Be sure to check out Walt Garlington’s “Memorial Day in Dixie” poem which I recently published here at DM. And my apologies for the belated publication of this monthly series. Fortunately, it’s never too late to pray for the departed.
For more information on Garlington, as well as resources on the Orthodox view of the departed, the meaning of a Saint and their veneration, explanation of old vs new calendar, and funeral hymns and prayers, click here.
By Walt Garlington
Dear friends, if you have time, please pray for these members of the Southern family on the day they reposed. Many thanks.
May 1st
Harry Hosier and George Liele: Harry Hosier was a slave, born in North Carolina, folks reckon, and after gaining his freedom he became a very talented preacher who rode with Bishop Francis Asbury on his circuits. George Liele was a slave from Georgia who became a fruitful missionary in Jamaica upon gaining his freedom. (The exact dates of their deaths are not recorded, so the approximation of 1 May is used instead.)
http://gcah.org/history/harry-hosier
https://nlj.gov.jm/project/george-lisle-liele-1750-1826/
May 2nd
William Dawson: The head of the School of Music at the Tuskegee Institute. A noted composer and conductor of choral/orchestral music.
https://www.tuskegee.edu/student-life/student-organizations/choir/william-l-dawson-tribute
https://youtu.be/wPhDb3XnXHs
May 4th
William Henry Trescot: “Writer, diplomat, historian.” A native of South Carolina who wrote an important short essay titled “The Position and Course of the South.”
https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/trescot-william-henry/
May 6th
Judah P. Benjamin: A Louisiana lawyer and senator, and later Secretary of State for the Confederacy. He went through hard times with the grace characteristic of the South. He may have had a hand in planting States’ Rights ideas into the Canadian constitution from his time as a lawyer in England.
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-neo-confederate-scotus-justice/
May 9th
Augusta Jane Evans Wilson: She lived from 1835 to 1909 and was “one of the most popular American novelists of the nineteenth century and certainly the most successful Alabama writer of her time. Her literary fame made her a prominent citizen of Mobile, where she spent most of her life … She published nine novels, of which ‘Beulah’ and ‘St. Elmo’ are the best-known.”
http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1072
May 10th
Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson: One of the South’s finest men. [On left in the feature image at top, Jackson is depicted with Rev. Beverly Tucker Lacy. The two are kneeling in prayer after discussions on the role of the Chaplaincy in Jackson’s Second Corps, December 1862, near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Painting by Dale Gallon.]
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/thomas-j-stonewall-jackson/
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/stonewall-jackson/
If you want to learn more about Jackson, you’ll want to read my essays “Stonewall Jackson kicks ass!” and “What is life without honor?” as well as my interview with VMI alumnus Rick Dirtwater who discusses Jackson’s role in building that school into a proving ground for the making of modern cavaliers and gentlemen warriors, that is, before the cultural genocide firmly got a hold of it. – DM
May 10th
John Gould Fletcher: A Pulitzer Prize winning writer. A craftsman of both poetry and prose.
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/john-gould-fletcher-1646/
May 10th
Confederate Memorial Day for North and South Carolina
https://www.southernagrarian.com/holidays/
May 11th
Roger Busbice: A man from our own time, but a man nevertheless dedicated to Dixie’s well-being. Busbice, who reposed in the Lord in 2019, was a kind mentor to those who asked him for help in learning about Southern ways. You can read two of his essays here.
https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/4413447/Roger-Lann-Busbice
May 12th
Gen J.E.B. Stuart: One of the South’s best cavalry commanders.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/j-e-b-stuart
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/986/james-ewell_brown-stuart
A photo of his obilesk and tombstone can be found in my photo essay about Hollywood Cemetery. – DM
May 25th
Sarah Breedlove (Madam C.J. Walker): “This child of sharecroppers transformed herself from an uneducated farm laborer and laundress into one of the twentieth century’s most successful, self-made women entrepreneurs.”
https://madamcjwalker.com/about/
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/madame-c-j-walker
May 25th
Rev. Benjamin Morgan Palmer: An influential pastor in New Orleans both behind and away from the pulpit.
https://banneroftruth.org/us/about/banner-authors/b-m-palmer/
http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/palmer-benjamin-morgan/
May 25th
George Garrett: Virginia’s Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, amongst many other literary achievements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Garrett_(poet)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/george-garrett
May 26th
Eliza Lucas Pinckney: An enterprising matron in the worlds of business and art.
https://www.nps.gov/chpi/learn/historyculture/eliza-lucas-pinckney.htm
https://uscpress.com/The-Letterbook-of-Eliza-Lucas-Pinckney-1739-1762
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/peoples/text5/elizapinckney.pdf
May 30th
Confederate Memorial Day for Virginia
https://www.southernagrarian.com/holidays/
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are! Anathema to the Union!
♱ Sts. Timothy and Maura of Egypt, 3/16 May
These holy martyrs were husband and wife. During the persecutions of Diocletian, the governor Arian demanded that Timothy hand over his sacred books (these were rare at that time, and as a Reader he was entrusted with their care). Timothy refused, saying that he would no more do so than a father would hand over his own children to death. He was brutally tortured and, when he refused to yield, the governor summoned Timothy’s wife Maura, thinking that she would urge her husband to bow to the idols, but instead she confessed herself to be a Christian too. She in turn was subjected to many tortures, and finally the couple were crucified facing one another, where they hung for nine days, encouraging one another in the Faith, before they met their blessed end. They had been married for less than a month when they received their crowns.
Source
A fuller account of their life
