Monday, January 20, 2014

Our newly weds had to say goodbye last night, so this morning, Elder Gowans took Brother Priddy to the airport. Sister Priddy has about 6 weeks left in her training before she will join him at Fort Riley, KS.

After returning home, we decided to go see a few things that we hadn't yet visited. Our first stop was the Walton home. George Walton was one of three signers of the Declaration of Independence from the state of Georgia. The home was always in the name of his son in case something should ever happen to him, that way they would never lose the home. Here are some photos of the home, I believe the tour guide said it was the oldest home in Augusta.

 Our photo in front of the house

 I think you would agree it is a nice looking home
 
Our tour guide telling us to duck as we go under the porch to get into the basement
 The back of the house with a bell in the foreground and a model of the home on the back porch
After visiting the Walton home, we drove to see a large Catholic church in the downtown area, but it was closed. So we drove across the street for a little lunch and then we drove down broad street to see the memorial for the Confederate war soldiers. From there we visited the grave site and memorial for two of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Nation Guard memorial. 
 The monument stands, I would guess, 50 feet tall; I've taken pictures all around it so you can see all the different carvings. 




 Across the street from the Memorial is the Imperial Theater where we watched the Nutcracker for the last two Christmases. 


 Below is the monument to the three signers of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia. 


 Below is the Nation Guard monument 



From here we went to St. Paul's Episcopal church and cemetery. It is the oldest cemetery in Augusta with graves as old as the 1500s, at least that was what we were told; the oldest we saw was 1793. The site used to be Fort Augusta and Fort Cornwallis.
 You will notice that most of the grave sites, tombstones and so forth are not kept up at all. They are all in a state of decay. You would think that someone would take some action to keep them taken better care of. 








From this point, we drove to the Magnolia Cemetery. What an incredible place! After seeing this cemetery you can tell why cemeteries have a bad reputation for being spooky! I'd hate to be in this place at night. The monuments are incredible; there are Jewish sections, Civil war sections for both Confederate and Yankee dead. There are large family plots and so forth. 
 This series of photos are headstones of civil war dead. It appears that some family members of replaced the small head stones with larger newer ones. 


 A close up example of how simple they are.

 From these couple of photos, you can see how large the cemetery is.

 Below is a group of Civil war Brigader General's gravesites.

 Above is the Yankee dead
 Below is an interesting family plot

 Above, I thought these were interesting grave sites and below this Jewish family all had crowns engraved on their stones. 
 Below is some examples of the direpair many are falling into



 Below is another Jewish sector


 Above is the inside of the mosalium; there were 8 tombs inside


Below is a video of the cemetery and Sister Gowans feeding our little grandchildren.


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