Wednesday, March 19, 2025–6:45 p.m.
-Severo Avila, Rome News-Tribune-
This story is possible because of a news-sharing agreement with the Rome News-Tribune. More information can be found at northwestgeorgianews.com
She courted controversy and was the talk of the town on many occasions. She’s been called crazy and eccentric. She’s been pointed at and laughed at. But behind her headline-making antics was a remarkable woman who was much more than the legal turmoil for which she was known.
Anne Clay Otwell, who later legally changed her name to, and was better known as Serpentfoot, has died. Her granddaughter confirmed that she died around 2 p.m. Tuesday in an incorporated community in Chattooga County called Poetry. She was 91.
Ericka Otwell said her grandmother stood up for what she believed, regardless of whether that was popular or not.
“I respected that she always tried to do for others,” Ericka said. “She did what she thought was right whether people made fun of her for it or not.”
Ericka remembers a woman who was headstrong, very vocal in her beliefs and who loved nature.
“She really enjoyed going to Native American festivals,” Ericka said. “She liked hunting for fossils and just being outdoors. She was a great lover of nature.”
The Rome News-Tribune wrote many stories about Serpentfoot throughout the years, mostly concerning her legal battles and her sometimes tense relationship with local government. Many will remember one of her most famous incidents was when she disrobed at a county commission meeting.
But despite her sometimes abrasive actions toward authority, Serpentfoot also displayed great affection and kindness toward those seeking her help. She had a keen mind for the inner workings of the law and used this to benefit others on several occasions.
In 2015, the Rome News-Tribune published a story after Serpentfoot had attempted to have her name changed to a very long and seemingly unrelated series of words. Naturally it drew much attention. But during the interview for that story, reporter Severo Avila sat down with Serpentfoot and learned a great deal about the woman behind the headlines.
We would like to include that 2015 story here:
No stranger to controversy, a Rome legend is once again the center of attention. Serpentfoot is turning heads, as she has done in the past, and this time it’s on the social media site Facebook.
Local Facebook pages were flooded recently with images of a legal notice running in the classified section of the Rome News-Tribune.
Serpentfoot is applying to have her name legally changed yet again. This time, she wants to replace “Serpentfoot” with a collection of seemingly unrelated and disjointed items.
The notice reads “You are hereby notified that on February 23, 2015, Serpentfoot filed a petition in the Superior Court of Floyd County…..to change her name….if granted would be known as: Nofoot Allfoot-Mouth-Tail-69-Vacuum-Consumption-Gravity-Wheels-Circle-Our-Greater-Self-Habitat-Cosmos-Metamorphosing-Solids-Gas-Liquids-Molten-Metal-Molted-Frogs-Butterflys-Turtle-Isle-Light-Fire-Ice-Wind-Spider-8-Trigrams-Roots-Limbs-Wings-Cane…(infinity symbol) Serpentfoot.”
That name would, of course, be shortened when necessary such as on her driver’s license. Since a Georgia driver’s license requires two names, hers says “Serpentfoot Serpentfoot.”
But there is more to the woman than the controversies and headlines she creates. At 81, she is plagued by a hip injury and uses a walker or cane to get around.
Her small, stooped, frail figure is in direct contrast with the public persona she has created with her outlandish words and actions over the years.
She has sued and been sued. She has even disrobed in a county commission meeting.
She is neither surprised nor ashamed to be back in the public eye.
“I know what people say about me,” she said. “I know they say I’m crazy. I don’t let it bother me. Some people just don’t understand.”
What Serpentfoot says she is trying to make the community understand — and why she wants a 39-word name — is the simple message of her church, Our Greater Self Co-op.
“We need to preserve our greater self,” she said. “That means we need to preserve our environment and nature in general. We are only a small part of this world in which we live, no greater or less than all the other animals and plants.”
So she hopes that all those words in her new name will remind people of that.
But isn’t there another way to go about spreading her message?
“I never wanted to do anything the traditional way,” she said. “When people say I’m different, they’ve got me there. I always wanted to be independent. I always wanted to be different.”
A Floyd County native, Serpentfoot grew up here and raised a family here. But her eccentric behavior soon led to a rift with family members. Her children, she said, all but disowned her. And she doesn’t blame them.
She knows her behavior has caused them embarrassment and pain and, rather than hurt them even more, she believes that distancing herself from them (the name-change is one way) may heal some of those past wrongs.
In fact, she said, they visit her every now and again.
“I love my children and grandchildren, and I don’t want to hurt them,” she said. “So I don’t bring up their names publicly. I like it when they visit, so I don’t involve them in any of the things that put me in the newspaper.”
And she has certainly been in the newspaper. For years, stories of her activities have made her well known to the police department and the local media.
In early 1995 she was arrested after disrobing during a county commission meeting. In 2013, she navigated a gauntlet of legal processes in a failed attempt to have a man buried according to what she said were the man’s wishes.
Serpentfoot tried to gain custody of the man’s body after his death, claiming he had been a member of her congregation and wished to be buried in a very unusual manner — a burial that included dismemberment, keeping his bones for study and art, and using other parts of his body to feed animals.
She was not awarded custody of the body, and the incident began a volley of legal activity that went to the Georgia Court of Appeals. The court ruled that Serpentfoot had not filed her appeal in time.
And in 2007, in another name-change incident, then Rome News-Tribune owner Burgett Mooney III took legal action against Serpentfoot after she tried to have her name legally changed to “Blowdjett Mooney IV.”
“That was ridiculous and I’m glad I failed with Mooney,” she said with a laugh. “I know that was crazy, but at the time they were writing all these stories about me and using my former name, which had been legally changed. So I wanted him to feel what it was like to have his name in the paper all the time.”
Wearing a brightly colored shirt and repeatedly rifling through her handbag for her phone or paperwork, she gave the impression that inactivity is completely foreign to her.
When asked if at 81 she isn’t tired of fighting — fighting the city government and fighting the law — she smiled, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“I feel younger and more full of life than I did 10 years ago,” she said. “I love keeping my mind and body busy. I love to study.”
During an interview at the newspaper Tuesday, Serpentfoot took a call from a friend who needed a ride to a doctor’s appointment. She was gentle and patient with the person on the other end of line and when she hung up, she said she frequently gives rides to those who don’t have transportation of their own. She also goes through a daily ritual of returning phone calls or writing letters to prisoners and parolees who seek her help.
She has more than a basic understanding of the law and is an eloquent speaker.
It seems she has plucked various elements from a variety of world religions and beliefs to formulate her own belief system, the foundation of which is the need to preserve the natural world.
“We need nature lovers and we need environmentalists,” she said. “And we need all those people to work with scientists to try to cut down our carbon emissions and cut down pollution. We have to preserve our greater self.”
Serpentfoot is remarkably candid. She would love to visit the mountains and she enjoys art and history. She says she’s been married several times and once had a dependency on alcohol and cigarettes. But she quit those years ago.
When asked about her relationship with her children, she immediately retreats to safer topics, obviously dodging the issue. It’s an uncomfortable subject for her and it’s clear that some wounds of the past have not healed.
“I do know what people say about me, you know,” she said at the end of the interview. “The things I’ve done and said have come at a great cost to me, more than most people know. But I have to do what I believe is right. And I have to do it in my own way.”
