COLUMBIA, S.C. — Sonya Hodges Grantham is a name many in Columbia won't forget after she spent years bringing attention to the Frogtown Community and "Child's Cemetery".
After years of hard work, she died at the age of 60, now her family and friends remember her and the impact she made.
"Trust me If she ever works on anything, it will be complete," said Frogtown resident and friend of Sonya, Sylvia Smith.
"She preserved history, and she wanted to make sure history was told," adds friend, Sandra Colson.
One of the last projects was in July when she worked on making sure a plaque to recognize the FrogTown community was placed on the Frogtown Sensational Segregational wall built in the 60s to separate blacks and whites.
Three of her 10 kids spoke with News19 about how her work has gone further than just Frogtown.
"Our mom was amazing at making sure we knew our history, for sure, our real true history, things we didn't learn in school she was gonna tell us," says daughter, Mary Chappell.
Some of her other efforts were to preserve and restore Child's Cemetery home of the soldiers from the 371st infantry regiment 93rd division that served in World War 1. That regiment consisted of African American draftees and enlisted men from the South.
"One of the most important things to me that she learned and uncovered was the history of our great-grandfather Santro Thompson and the 371st and she got a lot of recognition for that project, I just thought it was amazing, and I thought it was amazing how she chronicled FrogTown in general," says her son, Terry Scipio.
Her kids add they hope to find ways to continue her legacy, but filling her shoes will be hard.
Her funeral is open to the public, it takes place Tuesday February 28th at 2:00 pm at Bostick-Tompkins Funeral Home.