The rain had just stopped as we pulled up to Wheeler Cemetery outside of the tiny town of Kite, Georgia. The grounds contain fewer than 300 known graves, and the carving on the markers is exemplary. We did some digging on the ride back to North Carolina, and we found a few unusual stories attached to the plot. The saddest was that of 37-year old Shade (Shady) W. Wheeler. A well-liked merchant originally from Norristown. On an April morning in 1918, an employee was cleaning an old pistol when the gun fired, killing Shady. His wife Molly moved to Soperton, where she died at age 83. Shady was buried under a beautiful marble monument near his parents Mary and White, brothers George and Thomas, and two of his children, Woods and Irene.
