Fulton County

Mary Glover Thurman (1829-1916) was born in Virginia but moved to Atlanta with her husband, a successful dentist, in the 1850s. She was known for her flower gardens at her lavish home that stood where the Biltmore Hotel is now. She would take her flowers to friends and hospitals and was known as the “Angel of Atlanta.”

When she passed, she left $10,000 in her will to have a monument built on her and her husband’s plot. The executer of the will, nephew Rolfe Glover, had a replica of a Daniel Chester French monument sculpted for his aunt. The James Novelli monument is listed on the Smithsonian’s Save Our Sculpture database.