Georgia Liipfert Pepper was born in 1864 in Clarksville, Virginia. She was educated at Sunnyside College in Buffalo Springs, Virginia. She married Thomas R. Pepper in 1890 and moved to Winston-Salem.
Thomas R. Pepper worked for the wholesale firm of Vaughn and Pepper, located on the corner of Fourth and Liberty Streets. He also worked as a buyer for R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and opened Pepper’s Warehouse in 1918.
Pepper bought Vaughn’s interest in the Fourth and Liberty Street property in 1892. Mr. and Mrs. Pepper leased, rather than sold, this property to a variety of companies over the years. In 1924, Mr. and Mrs. Pepper put the land in a trust for their children and grandchildren.
The property has seen a variety of businesses over the years, such as a department store, a furniture store, a first-class hotel, multiple legal tenants, radio station WAIR, and a jewelry store, to name a few. But the Pepper name remains.
Mr. and Mrs. Pepper passed away in 1935.
Photo courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection.
