Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia
October 4, 2017
Mary Ellen Rabon Moore invited our high school classmates to visit her, and she would give us a guided tour of the historic Oakland Cemetery in downtown Atlanta. I have known Mary since first grade. I had met her husband Jerry briefly at a get-together in Shelby last year, and enjoyed getting to know him better during this trip. Betty, Pam, and Nancy were the other classmates who also came. I remembered them all from high school, but Pam reminded us that she was with Mary and me for the first two years of elementary school.
I didn't want to do the drive down by myself, so I was glad that my friend Tim decided to join us. He had a computer to deliver on the way and thought he might get some other things accomplished in the area, but he wound up staying with us old folks. (He did get work done on his computer during the trip and answered phone calls from clients.)
Mary served us a delicious brunch, and then we headed out in the afternoon and rode MARTA into downtown. Tim inexplicably had his camera set to take small pictures. I took regular-sized shots, reduced a bit for posting here. So I don't need to point out whose pictures are which. You can view the cemetery's web site here for more information.
I assume that the 1896 date is when the gate was built. The cemetery itself was started on six acres in 1850.
Pictured are Tim, Pam, Betty, and Mary. I meant for Nancy to be in the picture, too, but she was also taking pictures.
Mary told us that Queen Victoria introduced the idea of the garden cemetery.
The first "resident" of the cemetery was Dr. James Nissen.
This was a gate house.
Maynard Jackson was the first African-American mayor of Atlanta.
Margaret Mitchell, of course, was the author of Gone with the Wind.
You can see the gold dome of the state capitol. It is a mile from the cemetery.
The next two shots show Confederate graves. Most here were killed during the Battle of Atlanta.
The mortally wounded Lion of Atlanta honors the unknown war dead buried here.
The original African-American section of the cemetery was moved farther out to give more prime real estate for the whites.
Most of the graves are unmarked.
In the Jewish section is the mausoleum for Dr. Jacobs, who owned the pharmacy where a tonic was invented.
It became Coca-Cola.
The Orthodox Jews came later. Their graves are much narrower.
It is a custom for golfers to leave a golf ball at the grave of Bobby Jones.
A mother and daughter
