Geer Cemetery-Sarah Yearby

Left image and narrative source: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC

Right image: Sarah Yearby is in this photograph, published in
The Herald Sun 26 Apr 1953 page 34.

Yesterday’s (Sat. Feb. 18, 2023) find was the headstone for a young schoolgirl, Sarah Yearby. She was twelve years old when she died of typhoid fever.

Her parents Dee and Roxanna (Cross) Yearby enlisted the services of Scarborough and Hargett to handle their daughter’s burial. They had the beautiful headstone placed where Sarah was laid to rest. On the top of the rounded headstone is a lamb with its head up.

A lamb is a symbol that is frequently used for children in that it represents innocence and purity. The lamb also shows a strong
connection to a Christian faith, which is reflected in the epitaph at the bottom of the headstone “asleep in Jesus”.

Sarah was born in 1908 three years after her parent’s marriage. She was named for her paternal grandmother (Sarah (Atkins) Yearby). A couple of years later, she became a big sister with the birth of her sister Rowena.