To be a final resting place, Historic Oakland Cemetery is beaming with life. I recently visited for the second time, specifically to see the grave site of the world famous Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind. The first time I went, there was a film crew in the area and I couldn't get so close.
What a gratifying experience...as much as I've been studying her, being at her grave site gave me an odd sense of connection—more so than through some of the artifacts I've had the great pleasure of seeing up close.
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| Margaret Mitchell's grave site, Historic Oakland Cemetery |
Margaret Mitchell's final resting place is fairly modest, especially compared to some of the other ornately sculpted and gargantuan grave markers. But actually, of all who are buried at Oakland Cemetery, I would venture to say that Margaret Mitchell has the greatest global celebrity—not that it's a competition.
She is, however, in some great company, including golf legend Bobby Jones, Atlanta's first African-American major Maynard Jackson, six Georgia governors, and 3,000 unknown Confederate soldiers...and thousands more.
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery, final resting place of Margaret Mitchell |
One of the very cool aspects of where Margaret Mitchell is buried—which is a family plot where her husband was later laid to rest next to her—is that you can also see the Georgia-Pacific Building (above photo, building on the left), which is where the Loew's Grand Theatre once stood—home of the premier of Gone With the Wind.
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery |
Historic Oakland Cemetery is a beautiful Victorian garden cemetery, and so much more—and I highly recommend exploring it, fully—but right now I'd like to talk a bit about Margaret's life.
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery |
So many people connect with Margaret Mitchell through Gone With the Wind the book or the movie, but she was a fairly complex person, well beyond the complexities of being a 1937 Pulitzer Prize winning author alone.
Hers is a wonderful story.
Gone With the Wind very likely would not have come about had it not been for multiple injuries, beginning with a horse riding injury Margaret sustained as a child.
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery |
But, before I go further, let me clarify the various names Margaret went by throughout her life. She was baptized Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell, which is what her family and friends knew her as up until the time she went to college.
Not too long after returning to Atlanta after a year a Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, she secured a writing job at the Atlanta Journal and went by the pen name "Peggy Mitchell." She later married John Marsh and was then known as Margaret Mitchell Marsh, although it's said by her friends that she really preferred to be called Mrs. John Marsh.
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery |
Although a prolific writer—she'd been writing since she could hold a pencil, known for her plays and poetry at a very early age—and a voracious reader—she read practically everything at her nearby public library—she was a far cry from an introvert.
As a matter of fact, she loved to entertain and she loved adventure...she was fearless as far as I can figure. For example, when she took the job at the Atlanta Journal, she once let herself be swung out of a window in a sling to see how the workmen would feel who were carving the Confederate Memorial on the face of Stone Mountain. Now that's gumption!
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery |
Even more importantly, and probably the thing that I admire most about her, Margaret Mitchell was a very caring and compassionate person. She cared for all kinds of people—particularly people in distress—and not just with her words. Actually, a lot of her generosity and charity went unknown until well after her death.
For the longest time, a local federal prison held an annual Margaret Mitchell Memorial Contest, for prose and poetry—she obviously had an impact on the inmates' lives. Another count of her generosity was funding scholarships for African-American medical students at Morehouse College—with the stipulation that they practice medicine here in Atlanta. She never met any of the recipients, but again, made a significant contribution. These stories go on and on!
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery |
Margaret was very modest about her celebrity...she always wanted to be just a regular Atlanta citizen. As starstruck as I would be if I had met her, I know I would have loved her even more upon discovering that she was just a regular citizen. What an amazing feat that was to have achieved when Hollywood was at its height of celebrity fanfare!
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| Historic Oakland Cemetery |
Small in stature—she was all of 5-feet tall (My grandmother was 4'9", so I know just how tiny Margaret was!)—she is even this many decades after her passing one of the biggest celebrities the world has ever known...I wonder if she knew just how famous she was. Certainly, selling more than a million copies of her book in the first 1.5 years was an indicator, and that had not been done before, so...her modesty was truly admirable.
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| Margaret Mitchell's grave site, Historic Oakland Cemetery |
You know, Margaret Mitchell totally sounds like someone I would have loved to have known. Her kindness, her modesty, her sense of adventure—in life and in writing...what a great friend she must have been.
Margaret's remains may be at rest, but she is alive and well in the hearts of millions of fans around the world.
Now, back to reading Gone With the Wind...
Thank you for reading. Please enjoy the other installments in my Gone With the Wind Trail series (July 1-5, 2013)…
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