The Forgotten South

The Forgotten South [Stories of forgotten places]

📜Historian
🪦Cemetery Advocate Photography and Stories of the Forgotten South.
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✨ Just north of Ray City, Georgia, once stood the old Frank Gallagher home- a simple Southern house, long gone now, but ...
06/06/2026

✨ Just north of Ray City, Georgia, once stood the old Frank Gallagher home- a simple Southern house, long gone now, but not forgotten.

In this rare photograph, we meet the family who lived within those walls: young Mikle, Clara Sirmans Knight holding baby Ann, little Elizabeth, and Frank Gallagher himself. Behind them, the tidy porch, the picket fence, and even the chickens wandering through the yard paint a picture of everyday life.

The house may have vanished from the landscape, but thanks to families who lovingly held onto photos like this one, its story can live on through this image.

📸 Courtesy of Patricia Sirmans Miller

I'm sure a lot of stories were shared on this porch. I wish we could've heard them.📍Bulloch County, Georgia
06/06/2026

I'm sure a lot of stories were shared on this porch. I wish we could've heard them.

📍Bulloch County, Georgia

"One by one life robs us of our treasuresNothing is our own except our dead"Claude Keeter, son of D.C. & Lula Keeterb. D...
06/06/2026

"One by one life robs us of our treasures
Nothing is our own except our dead"

Claude Keeter, son of D.C. & Lula Keeter
b. December 4, 1896
d. April 9, 1922

📍Halifax County, North Carolina

🌴 I spotted this old place in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and I couldn't tell if it was being worked on or not, but it ...
06/05/2026

🌴 I spotted this old place in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and I couldn't tell if it was being worked on or not, but it will certainly take a lot of paint to cover the exterior of it!

This cabin was built in the 1880s-1890s and was eventually used as housing for workers on a turpentine farm in south Geo...
06/05/2026

This cabin was built in the 1880s-1890s and was eventually used as housing for workers on a turpentine farm in south Georgia.

📸 James posed for this photo then left for war. He wouldn't make it back alive.I'm sure most people have never heard of ...
06/05/2026

📸 James posed for this photo then left for war. He wouldn't make it back alive.

I'm sure most people have never heard of him, so I'd like to share some of his story today.

James Levi Alley was born on January 2, 1893, in Alleghany County, North Carolina, and grew up in the tight-knit mountain community of Sparta. World War I broke out in 1914, and when the U.S. entered the war in 1917, James was 24 years old. He signed his name on the dotted line, posed for a photograph at his family farm, and was sent overseas to a world embroiled in the bloodiest conflict humankind had ever seen.

James served as a private in the 313th Infantry, 79th Division, U.S. Army. While stationed in France, he died on July 18, 1918. I haven't been able to find the full details, but his records note that he "died of accident," a designation that usually indicates a non-combat death and leaves me with more questions than answers.

James was buried in France, but ultimately, he did make it home to North Carolina. In 1920, arrangements were made to bring him home to Alleghany County. He was reinterred at Shiloh Cemetery in Sparta, where you can visit his grave to pay your respects today. His headstone reads: "Nobly he fell while fighting for Liberty."

✨Franklin County, Virginia.
06/05/2026

✨Franklin County, Virginia.

✨This old farmhouse in Suwannee County, Florida, sat on the Markham family land for generations. It weathered Florida st...
06/05/2026

✨This old farmhouse in Suwannee County, Florida, sat on the Markham family land for generations. It weathered Florida storms, stood through the Depression, survived world wars, and sheltered a family long before electricity or air conditioning were available to rural farmers.

It was lived in until the 1980s, and for the forty years after that, it quietly fell apart the way these old places do when there's no one left to care for them. By 2018, it was gone entirely, and if you drive by today, there is no trace that it ever existed.

📍 Suwannee County, Florida

✨🕊️ In Memory of Eliza Steel, who departed this life October 3d 1814. A Native of Philadelphia 🕊️✨Thirteen years, one mo...
06/05/2026

✨🕊️ In Memory of Eliza Steel, who departed this life October 3d 1814. A Native of Philadelphia 🕊️✨

Thirteen years, one month, and eleven days, to be exact, because someone loved her enough to count every single day.

Her inscription says that she was a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but here I was, standing at her grave in Richmond, Virginia. I've started researching her story, but I can't yet confirm her parents' name and no one else by the name of Steel is buried in this cemetery.

What brought her to Richmond, or what caused such an early end for Eliza, we don't know. Just this stone, standing at St. John's Churchyard, telling us she existed and that someone wanted the world to remember her.

If you know anything about the Steel family of Philadelphia or Richmond in the early 1800s, I'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, I'm glad her stone is still standing, recording her name, even if the details of her life have been lost over time.

📍 St. John's Churchyard | Richmond, Virginia

06/04/2026

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