Dear editor,
I really enjoyed the nice article Joyce Kramer did on William Peabody. My husband, Bill Fleming’s third great grandfather. If you attended the first Oak City Cemetery Tour, you saw Bill portraying him. I was flattered that Kramer used the information I submitted to the “Decatur County Past and Present,” book. Had I known she was doing the article, I would have provided her with William Peabody’s portrait.
While recently doing research in Oak City Cemetery, I began thinking what a shame we have lost the markers for so many that are buried there. The city has done a wonderful job of cleaning the cemetery by unfortunately, it seems many graves that were marked with brick have been removed and put in piles. I’m sure the workers thought they were just loose bricks and did not realize many of them were marking graves. Many other graves are still marked with brick or their markers are unreadable.
members of the Decatur County Genealogical Society have taken on the project of trying to identify the unknown graves in the cemetery. We are asking for the help of the descendants of anyone who has family buried there. If you can provide information on anyone that you know to be buried there, whose grave is no longer visible, please notify the society at Decogensoc@aol.com or call (229)-246-6327.
If you would like to donate money to help purchase markers, your donations are tax deductible as the society is chartered as a non-profit organization. You can mail your donations to Decatur County Genealogical Society, Inc. P.O. Box 1388, Bainbridge GA 39818.
Since Kramer had a hard time reading the Peabody headstone, I would like to include the transcription here. For a stone that is well over 150 years old, it is still readable.

Sacred
To the memory of
William Peabody
Who departed this life
May 10, 1852
Aged 45 years

It must be so Our father Adam’s fall
And disobedience brought this lot on all
All die in him but hopeless should we be.
Blest Revelation, were it not for three.

Hail glorious Gospel; heavenly light where
We live with comfort, and with comfort die.
And view beyond this gloomy scene the tomb.
A life of endless happiness to come.

Sadly, the iron fence no longer encloses the grave. Our family has plans to have it replaced in the not too distant future.

Shirley Fleming
President of the Decatur County Genealogical Society