Mac Henderson

I visited the Parrish Cemetery in Manatee County Florida recently and saw markers on the grave of William Malcom Henderson and another one nearby for "Florence and baby Wm. Jr." I decided to do some research to find out who they were. I figured they were relatives because they were near the Lundy family graves.

Mac Henderson (1897-1919) was my grandmother's first cousin. His mother Mary Emma Lundy Henderson was the sister of my great grandmother Ida Lundy Wilson. He has a short but sad story.

Mac married Florence Verna Emlaw on May 16, 1917 in Winter Park, Florida. His step-brother Charles Robert Lundy had married Florence's sister Gladys Emlaw three years earlier.

Fifteen months after their wedding Florence and the baby William Jr. both died during childbirth in Brooksville, Florida. The wife and baby were brought to the cemetery in Parrish, Florida to be buried.

Three months after his wife and son died, on November 1, 1918, Mac committed suicide, shooting himself with a pistol. In this age of gun control frenzy, I'll just repeat what a family member told me about this story. He said that 43 years later Mac's brother Ralph was shot and killed with the same pistol. I haven't been able to confirm this yet.


Mac's grave marker, done many years later has the wrong date. Someone put the day he and Florence were married as the date of his death.