“Brother Srygley, his own heart bleeding and almost breaking, in strictest confidence submitted a strange suggestion to some of us. The mere suggestion was all sufficient. The sun set, the moon rose, the stars appeared, midnight came. The bereaved, childless mother slept. The stillness of death reigned supreme over the community. Little Mamies grave was emptied; her little white coffin was opened. The sweetest curl that kissed her marble brow was clipped—a precious, tiny treasure for which the mother sighed. The coffin was closed and gently lowered into the grave; the grave was filled. At the proper time and in the proper way the curl was given to the mourning, moaning mother; but she never knew the story I have just revealed.”

Those words were part of the eulogy of F.D. Srygley, given by his friend T. B. Larimore at his funeral on August 3, 1900. They brought to mind a time and an event known but to a few—those who had aided and abetted a plan borne of love and desperation at the sight of his inconsolable wife.  Their firstborn child, a girl they had named Mamie, had died and was buried at Mars Hill, Alabama where they lived at the time.  Her mother Ella was but a child herself, having given birth to Mamie at the age of 16.  One year and slightly less than three weeks later, Ella was once again childless and mourning the loss that did not seem bearable.  As the sun set on the day of little Mamie’s burial, her precious child’s curls came to mind, deepening the already unbearable grief that consumed her.  If she had only thought to save one curl . . . just one!  How much it would have meant.  What a comfort it would have been.  But in Ella’s mind she had nothing left of her child.

Her husband, himself broken with grief, approached his friend with only a suggestion, but that was all that was needed. Under the cover of darkness, Srygley and Larimore, along with some others Larimore had enlisted, went to the cemetery, removed little Mamie’s casket from its resting place, and retrieved the much longed for curl.  Later Srygley presented it to his wife who never questioned how he came to have it but accepted it with gratitude.  A little over two years later Ella joined her Mamie in death.

Today Mamie’s grave can be seen at Gresham Cemetery in Lauderdale County, Alabama while her mother rests in Savannah Cemetery in Savannah, Tennessee. Mamie’s father—Ella’s husband—is buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.  The story of Mamie’s death, Ella’s grief, and her husband’s willingness to do the unthinkable in order to comfort her, was never revealed until F. D. Srygley died.  Only then, as Larimore memorialized his benefactor, biographer, and lifelong friend, did he recount the depth of Srygley’s love for his Ella and the lengths to which he had gone to ease her pain.

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