Today, I'd like to introduce ye rabbits to my great-uncle George Everett Macy (1850-1928).
His grave marker may be found near the back of Greenwood Cemetery in downtown Orlando, in Section A to be more precise.
If you squint at this image, you can barely make out some words beneath his name and vital dates: "Absent from the Body, present with the Lord."
Uncle George came down to this little corner of heaven with his dad, my great-great-great grandfather William H. Macy during the years immediately after the Civil War.
Settling in Orlando in 1875, George established a blacksmith shop at what is now the intersection of South Street and Hughey Avenue.
His two-story home stood nearby at 208 West South Street, but had to be moved over to the grounds of the old Boone homestead on Irvine Street when I-4 was rammed through our old downtown area.
Anyway, Uncle George's blacksmith shop grew from producing horseshoes and branding irons to become a wagon factory--the biggest in the state, as a matter of fact. It covered 12,640 square feet of workspace and produced 16 varieties of wagons, carriages, buggies, and surreys.
I'll bet it was a Macy Wagon that the old funeral homes used to carry caskets and mourners out here to Greenwood Cemetery back in the long ago, maybe even for Uncle George funeral!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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