Ladies Memorial Association

PETERSBURG – The Ladies Memorial Association (LMA) of Petersburg will be celebrating the installation of the sidewalks on Memorial Hill located in Blandford Cemetery on Saturday. The program will be held at the Gazebo at 11 a.m. A historic walking tour of Memorial Hill will be offered immediately following the ceremony.

The LMA was organized in May of 1866. It is the oldest, non-religious, on-going women’s organization in the country. The association’s original mission was the recovery of Confederate soldiers (approximately 30,000) who were left dead in the battlefields during the 10-month siege on Petersburg and throughout the war and the internment of the remains in a Christian burial.

In 1901, the Ladies Memorial Association received the authority from the city of Petersburg to convert Old Blandford Church (1735) into a Confederate Memorial and chapel.

For additional information, email Pat Rowland at: rowland229@gmail.com.