In case the name doesn't tell you, Morning Washburn is a flower child. She got back to the land as a 23-year-old in 1971 and never left.

Along her journey, she met a witty, leather-faced man named J.C. Hyde, who with his brother Buck taught the schoolteacher how to plant crops, tend trees, prune bushes and hear nature's message.

Andy Sharp/AJC (ENLARGE)

Morning Washburn has lived in a cabin on property adjacent to Hyde Farm since 1971.

Andy Sharp/AJC Staff (ENLARGE)

Washburn stands inside an old barn. 'I remember the day I saw this place and met the Hydes and it has been the blessing of my life,' she said.

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Washburn got it.

Until the brothers died, Washburn lived in a rustic cabin next door — as next-door as farm neighbors can be.

She remembers Buck and his biscuits — "better than his sisters made" — and J.C. for his fiddling and reading. Her eyes are glassy and she wears a serene smile as she sits on the low deck surrounding a hand-dug well and looks into the distance, thinking back over the decades.

"Oh, I remember the day I saw this place and met the Hydes and it has been the blessing of my life," she says wistfully.

The Hyde family had lived on the farm off Lower Roswell Road since 1874, when Buck's and J. C.'s grandfather sharecropped with the Power family. Their father bought it in 1920. Most of the original Power cabin stands — with an addition — and many of the outbuildings are original, although they've not been well tended since J.C. died in 2005.

On Friday, as politicians, conservationists and neighbors came to the 135-acre Hyde farm for speeches about preserving one of metro Atlanta's most desirable properties on the Chattahoochee River, Washburn hung on the edge, chatting with friends and shaking sleigh bells in approval of what was said.

"This place is going to look like this 50 years from now, 100 years from now," said Helen Tapp, the Georgia director for the Trust for Public Land, the nonprofit conservation agency that bought 40 acres from the Hyde family for $1.2 million in 1993 and this week obtained the other 95 acres for $14.2 million.

Cobb County and the National Park Service intend to buy the property and run it jointly. They plan to use the land for passive recreation, restore the buildings and open it to schools and other visitors so people can see what it was like to run a farm in the early 1900s.

The Trust started working on the deal after J.C. died, but his heirs disputed in court the Trust's claim to a right of first-offer negotiated with J.C. in 1993. it took four years to reach a settlement.

Until Friday, no member of the Hyde estate had been willing to discuss the sale.

But Kelly Scott of Newnan, J.C.'s grandniece, decided to bring her young grandson to the farm for his first visit.

"We're proud the farm is going to be preserved. Our family worked hard all these years to keep it up," she said.

She'd visited privately earlier in the week: "My son and I walked down to the river. It was emotional; it was hard."

Morning Washburn, who will still live next to the farm on a tract owned by the Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society, felt the emotion, too.

She changed her name from Margaret when she was in her 30s. She said she knew Morning was the correct choice "the moment I walked down the courthouse steps."

Washburn typically speaks only after deliberation, a trait she says she learned from J.C. Yet when she was invited to the podium, it was clear she had given this moment some thought.

Hands planted firmly on her hips, back arched slightly, she looked up and let loose a verse adapted from the tune "Today:"

"A million tomorrows shall all pass away/Ere I forget all the thanks that I feel today."