Y’all. Y’ALL! My trip to Westview was amazing but with almost 600 acres, 125000 folks buried here and that mausoleum/abbey/chapel I barely scratched the surface during my tour. Once the Georgia temps cool off again (so, November?) I’ll be back to continue my looksies…
Westview is the largest cemetery in the Southeast and one of the largest non-profit cemeteries in the United States, and it has some lovely examples of funerary art from various decades…
Photo above
‘The Spirit of Achievement’ is a memorial for Jesse Parker Williams and Cora Best Taylor Williams. Both Cora and the memorial itself have VERY interesting stories.
Jesse is best known as being a timber and railroad magnet and after his passing in 1913 his wife Cora inherited most everything in his expansive portfolio. That included the Georgia Florida Alabama Railroad which made Cora the first global female railroad president of such a large holding. Cora lived another 11 years after her husband, and during that time she became not only a successful businesswoman but a notable philanthropist to a number of organizations which are still operating to this day.
The memorial monument was created by American sculptor Daniel Chester French and American Beaux-Arts architect Henry Bacon. If those names seem somewhat familiar to you, it might be because in 1920 they were the artistic team behind the creation of the iconic Lincoln Memorial statue.
Adrien Esmilaire, born in Lorraine, France, became known the globe over as “Little Mabb.” Advertised as the Smallest Man in the World, he was traveling with the Johnny Jones Exposition when he fell ill and died while on tour in Atlanta in 1918. Officially, Adrian died of influenza but those that like to spin yarns have also thrown out the idea that he actually died of a broken heart when his love Alma, also in the Exposition, passed away a few months prior.
His original tombstone was a small statue inscribed in French but it was stolen many years prior. After its disappearance a simple stone marker was placed on his grave. However in 2022 this new stone was dedicated to him and is engraved with a portrait of him at his actual size.
The mausoleum is undergoing a restoration but wowwwww was it kind of eerie…
The chapel in the abbey, built in the mid-1940’s, is considered the highlight of the cemetery! It was small, ornate and (blessedly) cool…
