With a big smile and a voice of appreciation, Celestina Bishop expressed gratefulness to God for bestowing His favor upon her and the members of One Section At A Time (OSAAT).
By the grace of the Lord, Bishop and the OSAAT volunteers officially opened Woodlawn Celestial Gardens to the public during a ceremony last month and they also celebrated Bishop’s as the proprietor of the cemetery.
“Our grand opening was a big success! I’m very honored to be the new owner of Woodlawn Celestial Gardens. It is a blessing and it is my blessing to be able to serve the people in the community,” she said in an interview with the L.A. Sentinel.
Scores of people came out to the event as well as Compton Councilmember Jonathan Bowers, who all shared uplifting words of encouragement to the OSAAT team. After words of prayer and expressions of appreciation, people strolled throughout the area to visit the final resting places of loved ones.
Twenty-two months of working to restore Woodlawn to its original state as a hallowed and sacred place required tremendous efforts by OSAAT volunteers. As recounted in a November 2021 Sentinel article, the group removed truckloads of the trash and junk scattered throughout the property and worked to level the ground, which had become uneven due to lack of water and nourishing soil.
But the signs of disrepair no longer exist. Today, visitors traverse neatly trimmed grounds and see clean and straightened headstones marking the graves of relatives and friends. Also, several bits of Compton’s history lies in Woodlawn.
The cemetery contains the remains of many early settlers of the city along with prominent individuals from more recent eras, noted Bishop. “Francis Townsend [is here], who created the Townsend Plan to address poverty among the elderly in the United States; and George Decker, known as ‘Gentleman George’ and considered one of the best first basemen of the 1890s,” she explained in an earlier interview.
Notable African Americans interred at Woodlawn include Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, a social activist and co-founder of the Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party; Freeman Davis, a 1940s-50s whistling and bone playing recording artist known as ‘Brother Bones,’ whose playing of ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ was adopted as the Harlem Globetrotters’ theme song; Theolic Smith, a Negro League baseball pitcher, who was nicknamed ‘Fireball’ for his sizzling fastball; and Paralee Coleman, a child actress who appeared in short films between 1926 and 1937 including playing the character Pleurisy in the “Our Gang” Little Rascals movies.
With the reopening of Woodlawn Celestial Gardens, the nonprofit’s energies will now focus on securing consistent funding to maintain the memorial park with staffing and other resources.
“We want to keep the gates open and continue to restore the dignity and respect that this cemetery deserves,” said Bishop.
To learn more or donate to One Section At A Time, visit onesectionatatime.org.