If Stones Could Speak: A Walk Through Roseland Cemetery, Part 2

Submitted by Rebekah Sheats

Driving through the gates of Roseland Cemetery for another visit, I note with relief that my vehicle fits easily between the tall posts that flank the road. Though Roseland was laid out well before the invention of the automobile, it still managed to accommodate itself to this strange new vehicle when the need arose.
This passing thought sparks another, and I suddenly find myself heading toward the grave of Joseph Pate, located in Section C.
More than a hundred years have passed since Joseph Warren Pate first came to Monticello. Named after a Revolutionary War doctor who died at Bunker Hill, Joe Pate moved from Georgia to Jefferson County shortly after the end of World War One. His intention was to make Monticello his new home—and the home of his future business of selling the latest models of the Ford automobile.
Not long after their arrival, Joe and his wife Tillie Mae were blessed with a daughter, Josephine (though she is better known today as Dodie Anderson). Joe was determined to put down roots in Monticello, and he purchased a house on Pearl Street for himself and his young family.
Pearl Street was the largest residential section in Monticello in the early twentieth century. Known as East End, it was home to many growing families and several prominent citizens. Mayor Richard Simpson lived here, not far from dairyman W. W. Bassett and his family of five boys. Thomas Bird, the county judge, lived a few houses down from Ed Finlayson, a farmer and the agricultural agent for the county.
East End was a close-knit community. “We knew everyone by name,” Josephine recalled. Neighborhood children gathered to roller skate on the dirt streets or play games while mothers visited over the back fence. After the day’s work was done, families would sit on their front porches to enjoy the somewhat-cooler temperatures of Florida evenings. Any passing neighbors would be invited up for a visit with iced tea and homemade baked goods.
Each weekday morning Joe left his home on Pearl Street and motored downtown to his Ford sales office, where he did his best to convince the quiet Monticello community that the automobile was the way of the future.
The introduction of the internal combustion engine was hailed by many as a giant step forward in the great march of progress at the dawn of the twentieth century. But, as these new vehicles began to clog city streets and churn up clouds of dust along quiet country roads, doubts were raised in the minds of some. These doubts continued to linger through the 1920s and 1930s as automobiles replaced the tried-and-true transportation methods of old. One Monticello writer nostalgically noted in 1935, “Though horses were mettlesome in [past] days, they caused far less disasters than do the automobiles of today.”
Despite the naysayers, the “horseless carriage” was here to stay. Joe Pate eagerly extolled its virtues to Jefferson County residents, and his business boomed. An avid advocate of the Ford automobile, Pate encouraged individuals of all ages (14 and up, that is) to try their hand behind a wheel. In 1926, locals advised anyone looking for a new automobile, “Don’t talk to Joe Pate if you don’t want a Ford.”
With prices as low as $295 for a new vehicle, Pate asked, who wouldn’t want a Ford? Such an inexpensive vehicle “helps millions enjoy their vacations,” one 1924 advertisement noted. Another local ad extolled the outstanding features of the new Ford Tudor Sudan which included a streamlined body, steel-spoke wheels, quick acceleration, and an astonishing maximum speed of 65 miles per hour.
Pate was energetic to a fault in his business dealings. Yet he nevertheless managed to keep his work in proper perspective. With a wife and a growing family, he knew he had more important things than Fords to fill his mind.
Pate’s daughter Dodie often stopped by her father’s Ford dealership for one reason or another. She knew each of the employees by name and could snatch a few minutes of her father’s time if he wasn’t busy with a customer, but she rarely spent much time with him during the workday due to the countless matters requiring his attention. In the evenings, however, Joe Pate set his work aside for matters of much greater significance. Locking his garage, he returned home to enjoy an uninterrupted meal with his family. Long before the advent of evenings were a thing to be treasured. Childish prattle, help with homework, and the simple joy of togetherness knit bonds that would last a lifetime. “I adored my mother and father,” Dodie later recalled. “I never really got into mischief as a child. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I had ever done anything to hurt them.”
Astute businessman, energetic visionary, and simple family man, Joe Pate left a mark on Monticello that will not soon be forgotten. The landscape of the town has changed over the past hundred years, but much remains the same. The house that Pate and his young wife occupied soon after their arrival in Monticello still stands today. Though central heat and air and other modern conveniences have been added to it over the years, it’s still the same structure—and it’s still in the family. Joe Pate’s daughter Josephine lives there to this day.
And those automobiles that Pate thought so highly of? Yes, they’re still here. And it certainly appears that they’re here to stay.