalf of presidential candidate John Kerry. At 89, she knocked on doors and passed out flyers in a number of states on behalf of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Her support of Democrats never influenced news coverage, and it was not blind. “She was in a rage with (President) Clinton,” the late Rev. Austin Ford, a longtime friend, said in a past interview. “She said that people who have to raise children and grandchildren can’t put up with public officials who lie.”
Things worked out, apparently. In 1994, Clinton appointed her to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Political independent Mary Norwood, a former Atlanta City Council member and mayoral candidate now serving as president of the Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods, called Chambers an inspiration.
“She was an influential businesswoman, dedicated public servant and legendary philanthropist,” Norwood said Friday. “She was the epitome of grace and charm, and we will all miss her.”
Former Gov. Roy Barnes delighted in Chambers’ quick wit. He and then-first lady Marie Barnes invited her to a production of “Swamp Gravy” in tiny Colquitt, seat of Miller County in southwest Georgia. There, Gov. Barnes introduced Chambers to Terry Toole of the local newspaper, the Miller County Liberal.
“Terry was taking up tickets at the old tobacco warehouse, which acted as the theater for ‘Swamp Gravy,’” Barnes said Friday. “I said, ‘Anne, I want you to meet Terry Toole, the editor, publisher, reporter and deliveryman for the Miller County Liberal.’ Anne never missed a beat and said, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Toole. I see we are in the same business.’ Everybody laughed, and we had a great night. That was Anne. I will miss her greatly.”
A natural diplomat
After Carter was elected president in 1976, Chambers was named ambassador to Belgium. She read voraciously and polished her French to prepare for the posting, a seminal event in her life. Belgium’s King Baudouin I presented her with the Order of the Crown, one of the nation’s highest honors.
“She will be remembered and appreciated for having contributed to the strong relations between the United States, Georgia and Belgium,” William De Baets, consul general of Belgium, said Friday.
As her ambassadorial assignment drew to a close in 1981, she purchased Le Petit Fontanille, a home in the south of France first recorded to an owner in 1350. She spent many happy hours on the estate’s grounds and grew lavender and olives, which are harvested by raking them from the trees.
“On any given fall day, you’d find her out with a hand rake, up on a ladder,” Taylor said. “One time we were walking around in her olive garden. I said, ‘Can you just eat it straight from the tree?’
And she said, ‘Sure.’ I bit into it, and it was the most rancid thing. I looked at her, and she just giggled. She loved joking around.”
Avid philanthropist
Chambers supported institutions including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the Atlanta Speech School and the High Museum of Art.
“Her leadership made it possible for countless Atlantans and others from around the world to view the highest examples of artistic achievement,” High Museum Director Randall Suffolk said Friday. “Through our exhibitions, programs and outreach, we will continue to honor her legacy as a woman of great strength and kindness.”
Chambers’ support aided the High’s design expansion by Italian architect Renzo Piano. A gallery building that opened in November 2005 is named for her. From October 2008 through September 2009, the High exhibited a number of important works from the Louvre Museum in Paris, owing largely to Chambers’ patronage.
“She was very proud of the French-Atlanta partnership,” Taylor said.
Her devotion to the Atlanta Humane Society is reflected in the annual Anne Cox Chambers Humane Heroine award and its Alpharetta adoption center, which is named for her.
“Mrs. Chambers’ compassion, generosity and commitment to our communities was exemplary and truly remarkable,” said Cal
Morgan, president and CEO of the Atlanta Humane Society.
This year’s recipient of the Anne Cox Chambers award, Pamela Isdell, will be honored at an April 26 fundraiser. Past honorees are Ginny Millner, Cindy Voyles, Jenny Pruitt and Kay Quigley.
“To know that the first honoree was Anne Cox Chambers, I’m traveling in good company,” said Pruitt, the 2018 recipient.
Chambers’ support of the arts took on a creative, pioneering bent at times. In the 1960s, a number of Peachtree Street homes were razed to make way for the new Woodruff Arts Center. Gone, too, was the coach house where the museum’s Women’s Auxiliary ran a gift shop and tearoom. Chambers was one of 12 volunteers keen on finding a new location. They were dubbed “The Dirty Dozen” for their bold action, although the late Atlanta society writer Yolande Gwin deemed “such chic, smart and prominent women” would be known as the “Darling Dozen.”
The Dozen chartered the Forward Arts Foundation on Sept. 21, 1965, and the Swan Coach House, the renovated carriage house once part of the Edward Inman estate, opened in 1967. The restaurant, gift shop and gallery are near the Inman home, known as the Swan House, part of the Atlanta History Center’s campus.
The Forward Arts Foundation — which benefits the High Museum of Art, the Atlanta History Center, the Michael C. Carlos Museum and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center — honored Chambers at its annual luncheon in 2013. Its 1965 articles of incorporation listed, along with Chambers, the members to be named as lifetime trustees: Louise Richardson Allen, Elkin Goddard Alston, Frances McDonald Carmichael, Frances Floyd Cocke, Virginia Campbell Courts, Sylvia Montag Ferst, Isabelle Woolford Kennedy, Nora Clancy Maddox, Sara Giles Moore, Catherine Smith Nunnally and Josephine Crawford Robinson. Chambers was the last surviving founding member.
Chambers also was a decadeslong supporter of Communities in Schools. “Anne Cox Chambers has been with us since Day One,” said program co-founder Neil Shorthouse. “We wouldn’t be here without her.”
In 2014, she was honored by the Atlanta Botanical Garden at its annual Garden of Eden Ball. A lifetime trustee, Chambers had supported the garden since its founding in 1976. Before the 2014 gala, Chambers visited the property and wanted to see it all.
“She walked every square inch of the garden,” Atlanta Botanical Garden President and CEO Mary Pat Matheson recalled in a past interview. “We kept offering her a ride in the cart, and she walked.”
In 1993, Francois Mitterrand, then the president of France, named Chambers a member of the French Legion d’Honneur (Legion of Honor).
Chambers established two Atlanta business firsts. In 1973, she was the city’s first female bank director, joining the board of Fulton National Bank, later renamed Bank South. Three years later, she became the first woman to serve as a director of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, now the Metro Atlanta Chamber. She was also a director of the Coca-Cola Co.
“Her father had big ideas for changing the world,” Taylor said. “She wasn’t a politician, but she carried those same ideas about making the world a better place.”
Chambers is survived by her children Margaretta Johnson Taylor, Katharine Johnson Rayner and James Cox Chambers; grandchildren; great-grandchildren; and a host of loving relatives and friends.