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Interments 2000 -2007

9-16-2000. Mary Humes Meadors July 1, 1913 – Sept. 14, 2000
Section 18. Boyd Lot. Lot 8
Harlan Perry Howard September 8, 1927 - March 3, 2002
Section 20  Lot 21
9-1-2007. Gaytha Lamb-Luck May 4, 1944 – Aug. 30, 2007
Section 4. Martin C. Cotton Lot. Lot 2
 

Sextons & Years of Service

1822 – 1846 Alpha Kingsley
1847 – 1848 Smith Criddle
1849 – 1854 Benjamin Clements
1855 – 1862 Martin O. Cotton
1862 - T. M. McBride
1862 – 1865 George W. Norvell
1868 - James W. Pratt
1874 – 1879 Daniel M. Martin
1880 – 1888 William T. Perry
1889 – 1911 Daniel M. Martin
1912 – 1917 John B. Norman
1918 – 1937 Charles H. Wallace
1937 – 1944 Delbert C. Puckett
1948 – 1955 Robert I. Taylor
1956 – 1974 Douglas A. Pardue
1977 – 1978 Wesley Paine, Metro Board of Parks
1979 – 1982 Naomi Levia, Metro Board of Parks
1982 – present Metro Historical Commission

List of Sextons prepared by Carole Bucy. 2000

Sexton. The job of the Sexton at the City Cemetery was difficult. He was in charge of arrangements for all burials, in having the graves dug prior to funerals and filled after interments, in keeping the Interment Books and in collecting the fees for burials. During periods of Epidemics this was unending work. We must be grateful to the endeavors of the Sextons in faithfully keeping the Interment Books at the City Cemetery so that we have knowledge of the many people who were buried in this cemetery. Today of the 19,745 burials in the Interment Books, only a fraction have tombstones. Of the 3,000 tombstones in the cemetery, in 2006, only 2000 tombstones had legible inscriptions.

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Local Undertakers and Funeral Homes

Bracey - Welch
Cole & Garrett
Combs, M. S. & Co.
Cosmopolitan
Cornelius, C. R.
Eastland
Finley - Dorris
Grooms, R. H.
Grooms & Combs
Martin
Marshall
McCombs
Peters & Pisen
Pettus-Owens
Roach, John C. & Co.
W. R. C. & Co. (W.R. Cornelius & Co.)
 

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Glossary of Ancient Diseases
(www.olivetreegenealogy.com)

Abscess: A localized collection of pus buried in tissues, organs, or confined spaces of the body, often accompanied by swelling and inflammation and frequently caused by bacteria. See boil.

Addison's disease: A disease characterized by severe weakness, low blood pressure, and a bronzed coloration of the skin, due to decreased secretion of cortisol from the adrenal gland. Synonyms: Morbus addisonii, bronzed skin disease.

Ague: Malarial or intermittent fever characterized by paroxysms (stages of chills, fever, and sweating at regularly recurring times) and followed by an interval or intermission of varying duration. Popularly, the disease was known as "fever and ague," "chill fever," "the shakes," and by names expressive of the locality in which it was prevalent--such as, "swamp fever" (in Louisiana), "Panama fever," and "Chagres fever."

Ague-cake: A form of enlargement of the spleen, resulting from the action of malaria on the system.

American Plague: yellow fever

Anasarca: Generalized massive dropsy. See dropsy.

Apoplexy: paralysis due to stroke

Aphthae: See thrush.

Aphthous stomatitis: See canker.

Ascites: See dropsy.

Asthenia: See debility.

Bad Blood: Syphilis

Bilious fever: A term loosely applied to certain intestinal and malarial fevers. See typhus.

Biliousness: A complex of symptoms comprising nausea, abdominal discomfort, headache, and constipation--formerly attributed to excessive secretion of bile from the liver.

Blood Poisoning: Septicemia

Boil: An abscess of skin or painful inflammation of the skin or a hair follicle usually caused by a staphylococcal infection. Synonym: furuncle.

Brain fever: See meningitis, typhus.

Bright's Disease: Glomerulonephritis (kidney inflammation)

Bronchial asthma: A disorder of breathing, characterized by spasm of the bronchial tubes of the lungs, wheezing, and difficulty in breathing air outward--often accompanied by coughing and a feeling of tightness in the chest.

Camp fever: See typhus.

Cancer: A malignant and invasive growth or tumor. In the nineteenth century, cancerous tumors tended to ulcerate, grew constantly, and progressed to a fatal end and that there was scarcely a tissue they would not invade. Synonyms: malignant growth, carcinoma.

Cancrum otis: A severe, destructive, eroding ulcer of the cheek and lip. In the last century it was seen in delicate, ill-fed, ill-tended children between the ages of two and five. The disease was the result of poor hygiene. It was often fatal. The disease could, in a few days, lead to gangrene of the lips, cheeks, tonsils, palate, tongue, and even half the face; teeth would fall from their sockets. Synonyms: canker, water canker, noma, gangrenous stomatitis, gangrenous ulceration of the mouth.

Canker: An ulcerous sore of the mouth and lips, not considered fatal today. Synonym: aphthous stomatitis. See cancrum otis.

Catalepsy: seizures/trances

Catarrh: Inflammation of a mucous membrane, especially of the air passages of the head and throat, with a free discharge. Bronchial catarrh was bronchitis; suffocative catarrh was croup; urethral catarrh was gleet; vaginal catarrh was leukorrhea; epidemic catarrh was the same as influenza. Synonyms: cold, coryza.

Chlorosis: iron deficiency anemia

Cholera: An acute, infectious disease characterized by profuse diarrhea, vomiting, and cramps. Cholera is spread by feces-contaminated water and food. Major epidemics struck the United States in the years 1832, 1849, and 1866. .

Cholera infantum: A common, noncontagious diarrhea of young children, occurring in summer or autumn. It was common among the poor and in hand-fed babies. Death frequently occurred in three to five days. Synonyms: summer complaint, weaning brash, water gripes, choleric fever of children, cholera morbus.

Chorea: Any of several diseases of the nervous system, characterized by jerky movements that appear to be well coordinated but are performed involuntarily, chiefly of the face and extremities. Synonym: Saint Vitus' dance.

Colic: Paroxysmal pain in the abdomen or bowels. Infantile colic is benign paroxysmal abdominal pain during the first three months of life. Colic rarely caused death. Renal colic can occur from disease in the kidney, gallstone colic from a stone in the bile duct.

Congestion: An excessive or abnormal accumulation of blood or other fluid in a body part or blood vessel. In congestive fever the internal organs become gorged with blood.

Congestive Fever: malaria

Consumption: A wasting away of the body; formerly applied especially to pulmonary tuberculosis. Synonyms: marasmus (in the mid-nineteenth century), phthisis.

Convulsions: Severe contortion of the body caused by violent, involuntary muscular contractions of the extremities, trunk, and head. See epilepsy.

Coryza: See catarrh.

Croup: Any obstructive condition of the larynx (voice box) or trachea (windpipe), characterized by a hoarse, barking cough and difficult breathing occurring chiefly in infants and children. In the early-nineteenth century it was called cynanche trachealis. The crouping noise was similar to the sound emitted by a chicken affected with the pip, which in some parts of Scotland was called roup; hence, probably, the term croup. Synonyms: roup, hives, choak, stuffing, rising of the lights.

Debility: Abnormal bodily weakness or feebleness; decay of strength. This was a term descriptive of a patient's condition and of no help in making a diagnosis. Synonym: asthenia.

Diphtheria: An acute infectious disease acquired by contact with an infected person or a carrier of the disease. It was usually confined to the upper respiratory tract (throat) and characterized by the formation of a tough membrane (false membrane) attached firmly to the underlying tissue that would bleed if forcibly removed. In the nineteenth century the disease was occasionally confused with scarlet fever and croup.

Dropsy: A contraction for hydropsy. The presence of abnormally large amounts of fluid. Congestive heart failure

Dysentery: A term given to a number of disorders marked by inflammation of the intestines (especially of the colon). There are two specific varieties: (1) amebic dysentery (2) bacillary dysentery. Synonyms: flux, bloody flux, contagious pyrexia (fever), frequent griping stools.

Eclampsia: A form of toxemia (toxins--or poisons--in the blood) accompanying pregnancy. See dropsy.

Effluvia: Exhalations. In the mid-nineteenth century, they were called "vapours" and distinguished into the contagious effluvia, such as rubeolar (measles); marsh effluvia, such as miasmata.

Emphysema, pulmonary: A chronic, irreversible disease of the lungs.

Enteric fever: See typhoid fever.

Epilepsy: A disorder of the nervous system, characterized either by mild, episodic loss of attention or sleepiness (petittnal) or by severe convulsions with loss of consciousness (grand mal). Synonyms: falling sickness, fits.

Erysipelas: An disease. Synonyms: Rose, Saint Anthony's Fire (from its burning heat or, perhaps, because Saint Anthony was supposed to cure it miraculously).

Fatty Liver: Cirrhosis

Flux: See dysentery.

Furuncle: See boil.

Gangrene: Death and decay of tissue in a part of the body--usually a limb--due to injury, disease, or failure of blood supply. Synonym: mortification.

Glandular Fever: Mononucleosis

Gleet: See catarrh.

Gravel: A disease characterized by small stones which are formed in the kidneys, passed along the ureters to the bladder, and expelled with the urine. Synonym