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Perry Cemetery Has An Angel Land
By Maxine Thompson
Some call it Baby
and others Angel Land. It's a
little twenty by forty foot
section of Evergreen
Cemetery in Perry dotted
with tiny cement slabs
marking the graves of
babies.
This summer, each grave
has a container of colorful
plastic flowers on it, placed
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Offices in: PERRY • FORT VALLEY-HAWKINSVILLE -WARNER ROBINS
there without fanfare or
publicity, and those who see
them feel the donor or donors
can’t bear seeing the little
graves looking so bare and
alone.
Usually the graves of
babies are seen in a
cemetery plot with those of
adults, members of their
families, and while the little
graves are tragic they don’t
seem so forelom snuggled
closely beside big ones.
Special times make
special cases, it seems.
During World War 11, before
it became an Air Force
Base, the Warner Robins Air
Technical Service Com
mand, called Robins Field,
contracted with Watson and
Whipple Funeral H me of
Perry to handle
arrangement for all military
Some Call It Baby Land
deaths, whether the
deceased were to be buried
here or shipped back home.
The funeral home was
owned and operated by
Gardner Watson, presently a
partner in Watson-Hunt
Funeral Home here, and
Wendell K. Whipple, Perry
insurance agency operator.
Sometimes infants born to
wives of servicemen at the
base hospital were stillborn
or died during their first few
days after birth. The
grieving young couple often
didn’t know what to do; they
didn’t own a cemetery plot
back home, didn’t have the
funds to ship the little body
back there; and had no idea
how long they would be in
this area or where they
would eventually settle.
To assist them in their
plight, Watson and Whipple
Funeral Home bought two
twenty by twenty foot lots,
the popular size then, for
‘‘about $25 each,” and buried
the babies there without
charge.
‘‘They’re all buried in
concrete vaults, in case their
families ever decided to
have them moved,” Whipple
said, “but to my knowledge
none were ever moved.”
Gardner Watson said he
thought about twenty infants
were buried there, and that
there are spaces still vacant
for about a dozen more.
Some of the graves are
marked; others are not.
“The funeral home used to
take special care to see that
the lots were kept clean, but
sometimes when we’d go out
to clear them we’d find
somebody had already been
out and cleaned them up. I
guess people sort of took this
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Only tiny babies are buried on two adjoining lots section to be called “Baby Land” or “Angel
in Evergreen Cemetery in Perry, causing this Land.”
I ISSUES AND ANSWERS I
fl 1. Give some examples of unfairness by the state of Georgia in dealing with local I
I communities and taxpayers. fl
fl The most glaring example is state control of ad valorem tax equalization at the fl
fl county level. Houston County taxpayers are due to be “equalized” soon by the fl
fl state and this will either force the county to assess a sizeable property tax in- fl
fl crease or cause an undue amount of work by local government to re-calculate fl
fl and adjust the millage rate to prevent such increase. fl
fl Another example is the state’s continuous insistence on collecting an income fl
fl ‘‘tax on tax” by refusing to deduct Federal Income Tax before calculating State fl
fl Income Tax. Georgians annually pay an estimated ten (10) million dollar over- fl
fl charge through this little gimmick. fl
fl 2. What about the supreme court’s ruling on the Georgia death penalty case last fl
fl week? fl
fl Predictably confusing. One man was quoted as saying, “It has restored some fl
fl of my faith in the supreme court”. The man is a former law officer convicted in fl
fl 1966 of hand-cuffing three Gwinnett County policemen together before executing fl
fl them in gangland fashion. New legislation must be enacted. Let’s try to make the fl
fl legislation a solution to rather than a part of the problem. Allowing parole after fl
fl (serving only) seven years of a life sentence probably needs to be changed. The fl
B court left the door open tor retaining the death penalty for certain crimes. What fl
fl crimes should be included? Let me know how you feel about this subject. fl
fl NEXT WEEK: Lobbyists, Lawyers, Courthouse Movers, an Abortion. fl
I State Representative District 100 I
I ?°I E elect I
fl I \#|\ ■ ■ Political Ad Paid fl
fl for by Citizens fl
fl for Sumner fl
I KEVIN SUMMER I
■ "SPONSORED BY AND OBLIGATED ONLY TO THE PEOPLE” fl
PAGE 6-A
on as a sentimental
project,’” Whipple said.
Children who see the
special little section of the
old cemetery, the oldest in
Perry, seem attracted to it.
Neither Watson nor Whipple
PERRY, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1972
had anv idea how it became
known as Baby Land or
Angel Land, but it is possible
some of these children
started using those names
when they referred to it.
One mother here who goes
to the cemetery frequently to
keep the graves ot her
mother, father and other
relatives in good shape said
that her small son never
leaves the cemetery without
first visiting Angel Land.