Over the last few months, I have written on this blog about several wonderful books which I have deliberately strayed into or sought out on purpose. I was so pleased with this one when I bought it and it arrived that I mentioned it in an earlier blog post based solely on having scanned the wonderful photograps it contains which were shot by Karen Singer Jabbour as her primary, but not her only, contribution to this book with her husband Alan Jabbour.
Alan Jabbour worked in several high level capacities for the federal government including as head of the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress, director of the Folk Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts, and director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The Jabbours completed the research for this book over several years primarily in the area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park but also did extensive research in Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia. It is fascinating to me that Alan Jabbour was the son of immigrants and produced such an incredible book about folk culture and folk life in Central and Southern Appalachia. The book was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2010 but I had not known of it until recently. It is the best book about burials and burial practices in Central and Southern Appalachia since James K. Crissman's "Death and Dying In Central Appalachia" came out in 1994.
The Jabbour's focused their first research on several cemeteries which are located in the North Shore area of Fontana Lake which lies within the boundaries of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These cemeteries are unaccessible by land except for what could be miles of hiking in the mountains or by crossing the lake on a boat from landings on the south shore. The National Parks Service decided at some point after the lake was built to accommodate people who wished to attend what had always been annual "Decoration Day" at these cemeteries by providing a pontoon boat operated by Parks Service staff which would transport the people, their cemetery decorations, and food for dinner on the grounds. The Jabbour's attended the first Decoration Day on the day when a new park superintendent chose to attend the ceremony also which had never been done by his predecessors. The boat actually had to make three trips in each direction across the lake due to the number of people. The Jabbour's crossed on the first boat load and returned on the last boat load in able to document the arrivals and departures of the community members attending the ceremony which consisted of the annual cleanup of the cemeteries, placement of flowers and other decorations on the graves, a church service, and dinner on the grounds. The photographs by Karen Singer Jabbour and the text by Alan Jabbour are thorough, highly informative, and enlightening about Decoration Day in Western North Carolina.
It should be noted that Decoration Day is not necessarily on the same day as Memorial Day and is often set on other days in all the states of the Central and Southern Appalachian region. In small localities, it is also often arranged so that Decoration Day does not conflict with the event on other local cemeteries since many people have relatives buried on several nearby cemeteries. As a result of their work at these first two cemeteries, the Jabbours were able to meet and come to know many of the attendees and were invited to Decoration Day on numerous cemeteries within a large geographic area. They shot photographs, recorded interviews, and made extensive notes as they traveled from cemetery and community to others in this large area.
They did an excellent job of photographing and discussing different practices in the use of tombstones, grave markers, grave decorations, types of church services, and varying local customs in many areas of dealing with death and burial. I cannot say enough good things about their work and their book. They discuss and provide excellent photographs of a practice I had never seen before called "raking and mounding" of graves in which the grave has no grass growing on it but is, instead, raked clean and the dirt is mounded on top just as it would be immediately after a burial until the freshly dug earth settles. But in that area of North Carolina, this practice is done long term as a way of maintaining graves cleanly and with dignity. They also discuss and provide photographs of another practice which is not common in all areas of Central and Southern Appalachia which is covering graves with white sand or gravels instead of grass. They provide only one photograph of a grave house which is a shame but they are not common in the Western North Carolina area. But they provide several photographs of handmade field stone grave markers, some of which are very large and complex. The provide several excellent photographs of shelters, pulpits, and seating equipment on cemeteries used both for the church services and dinner on the grounds. These seating and roofed areas are more common all across Appalachia. The book has 32 color photographs from probably a dozen or more cemeteries in a central section of the book on high quality stiff, slick paper. But every chapter has at least a few black and white photographs, some with more than a dozen, of graves, shelters, entire cemeteries, church services, and other items and events. This is the best book I have ever read about cemeteries in Central and Southern Appalachia. It is beautiful blend of high quality photography, professional folk lore documentation, and very professional writing. Nearly every discussion of a practice, item, or event has an insertion directing the reader to the appropriate photographs which document the practice, item, or event. This book is well worth the price of admission if you have any interest in cemeteries either in Central and Southern Appalachia or elsewhere.
I grew up near three cemeteries in Knott County Kentucky and attended many burials, Decoration Days, grave diggings, and cemetery clean ups in both Kentucky and West Virginia. I also, for one year, supervised juvenile offenders in mowing and maintaining a historic cemetery in Franklin, Pennsylvania. I have documented, photographed, and created memorials on the website Find A Grave for many cemeteries in Kentucky and other areas. This book is a masterpiece especially if you have prior knowledge or interest in Appalachian cemeteries. It is also a great book to own and read if you simply want to learn more about these practices from the viewpoint of a novice. You will enjoy this book tremendously if you know or want to know anything about Appalachia and Appalachian people.
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