First Bethlehem Baptist Church Cemetery in Louisiana

About

Get directions Rapides Parish, Louisiana, USA

Coordinates: 31.31530, -92.52240
Cemetery ID:

Members have Contributed

About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

Photos

1 open photo request.

In Alexandria, turn on LA Hwy. 496 (Bayou Rapides Road) and go 3.1 miles. Cemetery is on the right beside a pretty, white frame church with white steeple in the center. An obvious sign of the times, the church has iron bars on the windows. A plaque on First Bethlehem Baptist Church reads:

"First Bethlehem Baptist Church built in 1939 by W. C. Grimble, solicited funds, and lumber from sawmills. Schoolboard donated windows, doors, and coverings. Deacons: S. Madison & P. Bullins; W. J. Grimble, Secretary; B. Grinstard, Treasurer; Rev. D. Smith, Pastor."

Both the church and burial ground are well maintained by the small African-American congregation. The cemetery spreads from the front of the church to the back and across to the other side with the church right in the center. Tombstone inscriptions were recorded from the front fence toward the back on the left side in zigzag rows by Mary Parker Partain, May 1992. Submitted by Jane P. McManus