John Shearer: Forest Hills Cemetery In The Spring

Since 1880, Forest Hills Cemetery at the foot of Lookout Mountain in St. Elmo has been a resting place for the dead, including some of Chattanooga’s most distinguished former citizens.

 

But every year when spring arrives, it literally comes to life in a vibrant way. Dogwood trees, azaleas and flowers are in bloom and add even more beauty to the already attractive grounds.

 

And throughout the year, plenty of interesting and architecturally eye-pleasing tombs and monuments can be studied and appreciated. 

 

But perhaps the most interesting features – at least for a local historian -- require a little closer inspection to see.

Those, of course, are the names on the graves and markers of all the distinguished and interesting former residents of Chattanooga.

 

While one could make a very long list of all the noteworthy or well-known people buried there, I visited the cemetery about six months ago looking for the graves of about six people whose lives I had recently or previously researched.

 

I wanted to go back sometime this month with my camera and get some pictures of the tombstones or graves of some of these people, as well as some of the spring greenery for which the cemetery is known. 

 

Well, before I could even get started taking pictures of the graves, I ended up getting sidetracked. It was not only by the dogwoods and azaleas, but also the graves of other familiar Chattanoogans, whose names shine brightly as well in a figurative sense due to their contributions or gifts.

 

As my father, Dr. C. Wayne Shearer, and I drove through the cemetery basically alone late Friday afternoon, I quickly came upon the grave of the Moore family a short distance into the cemetery. This was one of the ones I intended to visit.

 

Buried there are some of the members of the Lovemans department store family, as well as noted former actress and singer Grace Moore. Following her death in a plane crash in Europe in 1947, 6,000 people attended her burial at this now-quiet gravesite.

 

A plastic flower was on her marker, and it seems like I have seen a flower there before. I am not sure if it and the previous ones have been placed there by family members, or by an adoring fan or group of fans passing through town.

 

Also at that family plot is the grave of the younger Grace Moore, the niece of the singer and a former GPS May queen, who died in a car accident in North Carolina in 1960 while in college. This young woman with special outward and inward beauty had decades ahead of her to encourage others.

 

I was intending to next go a few yards ahead and photograph the markers of people like Coca-Cola bottler J.T. Lupton, who died in 1933, and Krystal co-founder R.B. Davenport Jr., who died in 1943. 

 

But I got sidetracked, first by some dogwoods and azaleas up the hill and then by an interesting statue of a man at the Denman family marker.

 

I then returned to my intended journey and eventually took a photo a few feet ahead of the grave of longtime Chattanooga Lookouts executive and businessman Joe Engel, who died in 1969. But not before I turned down a wrong road and stumbled upon a giant snowball bush by the Hudlow grave.

 

From the Engel marker, my journey definitely got off track for good, although I eventually did visit one more grave on my original schedule – that of noted architect R.H. Hunt. Before his death in 1937, he designed hundreds of structures throughout the South, including such Chattanooga buildings as City Hall, the County Courthouse, Memorial Auditorium, the Solomon Federal Building and the current Chattanooga School for Arts and Sciences.

 

A pretty azalea was blooming right beside his grave, as if it had been planted there by someone with the design skills of Mr. Hunt.

 

But before and after visiting his grave, I found quite a few other interesting sights related to the dead Chattanoogans and the spring greenery, which was oh-so alive. I stumbled upon a few items that maybe even family members might not have thought anyone else would notice. 

 

For example, I saw a small Confederate flag by the grave of former Confederate Army chaplain Moses Lee Whitten, who had died in 1893. It was one of several graves I noticed throughout the cemetery decorated with small Confederate flags, likely by a group like the Sons of Confederate Veterans or United Daughters of the Confederacy.

 

Of course, Forest Hills is very much a melting pot cemetery of Chattanooga and is also the burial place of Union veterans as well as plenty of black and white Chattanoogans and those of other ethnicities.

 

The diversity represented by the graves was also found in a row of pretty purple irises that were blooming right amongst some poison ivy that was coming out for the year. Talk about strange garden bedfellows!

 

Near the flowers was the marker of Margaret Martin that was off its stone base. Needless to say, it needed to be fixed.

 

Also within that same area or near the Hunt marker a few yards farther into the cemetery, I saw several interesting statues, including one to the Trewhitt family, as well as the marker to Hattie Ackerman. She was the nurse who had tragically died trying to help people during the infamous Yellow Fever outbreak of 1878 in Chattanooga.

 

Near her statue, a giant tree had recently fallen and had been cut up and removed. Some sawdust and a giant hole in the road caused by the fall were still noticeable. 

 

Between looks at and taking pictures of the azaleas of different colors, I also stumbled upon the grave of Gustavus Miller of the Miller Bros. department store family. I learned he had the same birthday I do -- Sept. 4, although he was born 102 years before me!

 

I also saw the graves of the McCallie School founders and their extended family. One that caught my eyes was the grave of James Park McCallie Jr., the son of one of the founders. He had died in 1911 at the age of only 6, and I became curious wondering about the circumstances of his death.

 

One of the last graves that caught my eye before I realized it was time to leave and eat supper was that of J.B. Pound, who had operated the Chattanooga News and such hotels as the Hotel Patten. An obelisk-style family marker stood sentinel over the individual Pound family markers, as did a pretty azalea.

 

Perhaps the examples of greenery that caught my eyes the most, though, even though they were only temporary, were the several pots of giant Easter lilies that were placed by the nearby markers of the Hutcheson family. I believe those were the tallest and prettiest Easter lilies I have ever seen. Maybe the family will come back and get them and plant them in memory of their beloved family members, as they seemed too pretty to let sit there and dry out and die.

 

Spring seems to live on eternally at Forest Hills Cemetery, and I was glad I had a chance to be reminded of that again on Friday.

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net