Open Savannah

This Women’s History Month we take a moment to remember Mary L. Ayers (1877-1965). 

Explore the Mary L. Ayers World War II scrapbook

Members of the Order of the Eastern Star, Baxley District No. 17, and Prince Hall Grand Chapter, lay a wreath at the grave of Mary L. Ayers, Laurel Grove South Cemetery, Savannah, Ga., February 23, 2025. 

To learn more about the Municipal Archives and our collections, visit www.savannahga.gov/MunicipalArchives.

Funeral programs are often found hidden in historical collections, dispersed amongst the papers. These hidden gems offer a wealth of biographical and familial historical knowledge. The City of Savannah Municipal Archives was inspired by collections of digitized funeral programs hosted on the Digital Library of Georgia to digitize funeral programs found in the City’s archival collections. Over the past year we discovered over 400 funeral programs, and digitized and indexed them to enhance discoverability. 

Funeral programs can include birth and death dates, familial relations, educational background, photographs, and other biographical information. The programs in our collections not only help with genealogical research but they also shine a light on the history of the funeral program itself. We can see over the span of several years how programs are formatted differently. For example, see the two programs below, the one from 2007 is more detailed, including photographs and graphics across two pages, while the one from 1945 has just text on one page. This not only reflects the technology of the time periods, but changes in social customs.

Marion Levette funeral program, April 27, 1945.

Record Series 1121-110, W. W. Law Working Files, Item WWL20_People-FuneralPrograms03-0017, City of Savannah Municipal Archives.

Johnnie Hall’s funeral program, November 17, 2007.

Record Series 1121-064.05, White Bluff Community Collection, Item 1121-064.05_LeVere_0004, City of Savannah Municipal Archives.

The majority of the funeral programs preserved by the Municipal Archives come from the W. W. Law Collection. Law was a well-known local Civil Rights activist with friends and family across the state and country. Law received programs as attachments in correspondence, along with attending them himself, often as a featured speaker or pallbearer. Ever the collector and historian, W. W. Law held on to many of these programs, including that for Dr. Ernest Patrick Lavendar, Jr.’s, received in a letter dated April 18, 2000.

Dr. Ernest Patrick Lavendar, Jr.’s funeral program with attached letter, April 18, 2000. 

Record Series 1121-109, ASALH and Related cultural organization records, Item 1121-109-0051_009-0001, City of Savannah Municipal Archives. 

Another source of a significant number of funeral programs in the Municipal Archives is in the Savannah Community Memory Project collections. The items in these collections come from various community members who have come to our community archiving events where they donate digital copies while hanging on to the original items. One such program (shown below) remembers White Bluff community member Louise Wiley Hall, who died in 2014.                    

Louise Wiley Hall’s funeral program, January 14, 2014.

Record Series 1121-064.05 White Bluff Community collection, Item 1121-064.05_Hall_0127, City of Savannah Municipal Archives.

You can browse and search all of the Municipal Archives’ digitized funeral programs on the Digital Library of Georgia website. 

We are actively seeking to add more funeral programs from Chatham County to our collections to ensure this valuable historical information is preserved and available to all. If you would like to donate a copy of a funeral program from your personal collection:

• Email a digital copy to Archives@savannahga.gov (be sure to include your name and contact information)
• Upload it to our online submission form at www.savannahga.gov/YourHistory
• Mail an original or photocopy to: City of Savannah Municipal Archives, PO Box 1027, Savannah, GA 31402

Thank you for considering the Municipal Archives as the repository for these important documents. Special thanks to the Digital Library of Georgia for helping us make our funeral programs available online for users around the globe to discover. If you have questions about the City of Savannah Municipal Archives funeral programs, please email Megan Kerkhoff at Archives@savannahga.gov. 

For Valentine’s Day, we wanted to send a little archival love out to everyone. Each member of the Archives team has selected a favorite image (a hard task among our collections) to share with you today. Enjoy and have a great day!

Unidentified children on a Savannah stoop, circa 1970s-1980s

Boy’s sweatshirt reads “Happiness is Having a Friend”

W. W. Law photograph collection, Item 1121-100_1251

(Selected by Luciana Spracher, Municipal Archives Director)

Air Ship Ascension, November 1, 1909

Palumbo collection of Savannah-area materials, Item 1121-070_0411

Learn about the Air Ship Stroebel’s visit to Daffin Park in 1909 in the Noteworthy Savannah mini-exhibit online

(Selected by Kelly Zacovic, Senior Archivist)

Unidentified girls balancing baskets on their heads in a Savannah street, no date

Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Minis collection of glass plate negatives, Item 1121-071_018

(Selected by Megan Kerkhoff, Records Management Program Coordinator)