I was recently down in Zebulon, Georgia for the Slow Exposures photography shows and events, which were all just super magical and wonderful and fun. I can’t recommend this event enough. So many talented folks and it feels like the whole town is involved and supportive, and there was a local bookstore that rocked it. Anyhoo, go next year! You won’t regret it. And I’m saying all this without any prompt or $ or anything from Slow Exposures. I went as a guest and I just want its continued success.

Ok, back to cemetery stuff. On the way down to the events I took a route that was new-to-me and I drove past sooo many roadside cemeteries. But I was on a time crunch and just had to watch them zip by my window and into the rearview mirror. I’ll go back one day soon, I pinky swear!

My trip back home was much more loosey-goosey and I was able to stop by two cemeteries in Griffin that I had bookmarked. I was trying find the possible burial spot of a historically famous person and the very definite burial spot of his sister. I found both but I also found some incredible funerary art that I have to share as well…

Historic Oak Hill Cemetery

Let’s kick it off with that funerary art I was talking about!

The person buried here had a long naval history as evidenced by the 4 foot long anchor and the seashells scattered about. His retirement farmland inspired Sidney Lanier, a fairly famous poet of olde from Saint Simons Island, to write one of his most popular poems…Corn. Here’s an excerpt:

“I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence
Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,
Contests with stolid vehemence
The march of culture, setting limb and thorn
As pikes against the army of the corn.”

It’s quite long but very lovely. The whole poem can be found here.

A tree stump tombstone with these Dutch styled tulips on the side. I have a tulip tattoo that looks wildly similar so I was very happy to find this one!

The grave of ‘Little Sister’ August Madeleine Mc Williams. She has quite the collection of sweet grave goods – kitties, bird baths, toys, live plants. Her monument is prominently used in advertising for the cemetery…

And now for the famous folks! Supposedly Mr. “I’m your huckleberry” himself ‘Doc’ Holliday is buried here although it’s a hotly contested topic since Glenwood Springs, Colorado has long had a grave bearing his name. Same goes for his father Henry who, as the sign claims, decided to be buried next to his son and not where his current grave marker sits next to first wife Alice in Valdosta, Ga. Supposedly Henry moved Doc’s remains from Colorado to Griffin so he’d be closer to the family land…

Sorry for these very bleh photos but these graves are fields with no shade, I only had my phone, and I was facing the setting sun and blinded as all get out.

New Oak Cemetery

Down the street you’ll find a number of monuments for various wars as well as New Oak Cemetery. Buried there is Doc Holliday’s older sister Martha who died at only six months old. It’s said that Martha’s death changed the dynamic of the family, especially for the mother, Alice, and drove them closer to religion.

More Holliday Family History

Did you know that Doc had an older brother? That Doc was (supposedly) in love with his cousin? A cousin who inspired a literary character in one of the most popular books of all time?

Francisco E. Dalgo, known as Francis, was born in Mexico and orphaned during the US-Mexican War and with no locatable family, he was brought back to the states by veteran Henry Burroughs Holliday and raised by him and his new wife, Alice Jane McKey Holliday. He thus became the older adopted brother of John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday. He died of tuberculosis, which also caused the deaths of his adopted mother and brother. Francis’ funeral was attended by his wife and children as well as Doc and his cousin Mary Melanie (b. Martha Ann) Holliday, reputed to be the lost love of Doc’s, and the source for the character of Melanie Wilkes in Gone With The Wind, as she was also a cousin of author Margaret Mitchell. – findagrave.com

Francis is buried in the graveyard of the small town church he founded on the county line in Jenkinsburg, Ga.

Martha Ann aka Mary Melanie, which is her religious name after she joined a convent in Savannah and that explains why Mitchell may have given the character of Melanie such a saintly demeanor, died in Atlanta after many years of service to the church and is buried at Westview Cemetery.