I left Greenville, Ala. in the afternoon, hoping to make it to Atlanta before it got too late. Then I remembered there was an Alabama cemetery near the state line I’d always wanted to stop at and wondered if it was anywhere close. Looking on my phone, I realized that I could chart my route to go right by it and hopefully, have enough daylight to photograph it.

I was looking for a cemetery with a life-size dollhouse.

I’d read about this place for years, wondering what it looked like in person and the grave of the child it was built for almost 100 years ago.

The Short Life of Nadine Earles

Born to parents Julian Comer Earles and Alma Moody Earles on April 3, 1929, Roselind Nadine Earles and her family lived in Lanett, Ala. Lanett is located close to the Alabama/Georgia border near West Point, once a major railroad hub. Huge West Point Lake is nearby, which still attracts fishermen and boaters from around the South.

Nadine didn’t have an easy life. Born with a cleft palate, she became accustomed to visiting doctors from an early age. Nadine passed the time in waiting rooms playing with her beloved dolls. It wasn’t as easy then to have the condition corrected. Alma, her mother, worked with her on speech therapy for hours. Her little brother, Comer, was born in 1931.

In summer 1933, Julian and Alma took Nadine to Atlanta for the first of two surgeries to correct her mouth. A second surgery was planned in November. Nadine knew exactly what she wanted for Christmas. A life-size dollhouse in her backyard. Julian purchased the materials, hoping to get started on it in his down time from work.

“Me Want It Now”

The Earles were preparing for Nadine’s next surgery when she became ill. At first, doctors thought it might be measles but eventually diagnosed diphtheria. A vaccine was developed in the 1920s but was just starting to become more widespread in the 1930s. Because of the contagious nature of diphtheria, the Earles home was roped off and the family put in quarantine.

With spare time on his hands, Julian tried to build the dollhouse but the noise bothered Nadine so he stopped. For an early Christmas gift, they gave her a life-size doll and tea set. But the little girl hadn’t forgotten her request. Growing weaker, she reportedly turned to her parents and said,

“Me want it now.”

Nadine died on Dec. 18, 1933 and she was buried at Lanett’s Oakwood Cemetery. Julian felt terrible that he hadn’t fulfilled his daughter’s last wish. He dismantled what he had begun on her dollhouse and took it over to the cemetery with the goal of having it built over Nadine’s grave.

According to Anna Earles, the wife of Nadine’s brother Comer, Julian hired two contractors to finish the dollhouse. While he didn’t do the work himself, he supervised it closely. It was completed several months later.

When I was at Oakwood Cemetery, the sun was going down and I did not get a good picture of Nadine’s little box grave marker that the dollhouse was built over. I found this photo of it online. So just to be clear for those wondering, Nadine is NOT inside the dollhouse or above ground. Her marker is inside of it but she is buried UNDER the dollhouse.

Her grave marker says:

Our Darling Little Girl
Sweetest In The World
Little Nadine Earles
April 3, 1929
Dec 18, 1933
In heaven we hope to meet
“Me want it now”

Julian and Alma had a another scare during this time. Their little son, Comer, developed a kidney ailment and nearly died. But thankfully, he survived.

Happy Birthday

After the dollhouse was completed, Julian and Alma filled it with toys and dolls in Nadine’s memory. On birthdays and holidays, they would bring more gifts to place inside the dollhouse. Nadine’s fifth birthday party was even held there. I believe the postcard below is a photo of that event.

Life went on. Julian and Alma had another child, Jimmy, in 1935. Every Christmas, toys would come to the dollhouse and old ones would be removed. People came to visit and leave their own gifts sometimes.

Comer married Anne in 1959. By that time, Julian and Alma had divorced. Alma remarried but Anne remained close to both her and Julian. She said Alma rarely spoke of Nadine’s death because it had been so hard on her. Julian never remarried and as the years passed, more and more he would go visit “Honey”, his pet name for Nadine. According to Anne, shortly before he died, he told her he was going to be with Honey.

Julian died on Feb. 25, 1976 at age 66. He is buried beside the dollhouse. I did not get a good photo of his grave so I apologize for the poor quality of it.

It was also Alma’s wish, Anne said, to also be buried next to Nadine and she asked her daughter-in-law to make sure that happened. After Alma died on Jan. 28, 1981, she joined Nadine and Julian in the Earles plot. Thankfully, I took a better picture of her grave marker. Comer died in 2003 and Jimmy passed away in 2018. I could not trace Anna past the 1987 newspaper interview she gave about Nadine.

Different people and organizations took the responsibility of looking after Nadine’s dollhouse by cleaning it, painting it, and even decorating it during holidays. I’m not sure who is caring for it now. Curious visitors like me drop by to visit. Some leave notes and cards in the dollhouse’s mailbox, which I didn’t even notice until after I looked at my pictures.

Goodbye, Nadine…

The sun was going down as I prepared to leave Nadine’s dollhouse. Cars were going by the cemetery and I could hear a dog barking as people were ending their day. Life was moving along. But standing there, I felt as if I was back in 1933 for a moment. When a little girl asked for the one thing she wanted more than ever.

“Me want it now.”

If last week’s post was any indication, you probably knew I wasn’t done at Magnolia Cemetery.

I had a feeling that the monument beside Zenobia “Nobie” McKenzie had a story. Because of the grain of the stone, reading the inscription was difficult. But after fiddling with the photo, I realized May McKenzie Stallings died as young as her sister Nobie had and in one of the worst accidents about which I’ve ever read.

Born in 1888, May was the youngest child of Greenville merchant William F. McKenzie and Emma Herbert McKenzie. Nobie, her older sister, died from illness at age 19 when May was five. William was mayor of Greenville at one point.

May met and fell in love with Samuel Stallings, the only son of Jesse Francis Stallings, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1893 to 1901. Sam hadn’t finished college yet and May was only 17. While they were eager to marry, both sets of parents understandably wanted them to wait a little longer.

Accompanies by friends, the couple eloped to Columbus, Ga. to wed. Despite their worries about their parents, Sam and May were received back in Greenville with open arms.

Tragedy in Greenville

It was three months later on Nov. 3, 1905 when it happened. I’ve read three different newspaper accounts of what happened that day and while some of the details vary, the basic facts are these. May and Sam had ridden their carriage into Greenville to visit someone near the train station, possibly Sam’s father. They were sitting in the carriage when two mules hitched to a wagon nearby were spooked and bolted.

Sam jumped down to lift May out of harm’s way but was too late. The mules hit the carriage and May tumbled down into the clash of wagon, carriage, and mules. She was dragged many yards down the road before the vehicles were stopped. May died the next morning of her injuries. Having already lost Nobie 12 years before, I am certain her parents were devastated.

As for Sam, I can’t imagine what he was thinking. The young couple had only been married three months and his beautiful bride was gone.

Sam remarried two years later to Grace Heaton of Birmingham and they had four children together. He died in 1959 in a car accident at age 75. He and Grace are also buried in Magnolia Cemetery.

One Husband, Two Sisters

I have another story of a young bride dying young but this one comes with a final twist.

Born in 1880, Edna Flowers was the daughter of Joseph Hampton Flowers (J.H.) and Clara Howard Flowers. J.H. was the brother of William Flowers, whom I talked about last week. Like his brother, J.H. was successful in the lumber business. The family lived in Bolling, a little south of Greenville, but later moved to Blakely, Ga.

It was there Edna met Dr. William Jennings, a 1898 graduate of Baltimore Medical College. They were married on Nov. 26, 1901 in the Flowers home. I don’t usually post articles about weddings but I don’t always find accounts of such events. Afterward, the couple settled in Iron City, Ga., only about 30 miles south of Blakely.

Their happiness was soon ended. Edna was stricken with a sudden illness and died on Jan. 17, 1902. Being that her new husband was a physician, it was probably even more painful that he could do nothing for his new bride. It took me a while to find her obituary because the Greenville Advocate mistakenly reported William’s last name as “Jenkins” instead of “Jennings”.

I thought it was interesting that Edna’s monument includes her marriage date above her death date. Then there is “Edna Flowers-Jennings” on the bottom, a hyphenated last name being something I definitely don’t see often on a monument from this era.

Dr. Jennings was comforted by his young bride’s family. Then something happened that occurs more often than you might think but in this case, it took place five years later. It usually happens much sooner.

William married Edna’s younger sister, Sarah “Sadie” Flowers, who was six years younger than Edna. The couple had at least one son together, also named William. William Sr. died in 1925 from heart disease but Sadie lived many years after, dying in 1980 at age 93. The couple is buried together at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Thomasville, Ga.

“Universally Loved”

Our final bride is one whose death was likely caused by the birth of her first and only child.

Born in 1886, Aileen Steiner was the granddaughter of Joseph Steiner and Margaret Mathilda Camp Steiner. You may remember them from Part I of my series. She’s buried behind them in the Steiner plot. Her father, Joseph Manning Steiner, Sr., was a prosperous merchant like his father.

On Dec. 12, 1906, Aileen married Edward Winkler, who worked in his father’s store. She was 20 and he was 25. The article written about their wedding mentioned it was the first one held in the “new Methodist Church” in Greenville. After the ceremony, the couple left on a train for a two-week honeymoon in New York and “other points of interest.”

The date of December 8, 1907 was a happy one for the couple when their son Edward August Winkler was born.

But tragedy was lurking. During the evening of Dec. 21, 1907, Aileen suddenly became ill. Her obituary states that she seemed to improve but died at 3 a.m. the next day, “heart failure being the cause.” She probably died of postpartum cardiomyopathy. According to WebMD, it occurs in the last month of pregnancy or up to five months after delivery. It’s a type of congestive heart failure, which causes your heart to become larger than normal and weak. This decreases the amount of blood that your heart can pump. It is quite rare in the U.S. now and only 1,000 to 1,300 women develop this condition every year.

Edward waited quite a while to remarry. On December 31, 1920, he married Louise Thagard, in Birmingham, Ala. They had three children together, all of whom lived to adulthood. His child with Aileen, Edward August Winkler, died at age 58 in 1966 in Montgomery, Ala. They are all buried in Magnolia Cemetery.

“Remember the Days of Thy Creator”

The last person I’m going to talk about at Magnolia Cemetery is not a woman, a bride, or even Caucasian. He also lived a much longer life than they did.

The Rev. Frank W. Ward is buried in what was probably referred to back in the day as (and I say this with no pleasure) the “negro area” of the cemetery. There are parts of Magnolia that were not connected as they are now. Many of the graves around Rev. Ward’s are fairly recent.

Rev. Ward’s monument is the only grave marker of its kind I have seen in the Southeast for an African-American pastor and frankly, it caught me by surprise when I saw it. But as I read about him, it made sense. He was not only a beloved pastor, Rev. Ward was a valued businessman in the Greenville community.

Rev. Ward’s monument states he was born in 1857. His parents were probably slaves. He was a prominent AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion pastor in Alabama but was also well known in Greenville for his store. He purchased the land for it in 1884 from Patrick and Sarah Pryor. That cannot have been an easy feat during that era.

I found this information in the application to make Frank Ward’s Corner Store (as it was known) a National Historic Site, which it did become:

Although Ward is best remembered as the proprietor of this small neighborhood grocery store which he opened (around) 1885, he was also recognized as one of the leading AME Zion ministers actively involved in stimulating the growth of the denomination of the East Alabama Conference between 1881 and 1892.

Ward successfully combined his professional activities as a minister with this business pursuit and by the turn of the century, conducted an impressive business evidenced in the handsome residence situated behind the store, his imposing grave site in Magnolia Cemetery, and a lengthy obituary attesting to his prominent and modest economic achievements.

Rev. Ward’s health declined steadily in 1924. He was preaching a sermon on Feb. 22, 1925 when he had a stroke in the pulpit and passed away the following day. The only obituary I could find about Rev. Ward was not lengthy but it was probably more than most African-Americans could expect to read in a Southern newspaper in 1925. Some of the wording makes me wince, especially the mention of him being a “good negro”.

After Rev. Ward’s death, his wife, Sallie, took over running the store. She passed away in 1930 and is buried beside Frank. Oddly, her marker says her birth date was 1873 and the death date is empty. Since she married Rev. Ward in 1877, that is impossible so there must have been a carving error.

The Ward property was purchased by Nobie Price, who also operated a neighborhood grocery store there. The building was leased out during the 1960s and known for its weekend fish fries. As far as I know, the building remains in the ownership of the Price family. It is a reminder of one man’s efforts to preach the gospel while providing a valued community center for his neighbors.

Saying Goodbye to Greenville

My afternoon in Greenville, Ala. is one of the most moving in my cemetery hopping career. It was here I encountered some of the most amazing monuments (especially Abrams’ cast iron grave covers) and stories I have even encountered. There’s so much more that I didn’t even talk about in these eight blog posts.

This place became quite special to me. I’m so glad I stopped.

I’m lingering at Greenville, Ala.’s Magnolia Cemetery a bit longer so you can take in some of the beauty and history I encountered while I was there. I don’t want you to miss anything, like the lovely monument for Zenobia “Nobie” McKenzie pictured below. She was only 19 when she died suddenly on April 29, 1893.

There are about 21 Peaglers buried at Magnolia Cemetery and I happened upon one of their family’s plots. It’s not one you’d find yourself immediately drawn to from across the cemetery as some are with towering monuments like Zenobia’s. And Magnolia has plenty of those. But there was something about this one that got my attention.

First, you have to enter through the iron gate. It’s a lovely specimen produced by the Springfield Architectural Iron Works of Springfield, Ohio. I found a copy of their catalog from the late 1880s and while I couldn’t find an exact match, their was one that had a similar look to it.

Here’s the Peagler gate:

Here’s a gate I found in the SAIW catalog from 1889. The Peagler gate is not exactly the same but it’s pretty close.

If you open the gate and step inside, you’ll find a rather inviting scene. But before you get too comfortable, take a look at the fence. Notice the little flowers on top? They look awfully similar to the ones in the catalog illustration, don’t they? So why doesn’t the gate have them? It’s a mystery.

The initials on the gate are for T.W. Peagler, Thomas William Peagler (1859-1921). He likely bought the plot. He and his older brother, Gideon (1847-1931), are the two main people buried in the plot so you’ll be hearing a lot about them.

Thomas Peagler: Druggist and Banking Executive

Thomas and Gideon were the sons of George S. Peagler and Absilla Thigpen. Brother Thomas was born in 1859. He was often referred to as “Major Peagler” but that was due to his membership in the local militia and National Guard unit, not a rank he earned while serving in the military during any war.

A druggist by training, Thomas eventually owned and operated his own drug store in Greenville. He also got into banking and railroads, becoming the first vice president of the Bank of Greenville. Like most civically-minded Greenville businessmen, he was active in the Masons, Knights of Pythias, Knights Templar, and Woodmen of the World.

Thomas married Ellen Reid Dunklin in 1882, a surname you’ll remember from nearby Pioneer Cemetery. They would have four children, three of which lived to adulthood.

Buried in the back corner of the plot is Thomas and Ellen’s oldest son, Walter Werle Peagler. Born in 1883, Werle was a graduate of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (which became Auburn University). He married Gladys Williams in March 1917, working as an assistant cashier at the Bank of Greenville.

Unfortunately, Werle became Greenville’s first victim of the Spanish Flu. He died at age 37 on Oct. 19, 1918. Gladys, who never remarried, is buried in another area of Magnolia Cemetery. It had to have broken his parents’ hearts when he died.

“Called By the Grim Reaper”

In April 1921, Thomas became ill and traveled to Montgomery for an operation. He died shortly thereafter on April 22, 1921. He was 62 years old.

Also buried in the Peagler plot is one of Thomas and Ellen’s grandchildren. Their daughter, Myra, married widower William Blackwell in 1921. Their daughter, whom they named Myra, was born and died on Feb. 26, 1926.

Tragedy would strike William and Myra again on April 30, 1949 when their other child, Thomas Peagler Blackwell, died after a long illness at the age of 17. He is buried with them in another plot at Magnolia.

“Hours Fly, Flowers Die”

Thomas Peagler’s older brother, Gideon, was born in 1847 and would leave the University of Alabama to fight in the Civil War, earning a pension in his later years. While Thomas was often called “Major Peagler”, Gideon was referred to as “Colonel Peagler” in a number of newspaper articles I found.

Gideon never married but went into the lumber business with a brother-in-law W.H. Flowers and earned his fortune that way. He was active in the Knights of Pythias like Thomas. In the later decades of his life, he lived with Thomas and his family and it was a happy arrangement for all concerned. Gideon continued to live with his brother’s family after Thomas died in 1921.

On April 30, 1931, Gideon died after a year-long illness. His grave marker is actually a sundial, which is something I encounter from time to time. But I’ve never seen one quite like this, especially with part of a poem inscribed on the side.

The inscription on his sundial was part of a poem called “Inscription for Kartina’s Sun-Dial” written by Henry Van Dyke in 1920.

Hours fly,
Flowers die
New days,
New ways,
Pass by.
Love stays.

*****

Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.

I do wonder if Gideon had a hand in planning his own marker before he died, it is such an unusual but wonderful memorial piece. I wonder if this poem was a favorite of his or if his beloved nieces and nephews decided on it together. His will is a testament to his love for them as each one received an equal portion of his estate, along with money set aside for Ellen, Thomas’ widow.

Ellen died on Aug. 22, 1940 at age 77. She is buried beside Thomas.

By contrast, the monument to Gideon and Thomas’ sister, Sophronia, is quite ornate by comparison.

Sophronia was born in 1849, a few years after Gideon. She married William M. Flowers, a local merchant, in 1868. They would have five children together. You might recall I mentioned earlier that William and Gideon pursued a number of business ventures together.

In checking the 1880 U.S. Census, I saw that William is noted for having “billious fever” while Sophronia was suffering from “nervous dibility”. I had seen “billious fever” before but not “nervous dibility”. Apparently, that could mean being poor in strength or even having depression.

Sophronia died on March 20, 1888 at age 38. According to her death notice, she has been suffering from a painful and lingering illness for several months. William Flowers did not remarry but died at age 64 on April 29, 1907. He is buried beside her.

Perhaps it was a good thing that Sophronia and William were not alive to endure the deaths of two of their sons in one year. Both were away from Greenville when they died. George, 42, had been staying in Atlanta seeking treatment for an illness when he died. His sister, Kate, and teen daughter, Mildred, were at his side before he died on April 29, 1913. Walter, 35, was in Mobile, Ala. on business when he suddenly became ill and died on July 31, 1913. He left behind a widow and young child. The brothers were both brought home for burial at Magnolia Cemetery.

“We Live In Deeds, Not Years”

I noticed that William and Sophronia’s daughter, Kate, had married Dr. L.V. Stabler after her first husband, J.F. Johnson, died in 1911. Dr. Stabler operated an infirmary in Greenville for many years and it was where her uncle, Gideon Johnson, had passed away in 1931.

Kate died at age 61 in 1937 and is buried with her first husband, John F. Johnson. Between their names are inscribed the words “We Live in Deeds, Not in Years”.

Another daughter of William and Sophronia Flowers is buried near the Abrams family plot. Born in 1869, Abbie married lumber merchant Oscar Richardson Porter in 1889. He was the grandson of Judge B.F. Porter, whom I mentioned in my posts about Pioneer Cemetery. The couple had two children together, Oscar Jr. and Kate (possibly named after her sister). An infant, James, did after three months in 1896. At some point, Oscar was mayor of Greenville.

In a sad mirroring of her mother’s life, Abbie became in invalid in the last year of her life. She died the day after Christmas in 1911 at age 41. Her daughter, Kate Porter Lewis grew up to become an accomplished writer.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to leave Magnolia Cemetery just yet. I may have a Part IV left to write. Stay tuned.

Last week, I introduced you to Magnolia Cemetery in Greenville, Ala. One of the many reasons I put this cemetery on my bucket list years ago was because a special man is buried here: Joseph R. Abrams. He is one of the first people to patent a cast iron grave cover as a way to protect a grave. This week, I’m doing a deeper dive on these and you won’t believe what I found.

This is just one of several cast iron grave covers I saw at Magnolia Cemetery. I’m not sure what the white coating is on it but I’ve seen it on a few others over the years.

I first wrote about Abrams’ grave covers in January 2015. He’s not the first person to come up with this idea. There were a few before him and even a few after. But his cast iron grave covers are the ones most frequently seen in Southern cemeteries and were patented in the early 1870s.

As I shared in an earlier post about Pioneer Cemetery, civil engineer Joseph R. Abrams was a native of South Carolina and a graduate of the Citadel who married Laura Porter in 1856 in Marshall County, Ala. Her father, Benjamin Faneuil Porter, was a physician before becoming an attorney then a prominent Greenville, Ala. judge. In fact, he ordered his daughter’s marriage license to her future husband, as this note I found on Ancestry.com reveals. He misspelled his future son-in-law’s last name, too (Abrahams instead of Abrams).

Over the years, Joseph and Laura had at least six children together. Joseph worked as a railroad contractor at one point but in later years, sold fire insurance. All the while, he was inventing new things and having them patented. His cast iron grave cover was just one of many.

The Abrams family lived in this home on 201 Herbert Street after purchasing it in 1863 for $4,000. It remained in the family until 1904 (after Joseph and Laura died) by their daughter Kate Abrams Persons, who gave birth to future Alabama Gov. Seth Gordon Persons in 1902. Kate sold it to Laura B. Knight, who had it until 1939. The home was designated an Alabama landmark in the 1970s and while not currently on the market, it looks like it will take much TLC to renovate and restore.

Was the Meley Patent Grave Mound a Shell Grave?

With this round of research on Joseph R. Abrams, I uncovered a startling bit of new information. An article from June 12, 1873 refers to Abrams’ connection to marketing a Meley “grave mound”, a term I’d never heard of before.

When I looked it up, I found a 1868 patent by a man from Trenton, Tenn. named Jonathan Meley who had patented his own “grave mound”. But Meley was using seashells! Does that sound familiar? You might remember there are several such graves at Pioneer Cemetery and a few are at Magnolia as well. Here’s a photo of one of them.

Take a look at this ad in the Aug. 1, 1872 Eufaula Weekly News. It mentions that these Meley grave mounds can be found in Greenville and Troy cemeteries. I found similar ads in 1870s newspapers in other Alabama cities, along with more in Mississippi and even Galveston, Texas.

I even found a drawing of the Meley grave mound in the patent he submitted in 1868. It may very well be that Meley had a hand in providing many of the shell graves I’ve seen scattered across Alabama. Maybe they weren’t just randomly made after all. I’ve posted it on its side so you can get a better idea of what it looks like flat on the ground.

From Shells to Cast Iron

According to another article I found from 1872, Joseph Abrams had been promoting the Meley grave mounds but was leaving Greenville for a time to market his own new invention, the cast iron grave cover. Unlike Meley, Abrams took the grave mound covering idea to a new level by replacing a mound of cement-bonded sea shells with a longer-lasting cast iron cover with the goal of providing protection for the grave mound.

It’s my belief that Meley’s 1868 invention inspired intrepid inventor Joseph Abrams to go one step further. I think it’s fascinating that Abrams knew all about shell graves, was promoting them in the state, then got into the “grave cover” game himself.

Take a look at this list of patents I found. Both Abrams and Meley are listed.

Abrams was in business with a gentleman named Dr. J.P. Amerine (who is also buried at Mangolia Cemetery) to sell his grave covers. I found a few 1873 articles promoting their enterprise. I don’t know where they had them made but it’s possible manufacturing took place in Birmingham or nearby Montgomery.

This time when I took a look on Newspapers.com, I found ads for Abrams “metallic grave covers” in several newspapers. Here’s one in the Moulton (Ala.) Advertiser from July 25, 1878. You cannot imagine how excited I was to finally find an ad for one! It’s further proof that Abrams contracted with agents in various states to sell his invention during the 1870s.

Despite his efforts, I don’t think Abrams made much money from selling his grave covers. Dr. Amerine died in 1876. In the years to come, most of the news I found about Abrams concerned his civic involvement in Greenville and his thriving insurance business.

Joseph Abrams died at the age of 62 on Oct. 5, 1893. Laura died 10 years later in 1903. I was very curious to see if any of the Abrams family had a cast iron grave cover but none buried in the plot did. Since the earliest death in the plot is for Joseph in 1893, it’s my guess they simply didn’t make them any longer.

Joseph and Laura are buried with two of their daughters. Lida Abrams Moody died at 44 in Ocala, Fla. in March 1900. Her sister, Dixie Abrams Howard, died five years later in 1905 at age 45. Dixie’s daughter, Kate Abrams Howard, never married and died in 1953. She is buried beside her mother. Their oldest child, Benjamin H. Abrams, was an insurance agent like his father and died in 1910 at age 53 in Atlanta, Ga. and is buried in Westview Cemetery.

The Short Life of Sidney Johnson

Near the Abrams family plot is a nice specimen of an Abrams grave cover. You may remember last week that I featured Jake McGeHee, a Greenville merchant. His nephew, son of his sister Emily McGeHee Johnson, was Sidney Johnson. Sidney was born on Sept. 20, 1873 and died almost a year later on Sept. 18, 1874.

Although Sidney’s nameplate did break off, it is still with the grave so we know that it’s his grave.

“Her Pure Spirit Has Gone to Rest”

This cast iron grave cover I wanted to share with you is probably the nicest one in the cemetery. At first, I thought it was for one individual but it appears that Callie is probably not alone.

Born on 18, 1853, Callie was the daughter of Comer Watts Knight and Catherine Priscilla Reid Knight. On Nov. 18, 1872, at age 19, she married Greenville druggist Robert Payne. She gave birth to a baby on Oct. 4, 1874 and died a few hours later. According to her death notice, the child died the following day. I believe they are buried together.

The finial to the top of Calliei’s grave cover is missing. I suspect it was a shell. But her nameplate is still attached to her grave cover.

I learned that there was a good reason Callie has a cast iron grave cover. Her husband, Robert Payne, sold them at his drugstore in Greenville. Take a look at the ad I found in the Aug. 24, 1876 Greenville Advocate. Note that it mentions that they are “offered at prices that bring them within the reach of the poorest.”

A Life Cut Short

The last cast iron grave cover I’m going to share is for a child. We don’t know Lilly Perdue’s exact birthday but the stone marker that backs up to her grave cover states she was nine months old when she died on Sept. 14, 1870. She was the daughter of Greenville sheriff James H. Perdue and Jane Franklin Perdue.

On the other side of the marker is Lilly’s grave cover. Note that she died in 1870. This was before Abrams had officially patented his cast iron grave cover. I think the Johnsons likely purchased the cover a few years after she died and placed it over her grave. I’ve found this to be the case at other cemeteries even after burials in the late 1860s.

There’s still quite a bit of Magnolia Cemetery you haven’t seen yet. I’ll have more in Part III.