In her youth, Zelda would often seek solace in Oakwood cemetery where row after row of confederate soldiers, as well as many of her own ancestors, were buried. Zelda found the old cemetery to be a romantic place as she described in a love letter to her fiancé, Scott, in 1919: “All the broken columns and clasped hands and doves and angels mean romances … isn’t it funny how, out of a row of confederate soldiers, two or three will make you think of dead lovers and dead loves – when they’re exactly like the others, even to the yellowish moss?”
The Sayre family plot contains six tombs, including one for her father, Anthony Saye, a longtime member of the Alabama Supreme Court. In her autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, Zelda describes the family plot in the picturesque cemetery: “The Judge lay sleeping on the hillside under the hickory-nut trees and the oak. From his grave the dome of the Capitol blotted out the setting sun. The flowers wilted, and the children planted jasmine vines and hyacinths. It was peaceful in the old cemetery. Wild flowers grew there, and rose bushes so old that the flowers had lost their colour with the years. Crape myrtle and Lebanon cedars shed their barbs over the slabs; rusty Confederate crosses sank into the clematis vines and the burned grass. Tangles of narcissus and white flowers strayed the washed banks and ivy climbed in the crumbling walls.”
While Zelda and Scott are not buried here, a memorial plaque in their memory is included in the family plot.
The geocache is hidden in the Sayre family plot, which is in the Saint Margaret’s section of Oakwood Cemetery. This section is accessed from Columbus Street/Upper Wetumpka Road just across a bridge as the median between the two halves of the road ends and before the baseball field. The cemetery closes at 9:00PM.
This geocache was placed here with the permission of the Oakwood Cemetery caretaker who was kind enough to take me to the site. You are looking for a small camo colored matchstick holder. Log only.
Congratulations to OHail for first to find!