Institution

Vivian and her husband, Robert J. McNeil, ran a restaurant on the corner of 6th Street South and 1st Avenue South. In 1969, Vivian managed a tavern at 627 1st Avenue South known as the 600 Club. In the 1970s, Robert McNiell was employed as a yardman. Later in life, Vivian took care of her mother, Ida Kirkland, at 200 10th Street South in Jacksonville Beach. When Ida Kirkland passed away in 1985 at the age of 93, Vivian inherited the Kirkland family home and lived there until her death in 1996. She handed down the property rights to her daughter, Algia McNeil.

Jackson McNeil Center at 932 3rd Ave. S. Jacksonville Beach, Fla.

Vivian Kirkland McNeil was born on Feb. 7, 1924, in Headland, Alabama, and was the youngest daughter of Lee and Ida Kirkland of Jacksonville Beach. Vivian worshipped at First Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville Beach for more than half a century. A church building on 3rd Avenue South in Jacksonville Beach is named in her honor.

Vivian Kirkland McNeil

The first recorded burial was in 1926 when U.S. Army wagoner and World War I veteran Jesse Butler was interred here. Butler is one of more than two dozen veterans buried there. Many graves were never marked, or their markers have deteriorated over time. The cemetery is named after its long-time caretaker, Lee Kirkland, who tended to the burial grounds in his spare time for more than 20 years. He dug graves with only a shovel and when people couldn’t afford headstones, he made them out of wood or concrete. After his death at age 78, the city of Jacksonville Beach passed a resolution naming the cemetery in his honor.

The land for the Lee Kirkland Cemetery for African Americans was donated to the city in 1932. It was once known as the Jacksonville Beach Colored Cemetery or the Negro Cemetery. There were separate cemeteries for African Americans and Caucasian Americans in Jacksonville Beach until the mid-1960s. Like the H. Warren Smith Memorial Cemetery across the street, burials occurred in the location prior to its designation as a public cemetery.

Thelma Lee Jackson was born in Alabama on April 26, 1912, and was the oldest daughter of Lee and Ida Kirkland. Her husband, Henry Wesley Jackson, moved to Florida in 1940 to work on a construction project at the Florida School of the Deaf &amp; Blind in St. Augustine, Fla. In 1941, Thelma and Henry rented a house at 106 6th Street South in Jacksonville Beach. In 1945, they moved to their own house at 936 2nd Avenue South. Henry was a carpenter employed by the B.B. McCormick Construction Company and later Ponte Vedra builder Rex Thames Sr. He died on Dec. 31, 1989. Thelma died on March 24, 2020, and is buried in an unmarked grave next to husband.

Thelma Lee Jackson was the Sunday school supervisor at Thomas Chapel Church of God by Faith in Jacksonville Beach for more than 50 years and also ran the soup kitchen. A church building on 3rd Avenue South is named in her honor. Her daughter, Mary Francis Gilbert, was the first Kirkland grandchild born at the Beaches.

Thelma Lee Jackson

A World War II veteran, Roundtree was married to Maurice Sanders, a cook whom he first met in the 1930s while living in a boarding house turned restaurant on Beach Boulevard known as The Homestead. Roundtree had a son named Alphonso Ingliss Roundtree who also cooked at the Homestead restaurant when he was 16. Alphonso, who died in 1978, is pictured pedaling a toy car behind the Homestead in the late 1930s. Before his death at age 64, Roundtree worked as a waiter at the Ponte Vedra Inn &amp; Club. His government-issued headstone in Lee Kirkland Cemetery lists his Army military rank.

A native of Quincy, Florida, “English” Roundtree moved to Jacksonville Beach in his late teens and spent the rest of his life in the bar and restaurant industry, first as a waiter at the Copper Kettle in Jacksonville Beach and later as a bartender and a club manager on Shetter Avenue.

Ingliss Frederick Roundtree (1912-1976)

Before Rashad's untimely death, the Make-A-Wish Foundation arranged to fly him to Chicago to meet his idol, basketball star Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls. Unfortunately, the plane ride had to be cancelled because Rashad's blood count was too low. Instead, he was a treated to a trip to Disney World in Orlando, according to his aunt Mary Jackson Gilbert of Jacksonville.Other Jacksons buried in the cemetery include Rashad's grandmother, Thelma Lee Kirkland Jackson, daughter of Lee and Ida Kirkland; Rashad's grandfather, Henry Wesley Jackson (1905-1990); Ethel Brown Jackson (1900-1978); Ella Jackson, who died in 1978; John D. Jackson, who died in 1981; Herbert Cecil Jackson, who died in 1989; and Nicky Pernell Jackson, who died in 1989.

The son of Daniel and Thelma Jackson of Jacksonville Beach, Rashad was a student at Jacksonville Beach Elementary School when he was diagnosed with childhood leukemia. He died 17 days shy of his 12th birthday at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. The epitaph on his headstone, which includes an etching of a small plane, reads, “To know him was to love him.”

Rashad Ahmad Jackson (1978-1990)

According to one of his relatives, Lee had a gentleman’s agreement with the city of Jacksonville Beach to keep up the cemetery in exchange for a family plot. He dug graves with only a shovel and when people couldn’t afford headstones, he made them out of wood or concrete. After his death, the city of Jacksonville Beach passed a resolution naming the cemetery in his honor. His wife, Ida (Ward) Kirkland of Newville, Alabama, was married to Lee Kirkland for 51 years. She was a loyal and dedicated member of the Thomas Chapel Church of God by Faith in Jacksonville Beach. At the time of her death in 1985 at age 95, Ida had 30 grandchildren, 53 great-grandchildren and eight great-great grandchildren. Her memorial service was held at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville Beach.

Lee Leviticus Kirkland, an Alabama native, moved to Jacksonville Beach in the early 1940s and was the unofficial caretaker of the cemetery that now bears his name. A former sharecropper who never worked for the city in any official capacity, Kirkland tended to the burial grounds for the segregated Black community in his spare time for more than 20 years, until his death in 1960 at the age of 78.

Lee Leviticus Kirkland, 1882 d. August 3, 1960

On his 1917 draft registration card, Jessie Butler, then 25, listed his occupation as a teamster, a driver of a team of horses or mules, for the Buckman and Pritchard Mining Company in Mineral City or what is now Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Driving mule teams was a skill that was sought after by Army supply units during World War I.After Butler was inducted into World War I service in August 1918, he achieved the rank of wagoner and was assigned to the 807th Pioneer Infantry Regiment, a replacement unit formed late in the war to construct roads, bridges, and railroads, often behind enemy lines.The 807th was one of 14 African American units that served overseas and one of seven that saw combat, taking part in the infamous Meuse Argonne Offensive in October 1918, the last major battle before the armistice was signed on Nov. 11, 1918.After the armistice was signed, a number of Pioneer units, including Butler's, remained overseas building new roads and other infrastructure.Butler's unit stayed in France until June 1919, departing from the port city of Breast on the USS Orizaba, a Navy transport ship. The 807th was officially discharged from service in July 1919 at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. During World War I, more than 200,000 African Americans served with the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. Jessie Butler was one of them.

Jessie Butler June 8, 1892 – June 17, 1926 Grave 728 Jessie Butler was born in 1892 in Georgia to Lemmie Grant Butler and Joseph Butler. By 1910, Lemmie Butler was widowed and had moved with her three children to Jacksonville, where they lived in a boarding house. Mrs. Butler and her teenage daughter, Sallie, worked as laundresses. Brother Joe worked as a laborer and 17 year old Jessie listed his occupation as bartender. Butler served in World War I as part of the 807th Pioneer Regiment, an elite regiment of African-American enlisted men and Caucasian-American officers. The regiments were designed to free Caucasian-American troops for infantry service. They served in a technical capacity, building roads and bridges, in France near the front lines. His Veterans Administration record shows that Butler served as a wagoneer. Butler returned to Duval County after the war. The 1920 U.S. Census shows that he and his mother were living on South Eighth Street in what was then known as Pablo Beach, now known as Jacksonville Beach. He listed his occupation as laborer. His 1926 death record indicates that he died as a victim of homicide from a shotgun blast to his abdomen. In 1932, his brother, Joseph Butler, applied for a veteran’s headstone. [Information from U.S. Census and vital records. Note that his death certificate lists his father’s name as Jessie, but the U.S. Census in 1900 lists his name as Joseph.]

Jessie Butler  June 8, 1892 – June 17, 1926   Grave 728  

Lillie A. Haywood (may also be spelled Heyward and Hayward) February 22, 1886— January 13, 1969 burial date Grave 145 There is a Lillie Hayward in the Jacksonville 1910 U.S. Census. She was 25 years old, married for six years to George Hayward and they had one daughter, Massie, age 3. Mrs. Hayward noted her occupation as working in a laundry. There is a Lillie Hayward in the 1956 City Directory, who lived at 118 South 6th in Jacksonville Beach.

Lee Kirkland Cemetery

Vivian Kirkland McNeil

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources