Storyteller Anne McKee: The Rose on the Hill

• McKee will always be grateful for the day a gentleman stranger walked into Merrehope to deliver an idea, because she was able to take it, make it reality and discover what came next—more stories.

Rose Hill Cemetery had always caught Anne McKee’s attention when driving along 8th Street in Meridian. She noticed the neglected grounds, the overgrowth and the markers needing repair. 

But there was something about that cemetery.

McKee had taken early retirement from General Motors, where she worked as an accounting supervisor. The salary and benefits were excellent, but she didn’t love the work.

“I needed something else in a different field,” she says, “and also I was still too young just to sit in the recliner.”

Consequently, she volunteered at Meridian’s historic home, Merrehope. At her church, she wrote short plays and put children in costumes to present Bible-inspired stories. She wrote a weekly newspaper column and discovered what she describes as “a knack for the literary world.” She joined the movement to create the Mississippi Writers Guild, co-founding the organization, while also pursuing storytelling through the Mississippi Arts Commission. 

In other words, there would be no retirement for Anne McKee

Anne was an only child who grew up in a neighborhood populated largely by older people, so she learned to entertain herself. At school, she found a friend, Brenda Stewart, and while other children played dodgeball, Anne and Brenda sat off to the side—telling stories.

“We really didn’t know we were tellers at the time,” McKee says.

In early 2008, Anne was volunteering at Merrehope when Mr. Walton Moore dropped by. 

“I didn’t know him, but he sure knew me. He told me right off that he needed my help and there wasn’t anyone else in Meridian who could pull off his great need.”

He said his group of volunteers had cleaned Rose Hill Cemetery, where his grandmother was buried. Now, after more than two years, they wanted to showcase this overlooked historic place in Meridian. He asked, “Will you organize a cemetery tour at Rose Hill?” 

“And that’s when I really began my journey as a storyteller,” she says.

Moore invited Anne to the cemetery for one of his tours, where he pulled a notepad from his shirt pocket to refer to. 

“I wish I had that notepad today,” Anne admits. “We did not cover everything that first time—the cemetery is ten acres—but he asked me to stop by his house. His wife, Lee, wanted to meet me.” 

Lee read Anne’s column every week, and that’s how Moore knew to contact Anne. And he had contacted the right person.

Soon Moore introduced McKee to Ward Calhoun Jr., then director of Lauderdale County Archives & History. The two men became her mentors. The timing could not have been better.

Bringing Rose Hill to Life

Organizing the first tour took two years. McKee called an organizational meeting in late 2008. She remembers about 10 people gathering at the Lauderdale County Annex, including Moore, Calhoun, her friend Brenda, Ava Hennington and Richard Whitehead.

“I began to learn the details of the cemetery property and that the property was actually owned by Benevolence Fund Inc., which was an offshoot of the Masonic organization now located in Marion. The Masons had owned the property since 1874, which they purchased to offer free burials for widows and children.” 

As McKee learned more about Rose Hill, the cemetery stopped being simply a collection of graves. Its history unfolded through research, records and the people buried there.

Then it became personal.

While researching a marker for Dr. and Mrs. Reynolds, McKee noticed a connection to the Georgia community where her own Reynolds family had lived. Further research, she says, revealed that the couple was part of her family. For McKee, the discovery affirmed something she was already beginning to feel.

“It wasn’t just an accident when Mr. Moore looked me up that day at Merrehope,” she says. “It was God’s plan. I had found my life after retirement.”

When Anne began organizing the Rose Hill tour, her childhood friend, Brenda, was the first person she called, and she was there on opening night in October 2010, along with the other volunteers, ready to find out whether anyone else cared about the stories they had uncovered. They set a modest measure for success: 200 visitors. Then the line began forming and stretching from the Rose Hill gate west along 8th Street for two blocks. McKee recalls local media estimating that approximately 4,000 people came that first night.

A cemetery tour might suggest ghosts, hauntings and things that go bump in the night, but not the Rose Hill Cemetery Tour. McKee is emphatic about that.

“We don’t tell fiction,” says Anne. “The stories have been researched. And we do not present a haunted tour.”

The Rose Hill Company of Tellers has developed approximately 25 stories. Moore and Calhoun researched many; over the years, others have been added, some suggested by descendants of people buried there. McKee considers historical accuracy fundamental to the company’s mission.

“I have always contended that storytelling is 75% visual; therefore, we have period costumes that are worn by the storytellers.” She adds, however, that “the event is not sugar-coated.” But facts are only the beginning. “Whether it is a song or a novel, a movie or storytelling, interest is driven by emotion and connection with the audience. A good love story or a good murder story will bring the attendees into time and place and, of course, action.”

That is why visitors don’t simply stand beside a marker while a guide recites dates and biographical information. Dressed in period costumes, performers assume the identities of people buried at Rose Hill and tell their stories in first person. McKee believes the experience is essential.

The cemetery holds stories ranging from Meridian’s founders to architects, families, tragedies and colorful personalities. Kelly Mitchell, the Romani woman historically called the “Queen of the Gypsies,” remains one of Rose Hill’s best-known figures and a major attraction for visitors. But McKee says once people begin hearing the other narratives, they discover how many stories the cemetery contains.

More Stories to Tell

For three years, the group also presented Rose Hill stories at the Temple Theatre and Meridian Little Theatre, partly to provide an indoor alternative for older visitors. But Meridian’s history doesn’t stop at Rose Hill Cemetery, which is why Anne created the Meridian Downtown History Walk. 

“In February 2027, we will hold our sixth downtown tour where we tell a great deal of Meridian history.” This event, commemorating Meridian’s founding on February 10, 1860, has been very successful, and our storytellers are excited to present it each year. Among others, we tell the stories of E. F. Young Hotel, the Dumont and Threefoot families, Lady of the Grand Opera House, Mrs. Elsie McWilliams, and Mrs. Weidmann.

The Tellers plan to expand its programming in 2027, including a spring cemetery tour featuring stories now being researched.

“I know we, the Rose Hill Company of Tellers, have done good work,” she says, “and that Mr. Walton Moore and Mr. Ward Calhoun are smiling down upon us.”

Storyteller Anne McKee will always be grateful for the day a gentleman stranger walked into Merrehope to deliver an idea, because she was able to take it, make it reality and discover what came next—more stories.

On September 26, the Rose Hill Company of Tellers will once again take their places among the stones, dressed in period clothing and speaking in the first person as people buried there.