‘Lady in Black’ has sisterly tie to cemetery

Q: Who is the “Lady in Black” memorialized by the plaque at Marietta City Cemetery?

A: The “Lady in Black” marker, located in the cemetery just south of the city’s downtown, honors Lucy Gartrell, a Cobb County native who

d most of her life in Atlanta. Born in 1863, Gartrell was a schoolteacher and musician whose commitment to visiting the grave of her older sister, Mary Annie Gartrell, became well-known in the area.

When Mary Annie, who was 10 years Lucy’s senior, died of pneumonia in 1906, she was buried at the Mari- etta City Cemetery, said Joan Ellars, director of Keep Marietta Beautiful. Though Lucy lived in Atlanta, she made the roughly 20-mile trip to her sister’s grave at least two times a week until her own death in 1954.

For 48 years, L ucy’s devoted, regular visits — and the dark gown she wore during each journey — earned her recognition throughout the area, as well as the “Lady in Black” nickname.

“It was the long mourning dresses, the gloves, the whole nine yards,” Ellars said.

Christa McCay, the collections manager at the Marietta Museum of History, said Lucy’s attachment to her older sister probably stemmed from the absence of their mother, Mary Gartrell, who died in 1885.

“When their mother passed away, it just seemed like that relationship between Lucy and (Mary) Annie grew even stronger, especially since Lucy was the younger one,” McCay said.

Lucy made her affection for Mary Annie clear through her graveside visits, but her tributes didn’t stop there. McCay said Lucy even named her school in Atlanta after her sister, who had also been a teacher before she died.

The plaque, which features a brief description of both sisters’ lives, was installed by the city after Lucy’s death. McCay said the marker, along with Mary Annie’s gravestone — a tall, ornate memo- rial topped by a statue of an angel — makes up one of the cemetery’s two biggest points of interest.

“The grave is probably the most recognizable monu- ment at the cemetery — it’s just really pretty,” she said.

The other major site, McCay said, is the burial place of Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old girl whose 1913 murder was the center of the controversial Leo Frank trial. An employee at the National Pencil Factory, Phagan was allegedly murdered by Frank, the factory’s super- visor, who was convicted and later dragged from his prison cell and killed by a lynch mob in Marietta.

Ellars said the Marietta City Cemetery, located on Powder Springs Street next to the 3,000-plot Marietta Confederate Cemetery, no longer has space for new plots and is mostly open for visitations. Tours by the Historic Marietta Trolley Co. stop at the graveyard, which Ellars said opened in the early 1830s.

There are a few ghost stories surrounding the Lady in Black’s story, although McCay and Ellars said they’ve never seen anything supernatural themselves. McCay said some people, however, have reported smelling smoke in the middle of the cemetery, or seeing a sad, solemn figure — dressed in all black — out of the corner of their eye.