Now that I knew how to get to Rogers-Bell Cemetery, I felt more confident on my second trip north. And much warmer.

When I saw it tucked between two very large homes, I’d already passed it and had to back up. There was ample room to park on the grass. I noticed a wooden gazebo close by. This felt like a place where people were welcome to linger as long as they like. Clearly, funds are in place to take care of this cemetery and it shows.

The gates of Rogers-Bell Cemetery, which you can also see at the top of my blog’s home page.

Looking through the gates, I paused. A large dog was nosing around amid the graves. My thoughts flashed back to the 70s horror film “The Omen” starring Gregory Peck. At one point, he and another guy are searching a spooky cemetery in Italy (at night!) when they get attacked by demonic Rottweilers. They barely escape with their lives. Mr. Roberts (the middle school teacher) had not said anything about a guard dog.

Undeterred, I pulled up the ground bolt and pushed the gates open. The dog ignored me for a moment and then looked up with a wagging tail. It was an elderly chocolate lab mix, not an attack dog. And the tag on his collar told me his name.

Meet Petey.

With my new (and somewhat fragrant) canine pal close by, I got to work. Rogers-Bell has only about 60 or so graves. The oldest ones are in a square area surrounded by a low decorative fence. That’s where John Rogers and his wife are buried.

John Rogers (1774-1851) and his wife, Sarah Cordery Rogers, settled in the area in 1820 with their seven children. He was a close friend of President Andrew Jackson, having fought alongside him in the War of 1812. Rogers was married to the daughter of Scottish trader Thomas Cordery and Susannah Sconicoonie, a full-blood Cherokee of the Anigatagewi clan (known as the Blind Savannah Clan). Because of this connection, he was allowed to build his plantation home on the Cherokee side of the Chattahoochee River. John Rogers was mostly a farmer, but also established a ferry service across the river. Other ferries like McGinnis and Nesbitt also came to be at this time (now the namesakes of much-traveled roads).

Rogers was unique in that he was comfortable in both the Indian and white worlds. Many of John and Sarah’s children (they eventually had 12 total) married other mixed-blood Cherokees. As well-educated and affluent Cherokees, they played a major role in the New Echota Treaty of 1835 and the subsequent Trail of Tears. A number of them are buried in Chelsea Cemetery in Rogers County, Oklahoma (named after John Rogers’ grandson, Clement Van Rogers).

John Rogers’ second son, William Rogers, was a country lawyer who operated a farm and ferry a few miles north of his father’s plantation. He was also known for fighting for the rights of Cherokees during this turbulent time. To learn more about the Rogers family (and there’s a lot), read Unhallowed Intrusion: a History of Cherokee Families in Forsyth County by Georgia historian Don Shadburn.

Portrait of Williams Rogers, artist unknown. It was drawn in 1836 in Washington, D.C.

Grave of William Rogers.

When you visit an old cemetery like this one, you notice yet again that children died frequently, and very young. Much more often than today. It’s hard to imagine, but a child could have a simple cold that developed into something fatal. Antibiotics, which we take for granted now, were not invented then. And yet these frequent deaths were accepted as a natural part of life at the time.

Mary Louisa Moor, who died at a tender age for unknown reasons.

Fredrick Augustus Moor probably died of the same illness as his sister, Mary.

William Rogers’ grandchildren are an example of this (both of their gravestones are off of their bases). Siblings Frederick and Mary Moor died within two weeks of each other. She was 10 and he was 8. I can only guess they both died from the same illness, maybe diphtheria or typhoid (both common at the time).

Their parents had the tragic task of burying them both that autumn. One clue to the fatalistic attitude of the era is seen in the inscription on the back of the bases of both headstones. “Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”

I spent more than two hours at Rogers-Bell taking pictures and double checking dates. (Petey eventually got bored and ambled over to the house next door.) It was cold but I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I didn’t really feel it. This was a special place and the quietness of it caught me. I didn’t want to rush the experience of being there.

And yes, I did find Sarah.

I promise I’ll get to the snakes in Part 3, the end of this adventure, back where I started in Rogers Cemetery.

This three-part story involves me yelling at a pastor, nearly freezing my hinder off and finding snakes on a grave (not on a plane).

It’s also a tale of two cemeteries located within a mile of each other. They share a common past but their current state is drastically different.

My goal was to find the grave of Sarah Hackett Bell. Sounds simple, right? That’s what was going through my mind as I headed toward Johns Creek on a frigid December morning. I’d never been in that neck of the woods before but the map on the FiAG page for Rogers-Bell Cemetery (which noted that it was also known as Rogers Cemetery) seemed simple enough.

Driving through the area, I noted that this was what being “out in the country” meant, albeit pretty wealthy country. The only picture I had of the cemetery was of the plaque outside of it. The winding road gave me no clues as I checked my iPhone map yet again. Wait, did I pass it?

Frustrated, I pulled over into the parking lot of a large Methodist church. The locals would know, right? A young man came out, heading across to what looked like the office. I heard myself yelling out the car window, “Hey!” and felt my cheeks go red. Not my usual style to shout at the clergy, but it worked. Turns out he was the new pastor and not familiar with the area yet. But someone in the office knew. Just back down the road, but not very big and easy to miss.

I finally found it. Two short, rough wooden posts with a cord between them blocked off the path so you couldn’t drive up into it. So I parked as best I could on the side of the much traveled road and headed up the hill. This was NOT what I expected.

This picture was taken on a much warmer (and sunnier) day.

What I found was a collection of markers randomly scattered about, none of them with the last name Bell. Most were Rogers. Old silk flower arrangements dotted some of them. A few were too worn to read. This couldn’t be right.

Shivering under a sunless sky in this strange clearing, I was poorly dressed for this wild goose chase in my thin jacket. I’d forgotten my scarf and gloves. With numb fingers, I called the Gwinnett Historical Society for help. Yes, you’re in the right place, they said. That’s it.

It’s not a good idea to go digging around a grave so I left this one alone. Brushing leaves off is the extent of what I will do.

But it wasn’t. I had to ask myself what on earth had I gotten myself into. Fed up and nearly frozen, I climbed into my car, cranked up the heat and took off. On the way home, I found a Mellow Mushroom where I could thaw out and have a late lunch.

Once home, I started looking for answers. The only thing I could find on the Internet was a middle school teacher’s Web site showing how his students were studying the lives of some of the people buried in Rogers-Bell as part of their history curriculum. The pictures looked nothing like what I had seen that day. THIS Rogers-Bell was what I’d envisioned. Handsome iron gates, orderly graves, tall old trees. That’s when it hit me.

There were TWO cemeteries. I’d clearly been in Rogers Cemetery, not Rogers-Bell. This is a lesson to any new FiAG photo volunteer. Always check to see if there’s possibly a duplicate listing or potential misinformation. Those words “also known as Rogers Cemetery” were wrong.

I contacted Wesley, the person who created that original page for Rogers-Bell. I learned that he had written the “also known as Rogers Cemetery” by mistake and has been unable to fix it. Yes, he had documented the graves as part of his work with the Gwinnett Historical Society but had not taken photos at the time. He urged me to do so and to create a new Rogers-Bell page with a good bio, proper map and photos.

I also contacted that middle school teacher, Mr. Roberts. I discovered that the REAL Rogers-Bell was about a mile from Rogers Cemetery. It sits in a subdivision amid huge McMansions on a wooded acre. Turns out that Rogers-Bell contains the grave of John Rogers, who built and managed a plantation on the property with his half-Cherokee wife and children in the 1800s. More on John Rogers in Part Two next week.

So how is Rogers Cemetery connected? According to “Georgia Deaths: 1818-1989”, it is listed as “Rogers Cemetery (Black and Indians) NW side Bell (Boles) Rd., off McGinnis Ferry Rd., Fulton County.” It was created for the former slaves (and their descendants) that worked on John Rogers’ plantation. That explained the haphazard grave placement and its somewhat forlorn state. One was a white cemetery and one was a black cemetery. It was rich man vs. free but poor man.

Now I had to go back and find Rogers-Bell, take photos of all the graves. That included the one of the impetus for my quest, Sarah Hackett Bell. But this time, I was getting out the long johns, and my warmest scarf and gloves. Cemetery hopping is fun but not when your fingers are frozen.

You can read about that adventure next week in Part Two.

No murder occurring within the last 10 years has caused so much excitement among the people of Georgia as that of Mrs. Ella Beck and her sister, Miss Addie, the husband and brother-in-law being the criminal. – New York Times, December 10, 1884.

When people ask what my visits to cemeteries are like, I don’t get very specific because, to be honest, it can be a Forrest Gump experience. I never know what I’m going to get.

Never was this more evident than when I recently claimed a Find a Grave photo request for a woman named Addie Bailey, buried in Cumming City Cemetery in Forsyth County. I don’t wander that far afield of the metro often, but I was up for something different. My friend, Sherri, had agreed to join me and I thought this might prove interesting. Little did I know how true that would be.

Locating Cumming City Cemetery in the “downtown” area was easy, but there was no designated parking area. We glimpsed the barbed wire atop the back fence and realized that located behind the cemetery was the county jail. It was confirmed when we pulled into the jail parking lot and saw some fellows in orange jumpsuits working in a shed nearby. We decided to park on the OTHER side of the cemetery.

Sherri’s standing on the front steps of Cumming City Cemetery. It was her first hop!

It wasn’t until we began hunting for Addie’s grave (which Sherri found!) that I read her story on FiAG. Addie Evaline Bailey was born in 1867. Her older sister, Ella, was born two years earlier and was married to Eugene Beck. The couple lived in Clayton over in Rabun County, where Eugene’s father had been sheriff. The sisters were close but after Ella married, they did not see each other often. Their father, Dr. Samuel Bailey, was a well-known physician in Cumming and was close to both his daughters.

Addie was set to marry in November 1884 and Ella invited her to stay with her in Clayton during the week before the nuptials. Unfortunately, Addie had no idea that Ella had a secret. Eugene was an alcoholic and prone to long periods of drunkenness. Not until Addie had traveled to Clayton to stay with her sister did this become apparent. Ella was too proud to share her predicament with anyone, not unusual in those days.

According to a servant, on the evening of October 28, 1884, as the sisters slept, Eugene awoke, got dressed and came into their bedroom. He turned up the lamp before taking out a gun, then shot his wife in the head as she slept. She died immediately. As Addie awoke, he shot her in the chest. A servant reported that he fled out the door, and went straight to the jail and the marshal. According to court transcripts:

Hearing continued screaming, the marshal went out and learned that Beck had killed his wife and sister in law. Returning, he said to Beck, “Gene, you have killed your wife and sister-in-law!” Beck replied, “Well, I have killed the best friend I have got.” In about fifteen minutes the sheriff came and locked him up. He did not resist. He had a little half pint bottle about half full of whiskey.

Dr. Bailey was summoned but was only told his daughters were “ill”. He got quite a shock when he entered the bedroom to find one daughter laid out on the floor in preparation for burial and the other clinging to life. Addie died a few days later. Dr. Bailey brought their bodies back to Cumming for burial.

At the time of their deaths, Addie was 17 and Ella was 19. Incredibly young to be thrown into such violent circumstances. Their graves are on top of the hill in one of the most beautiful areas of the cemetery. The sisters share a monument beside their parents’ monument. Local lore says Dr. Bailey often visited their graves for long periods of time.

Close in life, close in death. The sisters share one monument.

The double murder shook North Georgia to the core. It was reported on by several North Georgia newspapers. Even the The New York Times (quoted earlier) had a few lengthy articles about the murders. Some accounts stretched the truth a bit (one being that Dr. Bailey arrived at Beck’s house to find Addie’s body dressed in her wedding gown for her burial when in truth she had not died yet) to escalate the drama of an already tragic event.

Being the only son of a prominent family, Beck had some supporters in the community. Some testified on his behalf. He plead not guilty by reason of insanity. It did not keep him from being sent to prison for life in September 1885.

In March 1886, Beck appealed his case to the Georgia Supreme Court (Beck vs. The State of Georgia) on the grounds that due to his drunken state that night, he had no control over his actions and was not responsible for the murders. But it was not enough to get his sentence overturned. Beck died in 1890 from blood poisoning, reportedly contracted while working on a chain gang in a Dade County (Georgia) mine with other prisoners.

If you look past Dr. Bailey’s monument on the left, you can see the guys in orange jumpsuits. Eugene Beck ended up becoming a prisoner himself.

Dr. Bailey died in 1887, only a few years after the murders. His second wife (the first died in 1834), Sally, was the mother of Addie and Ella. She was 24 years Bailey’s junior and lived until 1904. She is buried with him beside the sisters.

Grave inscriptions can run the gamut from sorrowful to joyful to humorous. The one at the foot of Addie and Ella’s monument is decidedly bittersweet.

Sweetly sleep, angel sisters.
No more from your slumber
Will you be awakened by pistol shots.
From the bothers of earth you were driven,
But the gates of Heaven were opened to let you in.

To read more about Addie and Ella’s story, you can visit these sites:

New York Times articles: http://bit.ly/YWYsZr and http://bit.ly/WTJZrt
Account of the murders: http://bit.ly/TQuBPN

One of the first FiAG requests I fulfilled was to photograph the grave of Lance Corporal Jerry Vanoid Davis. I didn’t know his family personally. All I knew was that he was from Tucker (where I now live) and that he was killed in action during the Vietnam War.

Jerry is buried in Melwood Cemetery in Stone Mountain, Ga. I’d never been to Melwood before, although I have passed it many times. I was a little nervous because big cemeteries can intimidate me. Many are owned/managed by people who don’t like FiAG photo volunteers. They think we take up their time by asking for their help to locate graves. Some of the corporate chains have policies in which FiAG volunteers are asked to leave unless they have written permission from the family to take a picture of the grave.

Melwood Cemetery in Stone Mountain, Ga.

In a way, that reputation can be valid. From what I have heard, sometimes a FiAG volunteer will walk into a cemetery office with a long list of names, expecting someone to drop whatever they’re doing and help the volunteer locate graves. That isn’t right and it shouldn’t happen. But I think most of us are respectful of others’ time and try to avoid making their work more difficult.

Fortunately, while Melwood is indeed large, it is still locally owned, not bought out by a large chain (yet). The ladies in the office were more than happy to locate Jerry’s grave for me and one of them even drove over to it (with me following in my car) so I could see exactly where it was. I really appreciated that.

The gravestone has his middle name as “Vanoy” but on all records I have seen it is “Vanoid”.

According to Jerry’s FiAG memorial, he wasn’t even 20 yet when he enlisted in March 1966. He chose the United States Marines, a branch of the armed services noted for its toughness of character. Looking at his picture, I wonder what was going through his mind before he left everything he knew behind in a small Georgia town for an uncertain future thousands of miles away.

Jerry’s name is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Panel 24E, Row 20.

After he arrived in Vietnam, Jerry was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st MAR DIV (Rein) FMF. Records indicate he was an antitank assaultman.

Jerry’s memorial explains how he died. “Near the Hoa Ham hamlet in Dai Loc District a LP (Listening Post) inside the Company perimeter wire, [Davis] received an incoming grenade and five rounds of small arms fire resulting in LCpl Davis being killed in action by the enemy rifle fire.”

By looking on Ancestry.com, I discovered that Jerry’s older brother died in 1965. He wasn’t in the military. I don’t know the cause of death. He was only 23. I wonder if he and Jerry played “war” as kids in the backyard. When they got older, did they talk about enlisting together? Or was it Jerry’s dream alone to become a Marine?

Ten years ago, Jerry’s story wouldn’t have touched me as deeply. Because now I have a son myself, albeit a very young one. It changes the lens through which you view life. If I knew my son was only going to live to the age of 20 and end up being shot to death halfway around the world, it would tear me to pieces.

I think of Jerry’s mother, Martha, as she watched her sons grow from little boys into young men. What did she say when Jerry told her he wanted to enlist? I picture her at his funeral, accepting the flag of our country. Having now lost both of her sons within a two-year period, her heart had to be broken. She died only 10 years after Jerry.

I wish I could have met Martha. I would tell her, from one mother to another, that I’m sorry her boys died so young. That Jerry’s death in combat was not in vain, that his life did mean something. He was not just a casualty number on a blackboard.

I would also tell her that while few people know Jerry’s story, I do. And I won’t forget it.

I hope you won’t, either.