Headstone for Andy Falls
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- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Memorialized Subject
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- Memorial Inscription
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- Location: Institution, City, State
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Memorial Artwork
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Sculptural Memorial
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Headstone for Andy Falls
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Andy Falls was a tenant farmer and janitor at Davidson College who lived and worked during the Jim Crow era. In January 1926, Falls suffered a stroke and died on March 14 at the age of 55 while hospitalized in Statesville. He had worked for the college for twenty years. Students and the entire campus community remembered him as “faithful servant” who followed “the letter and spirit of every wish of the college authorities.”
The local African American Masonic Lodge conducted his funeral services. The campus community offered floral tributes for the former employee. It was a rare moment of institutional recognition for a Black worker. He was buried in the Christian Aid Society Cemetery.
His modest gravestone — marked simply “FALLS” — lies among other family members similarly plain stones labeled “AUGUSTA” and “O B.”
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The grave marker is a low, rectangular stone partially embedded in the red clay soil. The main headstone reads “FALLS” in all caps, and adjacent upright markers are labeled with “AUGUSTA” and the initials “O B.” The headstones are worn with age and stand in an unlandscaped plot with little vegetation.
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Falls
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March 1926
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Friends and Family of Andy Falls
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“Faithful Employee Dies From Stroke,” The Davidsonian, March 18, 1926, 8.
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“Death Certificate of Andy Falls,” North Carolina, U.S., Deaths, 1906–1930 [database on-line], Ancestry.com.
Position: 1409 (53 views)