Like all of South Georgia, Long County saw what was likely record snowfall from Winter Storm Enzo. Amazingly, similar snowfall occurred in the area in 2018. Some random landmarks from throughout the week are shared below, most of which are in Ludowici. I’ll also be sharing some nature-based images from Griffin Ridge.
Liberty County received historic snowfall on Tuesday night as a result of Winter Storm Enzo, a weather system that brought blizzard conditions to the Gulf Coast and lower Southeast. I’m sharing a few random landmarks from my local rambles of the past week. My only regret is that I couldn’t photograph everything. I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed making them. I’ll be sharing some shots from Long County, as well.
Janisse Ray welcomes patrons and friends to Cedar Grove. Paintings by her husband, Raven Waters, line the walls of the church.
Janisse Ray is known for her thoughtful books that seamlessly weave narrative with an appreciation for our fragile natural environment and over the years she’s been a fearless advocate for fostering community involvement in her beloved South Georgia.
Cedar Grove Methodist Church
One of her causes has been the restoration of Cedar Grove Methodist Church, which she now owns with her husband, Raven Waters. It has been a labor of love for Janisse, who has devoted many hours raising money and locating carpenters and artisans to complete the project. I’ve proudly served on the board with her, though Janisse has made it all happen.
Lindsey Levine, Alec Bruns, and Lucki Wilkerson accompanied Janisse as she read a poem dedicated to Cedar Grove
When Hurricane Helene roared through Tattnall County this past September, the work was nearly complete. Javier Ramos had just put the finishing touches on exterior repairs when the storm came.
Walter Parks
Janisse shared the following on her Substack account: “Surveying the damage after a hurricane is like waking up after surgery. You’re bleary-eyed and half crazed, but you’ve got to see what’s forever gone…I found that the damage was relatively minor. A few trees down, a few holes in roof…Thanks to a lot of generous people, the church got a roof for 12K. Then it got handmade windows, built by an 80-year-old carpenter. Then a new pulpit. Then all the repairs inside were finished. Every one of those jobs has a story. The roof story was told in “A Roof for Cedar Grove” a segment of Saving Grace, which aired on Georgia Public Broadcasting…”
Walter Parks and Swamp Cabbage
Undaunted, Janisse acted quickly to raise more funds to remove fallen trees and put the finishing touches on Cedar Grove. On 14 December 2024, she hosted a lunch at Red Earth Farm and then treated patrons to a concert inside the church, featuring Walter Parks, who once toured the world with Woodstock opening act and musician extraordinaire Richie Havens. Walter’s band Swamp Cabbage accompanied him.
Author Janisse Ray has led the effort to save historic Cedar Grove Methodist Church
Janisse first learned of Walter’s work in a New York Times article detailing his use of historic hollers from the Okefenokee Swamp in his music. This wasn’t lost on Janisse, who has long championed the swamp and its folklife. And it somehow seemed appropriate for celebrating an historic country church. I’m constantly inspired by Janisse Ray and am grateful for the community she’s created in her corner of Tattnall County.
Wishing everyone a safe and happy 2025! It’s been another great year traveling around Georgia, looking for the obscure, as well as the well-known places and people that make our state so interesting. As always, I’m grateful to you all for coming along with me. From murder and mayhem (always popular for some reason) to soul food and some preservation success stories, I think I covered a lot this year.
James Earl Carter, Jr. (1 October 1924-29 December 2024)
As I read reports of President Carter’s transition into hospice care, I recalled my personal encounters with him with great fondness, and was not surprised to read so many tributes to him from all walks of life and political persuasions.
When I first began seriously pursuing photography, I entered and won a contest sponsored by the National Park Service, focused on photographs of the president’s boyhood home in Archery. The prize was a book signed by Mr. Carter. I felt I had come full circle as I had first visited the property during its dedication in November 2000. It was a wet and miserable day, but an overflow crowd gathered under a huge tent, eagerly listening to Mr. Carter’s reminisces about his life there. Since then, I’ve felt a fondness for the place that many others who have visited feel.
I was also privileged to visit Maranatha Baptist Church, like countless thousands of others over the years, and hear one of Mr. Carter’s Sunday School lessons. It was a moving experience, which I will always count among the greatest days of my life. There’s no way you could attend one of those special Sunday services and not understand what a good man he was. No one, certainly not Jimmy Carter, thought he was a saint, but his good works elevated him to a place few of us are able to reach. For his inspiration, I will be forever grateful.
Dixon Cemetery in Ben Hill County is notable, due to its large number of extant fieldstone grave markers and gravesites that incorporate commercial sculpted stone elements.
It is identified on Findagrave as Dixon Cemetery #1, to distinguish it from another Dixon Cemetery (#2) in the Queensland community. There is also a Dickson Cemetery, near Ashton.
Fieldstones and other available natural stones are among the earliest forms of grave marking throughout the world and are quite common in Georgia.
It’s less common, however, to find them in great numbers in any one cemetery and in more modern cemeteries they often get pushed over and lost among newer markers.
The markers at Dixon Cemetery are sandstone, or a similar soft stone, and therefore are most threatened by erosion. Marble and granite markers in North Georgia have a greater likelihood of long-term survival.
Since the stones lack any identifying elements of the decedents they memorialize, they present a real challenge to genealogists and family members trying to locate burials. The decedent may be associated with a particular stone from one generation to the next, but this information is usually lost to later generations.
In addition to the fieldstones, there are three other gravesites which make use of commercial sculpted stone. This stand-alone marker was probably co-opted from the coping used around the gravesite seen in the next photograph.
Rev. W. M. Bailey (1835-1903)
Though they are dependent on manufactured material, the effect is vernacular.
The “white bronze” Taylor grave marker, better known as a “zinky”, seems out of place in Dixon Cemetery, though these were sold nationally through agents of the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut and can be found throughout America. This particular example has rusted over the years.
George W. Taylor grave marker.
Commercial markers are present, as well.
Of the identified burials in this cemetery (the earliest dating to 1900), there are a few more Walkers than Dixons, but I believe the earliest burials are those marked by fieldstones, which likely have a connection to the Dixon family. The Walker and Dixon families were also related.
It’s strange how an otherwise nondescript structure can become a landmark, but that’s just what this little shed, sided with blue shingles, was for me. Located at the Mobley Bluff Road, just off the Ocmulgee River, it appears to have been a pump house or shed of some sort. I drove past it hundreds of times over the years. It was recently lost to Hurricane Helene. This photograph was made circa 2008.
This tobacco barn is located on the farm adjoining my family’s farm and my father remembers working in the packhouse across Evergreen Road when he was a boy. Tobacco was a labor intensive crop that required lots of hands and skilled workers who knew how to navigate the steps and who could stand the hot sticky atmosphere of the barns.
This replaces a post originally published on 19 December 2008.
This house was located in western Ben Hill County in the Aster or Sunflower Road area, near Arp. The photograph was made in 2004 and the house was razed soon thereafter. Unfortunately, this is the best quality file I’ve been able to locate. I’m re-editing my Ben Hill County images now and am republishing this (a different version was originally published in 2008) with the hope that someone will know more about the house. It was one of the special places that inspired the work I do now.
This mural has recently been exposed by the removal of its structure’s outer walls. It wasn’t a stretch to determine it was a pool room.
It’s located on the south side of Arabi and was once part of a business that included a 3-bay garage.
The mural is unsigned as best I can tell, but the artist is quite talented.
The focal point is a buxom woman smoking a pipe, surrounded by raucous children, while trying to shoot a game of pool with earth standing in for the cue ball and the planets filling out the rack.
This child is sliding down one of her buttocks.
The images above and below show two plump children swinging on the pool cue, which the artist has depicted as a tree branch.
The illustrations are a blend of different influences, from early comic art to Mad magazine and a little of everything else.
This snaggle-toothed toddler seems terrified as he sits helpless between the woman’s red shoes and striped socks.
And this youngster seems interested in nothing but his lollipop.
I’d love to know more about this mural and the artist. The whole structure has seen better days and it may not be around forever.
