Wingard, Alabama

Welcome to the Wingard Cemetery in Wingard, Alabama. If you’ve never been to Wingard, you’ll find it in western Pike County, just off the main highway between Troy and Luverne.

Wingard, Alabama was settled in 1820 by William Wingard (1796-1872) and his wife Ellender Burgess Wingard (1797-1885). They moved from South Carolina, accompanied by his brother-in-law, William Burgess, who had married Mary Wingard. So, a brother and sister married a brother and sister.

Here are a few photos of Wingard Cemetery, taken in 2007:

Richard William Wingard was the father of my great-grandfather, George Franklin Wingard (1860-1949). He died on his son’s second birthday.

My closest kin lived in northwest Pike County and southern Montgomery County at Elmdale, the Moore-Wingard plantation. For a number of years, my dad, George Thomas Wingard, Jr. lived on Wingard Road, which is off highway 94 between Orion and Raymer. His family included his father, George Thomas Wingard, Sr. (1892-1946), his mother, Dorinda Thompson Wingard (1894-1980), my uncle John Calvin Wingard, Sr., and my aunt Martha Lena Wingard. For anyone wanting to drive down Wingard Road, you should know that the bridge that joins Wingard Road and Moore Road is washed out, so you’ll have to come back the way you came, which is three miles. There’s only one house on the road now. The rest is owned by a lumber company.

While living off Wingard Road, my dad and his family worshiped at the Pine Level Methodist Episcopal Church South (now Pine Level United Methodist Church). The old frame building is gone. Construction of the current sanctuary began in 1937, soon after dad and his family moved to Forrest City, Arkansas. On my dad’s last Sunday at the church, his grandfather, George Franklin Wingard (1860-1949) made a public pledge to the church’s building campaign.