My father swallowed hard a couple of times. After a while he continued.
“Mary was buried that following Tuesday,” he said. He suddenly began to quote the newspaper account of little Mary’s funeral service. He’d committed it to memory. “’A thousand persons saw a minister of God raise his hands to heaven today and heard him call for divine justice. Before his closed eyes was a little casket, its pure whiteness hidden by the banks and banks of beautiful flowers. Within the casket lay the bruised and mutilated body of Mary Phagan, the innocent young victim of one of Atlanta’s blackest and most bestial crimes.’
“’L. M. Spruell, B. Awtrey, Ralph Butler, and W. T. Potts were the pallbearers. They carried the little white casket on their shoulders into the Second Baptist Church, a tiny country church. Every seat had been taken within five minutes, every inch of the church was occupied and hundreds were standing outside the church to hear the sermon.’
“The choir sang ‘Rock of Ages,’ but what everyone heard was Grandmother Fannie, wailing as if her heart would break.
“And,” my father added, “it probably did.”
“’The light of my life has been taken,’ she cried, ‘and her soul was as pure and as white as her body.’
“The whole church wept before the completion of the hymn. The Reverend T.T.G. Linkous, Pastor of Christian Church at East Point, prayed with those at the Second Baptist Church.”
My father continued the words that must be etched in his heart:
“’Let us pray. The occasion is so sad to me—when she was but a baby. I taught her to fear God and love Him—that I don’t know what to do.’
” ‘With tears gushing from his eyes, he found the strength to continue. “We pray for the police and the detectives of the City of Atlanta. We pray that they may perform their duty and bring the wretch that committed this act to justice. We pray that we may not hold too much rancor in our hearts—we do not want vengeance—yet we pray that the authorities apprehend the guilty party or parties and punish them to the full extent of the law. Even this is too good for the imp of Satan that did this. Oh, God, I cannot see how even the devil himself could do such a thing.”
“’Fannie Phagan Coleman controlled her crying when he spoke of the criminal and WJ. Phagan, Mary’s grandfather, exclaimed: “Amen.”
“’ “I believe in the law of forgiveness. Yet I do not see how it can be applied in this case. I pray that this wretch, this devil, be caught and punished according to the man-made, God-sanctioned laws of Georgia. And I pray, oh, God, that the innocent ones may be freed and cleared of all suspicion.”
“’With hearing this, Mary’s Aunt Lizzie let out a piercing scream and collapsed and she was taken home,” my father interjected.
“Mothers,”’ Dr. Linkous declared, “I would speak a word to you. Let this warn you. You cannot watch your children too closely. Even though their hearts be as clean and pure as Mary Phagan’s, let them not be forced into dishonor and into the grave by some heartless wretch, like the guilty man in this case.
“’ “Little Mary’s purity and the hope of the world above the sky is the only consolation that I can offer you,” he said, speaking directly to the bereaved family. “Had she been snatched from our midst in a natural way, by disease, we could bear up more easily. Now, we can only thank God that though she was dishonored, she fought back the fiend with all the strength of her fine young body, even unto death.
“’ “All that I can say is God bless you. You have my heartfelt sympathy. That is all that I can do, for my heart, too, is full to overflowing.”
“’Mary’s grandfather, W.J. Phagan, sat motionless as the tears streamed down his face while the brothers of Mary—Benjamin, Charlie, and William Joshua—comforted their sister, Ollie.’”
My father continued in his own words. “After the sermon, they opened the little white casket and the crowd viewed the body of the little girl with a mutilated and bruised face. The tears watered the flowers that surrounded her.
“They carried the casket out to the cemetery. J.W. practically carried Grandmother Fannie out; Dr. Linkous helped. Mary’s sister, Ollie, and her brother Ben, now a sailor on the United States ship Franklin, were behind them, while the smaller brothers, Charlie and Joshua, brought up the rear.”
The account of the funeral service went on:
“’ “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken, blessed be the name of the Lord,”’ but no words expressed by Dr. Linkous could heal the wounds in their hearts, and as the first shovel of earth was thrown down into the grave, Fannie Phagan Coleman broke down completely and wailed: “She was taken away when the spring was coming—the spring that was so like her. Oh, and she wanted to see the spring. She loved it—it loved her. She played with it—it was a sister to her almost.” She took the preacher’s handkerchief and walked to the edge of the grave and waved the handkerchief. “Goodbye, Mary, goodbye. It’s too big a hole to put you in, though. It’s so big—big, and you were so little—my own little Mary.”
My father stopped. The papers slid to the floor. His eyes were filling up.
I stopped, too. Bursting as I was with questions about the trial of Leo Frank and its aftermath, I could not bring myself to cause my father further pain that day. I felt guilty for the upset the memories he’d dredged up on my behalf had already caused him.
As if reading my thoughts, he turned to me: “It’s all right, Mary. You should know the whole story. But—” he’d blinked back the tears, but his smile was tremulous—“not today.”
A few days later, we sat down again. This time I started right off with the questions:
“Daddy, how did Grandmother Fannie stand up while the trial was going on?”
He told me that she was to be the first witness called to the witness stand. She tried to compose herself; her tears were flowing freely down her cheeks and she was sobbing as she gave her statement:
“’I am Mary Phagan’s mother. I last saw her alive on the 26th of April, 1913, about a quarter to twelve, at home, at 146 Lindsey Street. She was getting ready to go to the pencil factory to get her pay envelope. About 11:30, she had lunch, then she left home at a quarter to twelve. She would have been fourteen years old on the first day of June, she was fair complected, heavy set, very pretty, and was extra large for her age. She had on a lavender dress trimmed in lace and a blue hat. She had dimples in her cheeks.’
“When Sergeant Dobbs described the condition of Mary’s body when they found her in the basement, when he stated that she had been dragged across the floor, face down, that was full of coal cinders, and this was what had caused the punctures and holes in her face, Grandmother Fannie had to leave the courtroom,” my father said.
Now it was I who had to compose myself. I was now starting to feel the pain and agony that all the family had felt for years.
“When the funeral director, W.H. Gheesling, gave his testimony, he stated that he moved little Mary’s body at four o’clock in the morning on April 27, 1913. He stated that the cord she had been strangled with was still around her neck. There was an impression of about an eighth of an inch on the neck, her tongue stuck an inch and a quarter out of her mouth.”
“Daddy, was Mary bitten on her breast?”
“Yes, but there was no way to prove it because certain documents have mysteriously disappeared.”
“Who besides Grandmother Fannie attended the trial?”
“Other than Grandmother Fannie, all the immediate family, including your grandfather and Mary’s stepfather, were present every day. Mary’s mother and sister were the only women, along with Leo Frank’s wife and mother, who were permitted in the courtroom