The remains of Alfred and Martha B. Shorter rest at Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia under a remarkably clean tombstone topped with a draped urn . Martha was born 25 January 1799, and died 22 March 1877. When her funeral services were conducted at the Baptist Church, it was said by the Rome Weekly Courier to be the largest congregation "ever known to have assembled on a week day." Alfred, born 23 November 1803, lived five more years without Martha. His obituary ran in the 20 July 1882 Cedartown Advertiser : Death of Col. Shorter of Rome. On Tuesday at 2 P. M. Col. Alfred Shorter in his 79th year died at his home surrounded by his friends and kindred. For more than a year his physical strength has been failing and by degrees death took possession of his frame, the vital flame burned itself away and his noble form was left cold and pulseless. His biography would be the history of Rome, for forty years he has lived among his people, been i...
Telling the Tales of Tombstones