Tombstone Tuesday

 

Elizabeth Dora "Lizzie" Morris Campbell

04 Mar 1928 - 23 May 1972

and her husband,

George P. Campbell

14 Jun 1922 - 20 May 1972

West View Cemetery,

Wrightsville, Johnson, Georgia, USA

photo taken by Liz Tapley, 08 Sep 2013

Mappy Monday

 

Johnson County Highway Map, 1932, State Highway Board of Georgia, Held by Georgia Archives, Morrow, Georgia, Digital Collection: County Maps, Surveyor General, RG 3-9-66

    My family's roots run deep in Johnson County, Georgia.  Since it's Monday, I thought I would try to show a map of  the general areas where three of my ancestral families settled.

    My branch of the Tapley family lived near Fortner Mill Pond which is near Powell's Chapel United Methodist Church. As a matter of fact, that area was named Powell on census records.  This area is between Kite and Bartow (Jefferson County) off Highway 221.  The land had originally belonged to the Solomon Page family but when my great-grandparents married - Jim Tapley and Becky Page, it became Tapley land.  Each one of their married children was given a plot of land so they were all neighbors.  

    My Drake family was from Adrian. Now Adrian straddles the Johnson and Emanuel County lines.  Some Drakes lived in each county, but my line - the children of James William Drake and Mary Ann Brantley - were born and spent their childhoods in Emanuel County.  Unfortunately, I do not know where their land was exactly.  They attended Poplar Springs Church which is in Johnson County.  

    George Schwalls settled outside of Kite near the Tom community.  He and his family attended Minton Chapel church and many are buried there. I do not know the location of their homeplace. Since George is my biggest brick wall, and my friend says he was a spy, I guess way out in the country in Johnson  County is as good a place as any to hide.  

Sunday's Obituary

Randel Gorden Wheeler

July 3, 1956-January 17, 2026

Kite, GA

Kite, GA- Randel Gorden Wheeler, 69, entered into rest January 17, 2026.

Randel was the son of the late Dudley and Sara “Liz” Wheeler and graduated from Butler High School. He enjoyed all types of racing from dirt track, drag racing, and NASCAR. He was an accomplished bowler who had over two 300 games and competed in leagues for many years. He also enjoyed hunting and fishing but most of all he loved his family.

Family members include his children: Tracy Stubblefield and Randy Wheeler (April); grandchildren: Macie Barela (Paul), Shawn Ford, Wyatt Wheeler, Ellie Kate Wheeler, and Gordon Wheeler; brother: Ronnie Wheeler (Wanda); longtime partner and friend: Maye Lowers; and numerous extended family members.

The family will receive friends on Monday, February 2, 2026 from 5:00 until 7:00 P.M. at Thomas Poteet & Son Funeral Directors, 214 Davis Rd., Augusta, GA 30907 (706) 364-8484. Please sign the guestbook at www.thomaspoteet.com.  Obituary courtesy of Thomas Poteet & Son Funeral Directors, www.thomaspoteet.com/obituaries/randel-wheeler

    Nowadays, a LOT of the obituaries I find in my research are online from the funeral homes' sites, especially recent obituaries.  I always check Newspapers.com (a paid site that I have a subscription to) first, but if the obituary is from the last, I don't know, 10 years or so OR it's in a newspaper that is not on Newspapers.com, like the Augusta newspaper, I will not find it.  

    That's when I do a general Google search with the person's name, indicate it's an obituary I am looking for, the year and the state when and where the person died. Most of the time, if nothing else comes up in my results, Legacy.com will.  

    I also have an automatic Google search that goes out and searches for the Tapley and other family names daily and sends me the results.  I am signed up with several funeral homes to receive obituaries every day.  So it is rare that an obituary gets by me.  Oh, it happens, but I catch most of them.  

    I do not recall how I found out about Randy Wheeler passing away.  I did not know Randy, but he was my cousin, and when I found they were having a visitation here in Augusta, I decided to attend.  That's actually a bold move for me.  I don't usually "crash" funerals or visitations, but something told me this was the time.  I enlisted my cousin, Keith, to go with me.  He is always up for meeting people.

    And... it turned out to be a great experience.  We met Randy's son and his wife, his daughter, his grandson, and his brother and sister-in-law.  They were all so gracious and seemed genuinely glad we came.  As soon as we said we were family, we were welcomed.  I am grateful for that reaction and so glad we decided to go.  

    The lesson for me that I have to keep re-learning?  Push myself out of my comfort zone and good things can happen.

Friday's Faces from the Past

 

Laney Alice Minton Tapley

1869-1937

Thriller Thursday

     Today's story is a sad one.  Of course, when there is a death, it is always sad.  However, this one seems to be a case of domestic violence that left a young girl (a baby, really) without her parents.  

    Allen Thomas Brantley was 32 years old and lived in Dublin, Georgia when he died.  He was married to Dawn Elizabeth Fordham and they had a little girl.  He was a veteran of the Air Force and a former police officer.  He was a police officer in both Soperton and Dublin for 12 years.  He had just left the force a year earlier.  At the time of his death, he was a sales rep for an industrial contracting company (or as the newspaper article terms it, "a local machine and tool shop) in Dublin.

    Dawn worked at a Dublin furniture store.

    From the outside looking in, they were just a normal couple, working hard to provide for their family.  

    During the early morning hours of Sunday, April 6, 1997, Allen shot and killed his wife, Dawn.  He called his sister to come get his child.  Then he killed himself.  

Newspapers.com, The Macon Telegraph, Macon, Georgia, Monday, April 07, 1997, Page 3

    Both Allen and Dawn were buried on the same day in separate cemeteries. However, they were mentioned in each other's obituaries.    

    This is the only article I found about the incident, so I do not know if anyone ever knew what happened that night to drive Allen to do this.  I share these stories, not to revel in the thriller aspect; I share them to show that our ancestors and outlying family are/were just people, with happiness, depression, joy, trauma, love, and anger during their lives.

Wedding Wednesday

 

"MISS SHARON LA VERNE RICKERSON, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Rickerson, whose engagement to Mr. Thomas Randall Woodall, son of Mr. and Mrs. T. E. Woodall, has been announced by her parents. The wedding will be March 1st at the St. Claude Heights Methodist Church." - Transcription by Google Gemini

"MRS. THOMAS RANDALL WOODALL, the former Miss Sharon LaVerne Rickerson, who was married at St. Claude Heights Methodist Church on Saturday, March 1, 1969. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Pierce Rickerson, Sr., of Arabi. The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Woodall, of Chalmette." - Transcription by Google Gemini

Thomas Randall Woodall Sr

and

Sharon La Verne Rickerson (1950-2010)

were united in marriage

March 1, 1969

St. Claude Heights Methodist Church,

Arabi, St Bernard, Louisiana, USA

Tombstone Tuesday

 

Leon Faron Lampp Jr

1956-1996

Buried at Savannah Valley Memorial Gardens

Thomson, McDuffie, Georgia, USA