Whitney, Jin, Peyton, and I will be focusing on student involvement during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and we intend to weave the Memorial Garden in by discussing the lack of direct representation for these wars on UGA’s campus.  To begin our research, we decided to break the time periods of 1950-1954 and 1960-1975 into 4 chunks, and each look at a 5 year period in the Red & Black and Pandora yearbooks to see if we can find evidence of protests or student support, and find any information about specific students who participated in the war efforts.  We intend to interpret these wars with specific attention to race and perhaps gender.  We are thinking about Horace Ward’s well-timed (for UGA) draft notice and deployment to Korea, and we intend to investigate this and other possible instances like this, to tell a story that incorporates Civil Rights Movement events.

Sarah Hall Bradley was a prominent southerner whose legacy lives on through her charitable foundation, the W. C. and Sarah Hall Bradley Foundation.  She was born around the late 1860s, married W. C. Bradley in 1887, and died in 1936.  Her father was a wealthy Connecticut financer of shipbuilding, but she grew up in Columbus, Georgia.  Her husband, son of a slaveholder in Columbus, Georgia, was a wealthy businessman who owned a cotton firm, and bought Coca-Cola with a group of investors in 1919.  Sarah had two children, Forbes and Elizabeth.  Forbes died a few months after he was born, but Elizabeth grew up to marry D. Abbott Turner.  The two couples joined their charitable foundations into the Bradley Turner Foundation, which continues to give grants to universities throughout Georgia, including the University of Georgia.  Sarah was a daughter of the American Revolution and a well-loved citizen of Columbus, Georgia for most of her life.

Sarah was one of 20 founding members of the Charter Garden Club of Columbus, Georgia.  As noted in the club’s 1939 scrapbook, “the Club was deeply sadened [sic] by the loss of one of its most beloved members when Mrs. W. C. Bradley passed away on December 30, 1936.” The Ladies Garden Club of Athens, instigators of the Founders Memorial Garden at UGA, sponsored the admission of the Charter Garden Club into Georgia’s Garden Club organization in 1929. The clubs under this umbrella helped raise funds for the Founders Memorial Garden, and also contributed several monuments to the garden. The Charter Garden Club erected steps in the Founders Memorial Garden at UGA in memory of Sarah Hall Bradley circa 1940, around the time of the garden’s opening.  The steps connect a sunken perennial garden to the courtyard behind the Founders House.  Both Sarah and her daughter Elizabeth are remembered in gardens in Athens; Elizabeth is memorialized by the Elizabeth Bradley Turner Rose Garden at the State Botanical Gardens.

 

Sources:
“Charter Garden Club Scrapbook, 1937-1938.” Columbus, GA, 1938. Garden Club of Georgia records, box 46. Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Athens, GA.

“Charter Garden Club Scrapbook, 1938-1939.” Columbus, GA, 1939. Garden Club of Georgia records, box 47. Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Athens, GA.

“D. Abbott Turner (1892-1982).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. Accessed September 30, 2016. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/business-economy/d-abbott-turner-1892-1982.

Daughters of the American Revolution. Lineage Book – National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Vol. XXIX. Daughters of the American Revolution, 1899.

“Founders Memorial Garden – College of Environment + Design.” Accessed September 26, 2016. http://www.ced.uga.edu/about/facilities/founders-memorial/.

Kennedy, Linda J., and Mary Jane Galer. Historic Linwood Cemetery. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2004.

“Sarah Hall Bradley ( – 1936) – Find A Grave Memorial.” Accessed September 30, 2016. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=22397791.

“W. C. Bradley (1863-1947).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. Accessed September 30, 2016. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/business-economy/w-c-bradley-1863-1947.

This bench was placed in memory of UGA student Virginia (Ginny) Rucker Walter, who was born in 1966 and died in 1986. Ginny was a 20-year-old English major when she tragically passed away during spring break of her sophomore year. While sitting in a parked car on a front lawn, waiting for her father, a drunken 17-year-old teenager lost control of his car, smashed into Ginny’s car, and killed her. Writing for the college newspaper, The Red & Black, Ginny’s friend Jessica Saunders noted that Ginny lived and died in Savannah, but was born in Athens and always preferred it to Savannah. She was buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens. Shortly after her death, a memorial scholarship in her name was created to recognize the work of one English major per year, and there is also a poetry prize in Ginny’s name. The English department does not include specific information about the nature of the scholarship and prize on their website, but Department Head Coburn Freer’s 1987 letter to the second scholarship winner notes that the scholarship “honor[s] the memory of another unusually gifted student [Ginny].” The bench in Ginny’s name is located behind Park Hall, home of the English Department, in a shady peaceful walkway.

 

Sources:
Ashworth, Jerry. “Students Die in Wrecks; History Professor Stable.” The Red & Black. April 1, 1986, Vol. 93, No. 81.

“Awards: Eligibility and Nominations.” English at UGA. Accessed September 26, 2016. https://www.english.uga.edu/undergrad/pages/31.

“Briefly.” The Red & Black. April 3, 1986, Vol. 93, No. 83.

Freer, Coburn, November 18, 1987. Louise McBee papers, Folder 23. University of Georgia Archives.

Saunders, Jessica. “Reliving Past & Easing Sorrow.” The Red & Black. April 18, 1986, Vol. 93, No. 92.