‘She made Macon better.’ Juanita Jordan, real-estate and philanthropic pioneer, dies at 86
Juanita Tidwell Jordan, who was raised in the west Bibb County countryside and drove a school bus as young woman before co-founding a real-estate firm and later leading one of the region’s most prominent philanthropies, died Monday. She was 86.
A private funeral is planned but the service will be shared online via the Hart’s Mortuary website on Friday at 11 a.m.
Jordan was for years a fixture in the local home-selling and development market.
“Mom had a real entrepreneurial spirit,” her daughter, Karen J. Lambert, said. “She was not averse to risk taking. She was very much a get-it-done person. ... She was pretty tenacious. She wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer very well.”
Early career
Jordan, who grew up in Lizella, drove a daily bus route.
When a job came open as a part-time administrative assistant to newspaper publisher Peyton T. Anderson Jr. at The Telegraph and the Macon News, Jordan was reluctant to accept it.
“For several weeks,” Lambert said, “he tried to get her to come to work for him full time. She said, ‘I can’t give up my bus route.’”
When Anderson sold the newspapers in 1969, Jordan, who had by then become a trusted associate, followed him from her newspaper post to work as an assistant in his retirement, helping with Anderson’s business affairs.
“She was very eager to learn from him and he was really a great teacher as far as investing,” Lambert said.
In the 1970s, Jordan sold real estate and by then end of the decade had co-founded Hamlin-Jordan Realty.
Peyton Anderson Foundation
In 1989, the year after Anderson’s death, Jordan opened and became president of the Peyton Anderson Foundation, funded by Anderson’s estate to finance charitable ventures and to enhance life in the region.
“She always tried honor what he would want,” Lambert said. “(The foundation) has grown and made a huge impact in the community, and she honored his wishes. ... She made Macon better with her leadership and stewardship.”
Jordan spearheaded revitalization efforts in downtown as well as the creation of the popular Ocmulgee Heritage Trail and Amerson River Park.
Under her guidance, the Foundation became a champion of both civic and individual good deeds, and it played vital roles in the forming of NewTown Macon and the Community Foundation of Central Georgia.
“She realized that as downtown goes, Macon goes,” said Lambert, who followed in her mother’s footsteps as president and CEO of the Anderson Foundation.
‘She changed so many lives’
In an email on Tuesday to board members of NewTown, the organization’s president and CEO Josh Rogers wrote in remembrance of Jordan that “she once told me the hardest part of learning how to lead (the) Peyton Anderson Foundation was not how to give out money, it was how to make change happen.”
Rogers added: “She changed so many lives, institutions and communities through her leadership, not just philanthropy.”
Kirby Godsey, former president of Mercer University and a friend of Jordan’s, described her as a fearless high-achiever who set her sights on making Macon a better place.
Godsey said Jordan’s hand in starting NewTown and her influence on its trustees was profound, urging them “to think boldly.”
“She saw a downtown that was dead,” Godsey said. “She believed that the foundation could be a resource to help it regain life and energy.”
What’s more, he went on, Jordan exuded a presence that brought out the best in people who might doubt themselves.
“She could stare you down in silence,” Godsey said, “until your excuses melted away like an ice cube in the summer heat.”