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Rossiter: Brother's marker relocated - again

Charles L. Hagood already was at Derrell Clark's house when I pulled into the driveway.

Hagood, the only living child of the late Rev. D.L. and Edna Hagood, visited the spot in Clark's garden where he'd planted the memorial marker bringing us together.

He confirmed much of what I discovered and wrote about previously in Kin Driven.

Hagood's brother, Delma Lyman Hagood Jr., was stillborn in an Athens hospital July 31, 1934. He was buried the same day in the cemetery next to Boggs church, where his father was the minister.

The Hagoods lived nearby until they moved to serve the Methodist conference at churches throughout North Georgia. Ultimately, they settled in Atlanta and retired.

When the couple bought family plots in the city's Westview Cemetery, they relocated the remains of their first child. Charles Hagood, who followed his father into ministry, explained.

"My dad was very well organized," he said. "He always talked about how his namesake was over there (at Boggs), where he didn't know anyone anymore."

It's unclear what happened to the marker after the infant Hagood was moved to Westview in 1979. There would've been no need to transfer his original stone, because the Atlanta cemetery requires markers in that section be made with bronze materials.

Somehow Hagood's headstone ended up in fill dirt dumped in Clark's Bogart yard. He felt wrong about trashing the marker and planned to research its background. But one project after another kept the retired veterinary professor from the task.

I nosed my way in from there. Neither man seemed to mind as we compared notes in Clark's living room. They knew I wanted to write about the journey somehow.

Of course, Hagood had been surprised by it all, beginning with Clark's call explaining his unusu



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