Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia

John Robert Marsh, born Maysville, Ky, Oct. 6, 1896, Died Atlanta, Ga., May 5, 1952

Margaret Mitchell’s grave lies within the walls of Oakland Cemetery, a fitting place for her bones to rest, as she was a daughter of Atlanta, born and bred and died in that city. Margaret Mitchell Marsh’s monument is one of the most visited in the cemetery. Signs point the way for the gawkers who amble by to catch a glimpse of the white marble monument with a large urn centered to divide the monument into equal halves. She shares the tombstone with her second husband, John Robert Marsh, who was also the best man at her short-lived first marriage to an alcoholic, abusive, and hot-tempered man.

Margaret Mitchell's Monument, Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia

Mitchell was a celebrated author. She wrote the epic novel, Gone with the Wind, which was a love song for her beloved South. Pat Conroy, the author of The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and My Reading Life wrote, “Margaret Mitchell writes of the Confederacy as paradise, as the ruined garden looked back upon by a stricken and exiled Eve, disconsolate with loss.” Mitchell’s book won the National Book Award in 1936 and the Pulitzer in 1937 for her novel which was turned into a movie and premiered in Atlanta in 1939, starring Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable. Mitchell was the toast of Atlanta and the South.

When she was less than fifty years old, on the evening of August 11, 1949, Margaret and her husband, John, were crossing the street to see a movie when a drunk driver struck her as she stepped into the street. Mitchell was rushed to the hospital but never regained consciousness and died in the city she loved five days later.