LANETT, ALABAMA · A FAMILY MEMORIAL
The Little House Built for Nadine
A little brick house stands among the graves in Oakwood Cemetery in Lanett, Alabama. Its porch, windows and striped awnings belong to a building small enough to be a child's playhouse. Dolls and toys surround a grave marker inside. [1]
The child remembered there is Nadine Earles. She died at four years old, a week before Christmas in 1933. Her father had been working on a playhouse she wanted for Christmas. After her death, the family had a house built at her grave. [2]
That is why the toys are there.
In this story
A Christmas wish
In a 2007 interview with WTVM, Lanett historian Linda Fulcher recounted that Nadine became ill with diphtheria and later developed pneumonia. Her family was quarantined, and work on the backyard playhouse stopped. Her parents gave her presents early, but she continued asking about the house. [2]
Fulcher repeated the words remembered in the family's story: “Daddy, me want it now.” Nadine died on December 18. According to Fulcher, city leaders subsequently allowed her father to build the playhouse around her grave. [2]
A gathering the following spring
The house became a place where others remembered her, too. Writing in *Alabama Currents* in 2014, local newspaper editor Wayne Clark described children gathering there the following spring for cake and ice cream. [3]
An earlier account by Clyde A. Chamberlin, published in *MB News* in 2001, dates the gathering to April 3, 1934, the day Nadine would have turned five. Chamberlin also reported that a photograph of the gathering was displayed inside the house. [4]
The family's place
Julian and Alma Earles filled the house with toys. Both parents were eventually buried beside it, bringing their own graves into the same small family plot. [1]
Over the years, people outside the family helped care for the memorial. WTVM reported in 2007 that the Town and Country Garden Club changed its seasonal decorations. Clark's 2014 account described city maintenance and noted dolls, a tea set and a small tricycle inside. [2] [3]
These objects help explain whom the house remembers. Nadine lived only four years. Her family made room for the things she loved in the place where they came to remember her.
Sources and research notes
This account draws on published local reporting and later historical accounts. Nadine’s remembered words and the circumstances of construction are attributed accordingly. The original 1933–34 newspaper pages remain to be examined. Dated reports of upkeep do not establish the current caretaker.
- Greater Valley Area Chamber of Commerce — Historical Sites
Official local visitor account of the memorial, its contents and the family plot. - WTVM — Lanett cemetery dollhouse is memorial to little girl (2007)
Interview with Lanett historian Linda Fulcher; the family story, remembered words and garden-club care reported in 2007. - Wayne Clark — Alabama Currents, May/June 2014, page 12
Local newspaper editor’s account of the spring gathering, furnishings and city maintenance at that time. - Clyde A. Chamberlin — MB News, August 2001, pages 30–31
Later historical account dating the birthday gathering to April 3, 1934 and describing a photograph displayed inside.
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