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mcc-jrr_722-019
Smith Cemetery, 72-2 Summary Report, page 19
personally expert in a dozen sports and became a columnist, a poet, a magazine writer, an author of several books, a film producer, a war veteran, and a family man, in addition to being a top sports writer for newspapers like the NY Times Herald. Grantland Rice is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York. Since 1954 (the year of his death) the Grantland Rice Trophy has been awarded annually to the National Championship Team by the Football Writers Association of America. While Grantland Rice himself was never a resident of Madison County, Alabama, his roots on his mother's side ran deep here, specifically on the land that became Redstone Arsenal. Indeed, his first name memorialized his mother's maiden surname, perpetuating the legacy of his maternal grandfather, Henry W. Grantland, a plantation owner of the Redstone Arsenal lands. It is possible that Grantland Rice himself, at some point in his life, may have visited the old cemeteries on his grandfather's homeplace. Grantland Rice may have been an infant in the arms of his mother Beulah, attending the funeral and visiting the gravesite of his grandmother Lizzie P., the wife of Henry W. Grantland, on the arsenal or in the nearby area. It would certainly be logical that before he deeded it to his children, Henry buried his wife on the land of Hughy Smith that she was given by her parents. Of course, her death date is not known to this researcher as of this writing, but according to land records, she was living in 1874 and deceased by 1882. The ideally appealing scenario is that Henry was so despondent over the loss of his wife that he passed the land to his children and then left the area that reminded him of her so much, living thereafter with his daughter Beulah G. Rice and his grandson Grantland Rice in Tennessee. However, the reality of life rarely meets the ideal, so the 1920 census records were examined. In 1920 Henry Grantland was living in Nashville (Davidson County), appearing in the census in Enumeration District 41, page 5-A. His age was shown as 87, born in Alabama, with father born in England and mother born in Virginia. He had remarried to a woman simply listed by the census enumerator as “Mrs. H. W. Grantland”. An unmarried daughter named May, age 47, was also in the household, as was Beulah Rice, shown as a “stepdaughter”. Obviously, the stepdaughter was actually May, and the daughter was Beulah, considering that the relationships were supposed to be given to the listed head of household, Henry Grantland. Beulah was listed as a widow, so Bolling Rice (father of Grantland Rice) had apparently passed away. 19 - (2632)