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Shannon Scott is a tour guide, storyteller, historian, author and artist living in Savannah Georgia.

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Little Gracie 140th Birthday Tour & Luncheon with Shannon Scott

Posted on June 10, 2022 by Shannon Scott

It’s that time of year again with one of Shannon Scott’s most popular tours!

Information for Little Gracie tour

Little Gracie turns 140!

Shannon Scott proudly presents the 2nd Annual Little Gracie Birthday Tour & Luncheon to celebrate Little Gracie Watson turning 140 and to celebrate the life, times and legacy of her sculptor John Walz with tour and luncheon! TICKETS ARE LIMITED and you may buy them here! https://shannonscotttours.com/public-tours/bonaventure-cemetery/
Commemorative merchandise will be available for 2 weeks only at Buzzard and Bone
going on sale Sunday June 12th!

It was nearly 140 years ago that a grieving father, hotel owner, Wales Watson, walked into the sculptural studio of famed Gettysburg Battlefield sculptor, John Walz, in Savannah, Georgia, and silently presented him with a photograph of Gracie “Little Gracie” Watson. He then turned around and left Walz studio — wordless. This was the level of grief he and Gracie’s mother, Frances, were experiencing. John Walz understood the mission and was no stranger to the parent’s request of him. Before the hours of penicillin and improved sewage in American cities, such meetings and monuments, would pay the overhead of every stone cutter in the country. Walz would soon set to task, acquiring a block of Georgia marble, and as he noted in his papers, carved her “from front to back” over the next 1.5 years before unveiling her to her parents who painfully commented to him, “John — its an EXACT likeness.” Over the decades to follow, and years after her parents moved up North ultimately buried in Albany, NY, the creation of Little Gracie would come to define Savannah and affirm for people, the importance of The Eternal Child in everyone, the preservation of that curious spirit and the innocence in everyone that keeps the world wholesome and good. Eventually Savannahians began to register Little Gracie as the guardian angel of Savannah, Bonaventure and themselves.

Gracie’s Childhood Home, The Pulaski House Hotel

Before John Walz died in 1922 at 78 of silicosis which seems somehow a noble disease considering his life’s work, he’d added hundreds if not thousands of monuments to the cemeteries of the world, some of them as far away as Bulgaria. According to The Bonaventure Historical Society, 77 of those monuments can be officially found in Bonaventure Cemetery. There is no question, that more than any other, Walz defined the esthetic spirit of Bonaventure that would come to make the place known as an outdoor art musem and brought travelers from all of the world long before Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil.



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About Shannon Scott

Shannon Scott, aka, "The Bard of Bonaventure," or "The Storyist," is a 30 year resident of Savannah, Georgia and easily Savannah's best known storyteller at this point in his career. Scott has worked for national TV shows like, "Scariest Places On Earth," "Ghost Hunters," and produced his own documentary, "America's Most Haunted City" about Savannah, Georgia. As a vehicle, Shannon utilizes the story of cemeteries like Bonaventure, to commentate on symbolic language, art, burial traditions, secret societies, politics, romance, ritual traditions of many cultures and really the greater connections to the history of the world and present-day life.
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