Pet Cemetery

  A few miles south of Gainesville, Fl is the "Garden of Love" pet cemetery. It is a couple of acres amongst a beautiful oak grove. It is well maintained and landscaped. There appears to be at least several dozen graves there, each with it's own headstone. I think it has been in business for about 20 years.
  It makes you wonder what it would be like if humans were treated as pets in that your loved ones had a choice of putting you in a nice cemetery or wrapping you in a old sheet and burying you in the back yard.

Entrance to "Garden of Love".

One of several areas in cemetery.

  This past weekend I visited Americus, Ga. which is the location of Oak Grove Cemetery, the oldest active cemetery in Georgia. It is a beautiful place and is the final resting place of many famous Georgians. It is also the first cemetery I've seen that is laid out as it is. Almost all of the graves are within family plots which are marked off by either brick walls or wrought iron fences.It is obviously well tended but apparently this was not always the case. Up until 2003 the cemetery was largely ignored but then a state senator started a drive to clean up and renovate it. In 2007 a large tornado again heavily damaged the graves and grounds and another renovation was done.
  The main reason I visited though was to see my great-great grandfather's grave. A small part of Oak Grove is a Confederate section containing the graves of 129 CSA soldiers who were guards and who had died of diseases at the infamous Andersonville Prison which is 10 miles away. They were originally buried at the prison camp but in 1880 a local ladies society had them transferred to Oak Grove.
  The Andersonville National Historic Site also includes the American Prisoners of War Museum and a national cemetery where most of the Union prisoners who died there were buried. Like any national cemetery other military persons are also buried there.

(top to bottom) Confederate Cemetery, S.C.Carlton, 4th Ga Res., Andersonville National Cemetery, Union Prisoners section.

GCRabbit's Internet Immortality Project

    As I wander through these old graveyards, I am always aware of how many graves there are of young children. In most cases, the grave markers are the only record of their lives. I thought it would be nice if  I could place their names into the vast electronic world of the internet to give them a little bit of immortality. Who knows, maybe some day someone will be searching for a long lost ancestor and happen upon their name here. I will do this as often as possible.
         Armetta P. Cook
         daughter of
          A.W. & M.J. Cook
          Born March 5, 1851

          Died Nov. 19, 1858
   From the Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Oak Ridge Cemetery, Rochelle, Fl.

  Oak Ridge is the final resting place of Madison Starke Perry, his wife Martha and his son Madison Jr. Madison Sr. was the last governor of Florida before the Civil War. At the start of the war he was made a colonel of the Seventh Fla. Regiment of the CSA. However, he had to quit the army two years later due to an illness. He died about two years later and was buried on a plot of land he had already donated to the community for a cemetery. Madison Jr. was also in the cavalry of the CSA. He was only 15 when the war started.

  Perry owned a large plantation in the area of what is now Rochelle. Some years after his passing, his wife started the Martha Perry Institute for girls in Rochelle. It was in use until 1935 and is now on the National Historic Registry under the name of The Rochelle School.