Grover Bennett Lankford

This blog post is another in a series connecting the dots in my tree to the souls buried at Bairdstown Cemetery in Bairdstown, Oglethorpe County, Georgia.

A small stone in Bairdstown Cemetery marks the grave of Grover Bennett Lankford, an infant who did not survive his first year of birth. Grover, born on October 8, 1884 most likely in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, was the first child of newlyweds William Mell Lankford and Nancy Ella Young. William and Nancy celebrated their first anniversary on December 11, two months after his birth.

Grover's time on Earth was short. He died, probably at home, on July 12, 1885, when he was just over nine months of age. I have yet to find a death record for him so don't know what caused him to die so young but possibilities are diphtheria, typhoid fever, cholera, or whooping cough, all common in 1885.

Grover’s parents would go on to have eight more children—Howard Young Lankford, Annie Lou Lankford, Robert Chester Lankford, Masina Elizabeth Lankford, Vesta Bell Lankford, Pauline Lankford, William Reese Lankford, and Otis Elmore Lankford. He would be my 2nd cousin 3x removed with our nearest common relatives being Charles L. Lankford and Miss Moore. His paternal grandfather was Robert Chester Lankford, brother of my 3rd great-grandfather, James Meriweather Lankford.