My visit to Tangipahoa-Quinn-Brown Cemetery

Eliza Johnson Headstone
Photo Courtesy: Dr Antoinette Harrell

Today was such a beautiful and sunny day that I could resist taking a back road drive with my Canon camera as my companion. While driving down the road to the sound of some smooth jazz, the temperature was just right, and it couldn't get any better than this. I decided to go to Quinn's cemetery in the village of Tangipahoa. I went to my husband's uncle Leon's funeral, which was my first time in that cemetery.

You can see that they had just cut the grass, so I wasn't too concerned with snakes. However, I didn't let my guards down by no means. On the way in, I had to pass Leblanc Dairy and took a moment to take some photographs of the cattle. "Some of them looked at the camera as if they were saying," hurry up and take the picture. 

I wanted to find the oldest section in the cemetery to look at the headstones. I came across one monument that got my attention. It was of a woman named "Eliza Johnson' she was born in 1873 and died in 1918. I came back to my office and did some research on Eliza. They were married to Charles Johnson and was farm labor. She lived on Cross Roads W. Brick Yard & Saw Mill.

She and Charles had eleven children; Andrew, Ella, Daisy, Charles, Jr, Herman, Obby, Fred, Emile, and Carrie. In 1880, she was living in Ward 1 in the Village of Tangipahoa. Her parents were Howard and Sarah McGee. The 1880 United States Federal Census listed that her parents were from Kentucky. Her father, Howard, was born in 1820 in Virginia and did farm work. Eliza's husband Charles was in 1863; he was a bricklayer. Charles died in 1944. 

Only a decade after slavey was abolished Eliza was born. I wish that someone would have interviewed her and document her experience in Tangipahoa Parish. Tangipahoa Parish was formed in 1869 and she was born  a few years later.