Little Gracie Watson is one of the most visited graves in Bonaventure Cemetery. People from all over the world stop by her burial plot to admire her statue and sometimes leave gifts. Easter is a holiday forever connected to her because that’s when she died and set into motion events that would be told to many Savannah visitors for years to come. Gracie’s parents W.J. and Frances Watson were hoteliers running the Pulaski House Hotel off Johnson Square in the 1880s. That hotel is long gone. The space is now home to a Regions Bank. But before the hotel was bulldozed in the name of modernization, like so many other historic buildings in the 50s and 60s, it was a place to stay for travelers and a home to Gracie and her parents. Gracie was dearly loved by her parents and was an outgoing child that loved to run around the hotel and speak with guests. In April of 1889, she caught pneumonia and died a few days before Easter. Her parents were distraught by the loss of their only child. Some versions of the story say her father fell into a depression. W.J. and Frances Watson would later move back to the northeast to be closer to family, but before they left, they commissioned sculptor John Walz to create a statue of Gracie to mark her grave in Bonaventure. Her obituary printed in the April 23, 1889, edition of Savannah Morning News noted that she was “a general favorite among guests” at the hotel. W.J. and Frances eventually moved to New York and are both buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York. Before they moved, they did commission John Walz to sculpt a likeness of their daughter Gracie to mark her grave. SOURCE: https://www.savannahnow.com/story/entertainment/2022/04/25/bonaventure-cemetery-savannah-ga-little-gracie-watson-grave-statue/9516302002/ #trippintraci #cemetery #cemeteries #grave #graveyard #gravestone #gravestones #graves #history #historical #savannah #savannahgeorgia #savannahga #georgia #statues #statue #nature #trees #spanishmoss #travel #travelvlog #travelvlogger #vanlife #rvlife #roadtrip #roadtrips #youtubers #youtuber #youtube #youtubevideo (at Bonaventure Cemetery) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpbfys1uchT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
