Helen Plane

Helen Plane is the first person on record to have mentioned the idea of a Confederate Memorial on Stone Mountain. A charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and president of the Atlanta Chapter, Mrs. Plane first suggested a memorial carving in 1909. Although her initial vision for the carving, a portrait of General Lee with the possible incorporation of Ku Klux Klan figures, gave way to Gutzon Borglum's plans for a grand procession, Plane remained influential throughout the 1910s. Indeed, it was she that made the decision to approach the well-known Borglum about undertaking the project.

Mrs. Plane's devotion to the memorialization of the Confederacy's heroes stemmed, at least in part, from her desire to memorialize her own husband. Her husband, Maj. Plane, served as a medic in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and was killed at Gettysburg caring for a wounded comrade. Mrs. Plane traveled all the way from Georgia to Pennsylvania to retreive her husband's body, so that she could give it a proper burial. Her continuing devotion fueled plans for the carving.