Pioneer Cemetery, Franklin, Pennsylvania

Over the rattle, roar, hum, of the lawnmowers and weedeaters, or was it beneath those sounds, I could have sworn I heard voices, maybe across the river, maybe down the street toward the courthouse, low, quiet, distant voices. As I moved across the fenced lot among the tombstones, occasional little American flags, local stones with engravings I had trouble reading now, the voices seemed to filter in, maybe being muffled by the surrounding trees, maybe across French Creek or somewhere along the Allegheny. Then, interspersed among the voices, I thought I heard the industrious strokes of a hammer, maybe John Broadfoot’s hammer building another house for a settler just arrived from farther east, Philadelphia, or even New York. That hammer kept working steadily but seemed to recede in the distance as another voice came through sounding a lot like I might have known John McLaurin’s voice would be, quietly insistent, encouraging us to keep working to “cherish their memories and keep their graves green”. The first time I stood in front of the gate to the Pioneer Cemetery and read the sign saying “First Burial in 1795” I knew I was in a special place, among historic people, people who would have remembered the stories of Fort Machault and how the French burned it to the ground in 1759 before retreating to Canada to leave America in the hands of the pioneers some of whom would be buried in that little plot on Otter Street. I walked inside and read the markers, slowly, one by one, moving from each to the next in awe of a group of people who had been brave and durable enough to come to the intersection of French Creek and the Allegheny to wrest the land from the French and nurture it until it became a quiet country town epitomizing the spirit of these people who had left England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales to come to a new, rough, rawboned land of mountains and rivers sitting in the way of the winds blowing off Lake Erie. These were people who included Lieutenant Francis Gordon, whose entire troop died in the loss of Fort Venango, and was burned at the stake after the fort was lost. This little town of little forts always outlasted the forts, the enemy forces who besieged them, the diseases which could not be cured, and the loneliness of living on what was in the late 18th century the western edge of civilization, the extreme limits of pioneer endurance until a few years later they sent their children farther west and often followed them taking that pioneer spirit to new places, new rivers, new forts, new adventures and dangers, moving, always moving, forever seeking more, more land, more freedom, more opportunities and always willing to engage in and win the fight necessary to seize the land and hold it against all comers. I have a major problem with the computer language on this blogspot website and I can't seem to get it corrected. My last few posts have had major errors in them which I can't seem to edit away. I apologize and I am working to correct it. When the problem has been addressed, I will re-edit the previous several posts. Keep coming back and thanks for reading my blog!

"Death and Dying in Central Appalachia: Changing Attitudes Practices" by James K. Crissman--Book Review

 

This book was published by The University of Illinois Press in 1994 which means that it is somewhat dated in terms of changing attitudes and practices in the Appalachian region.  But no one has published an adequate book since this one was released to account for any changes in the intervening 27 or so years.  The only book I know of which comes close is "Decoration Day In The Mountains" by Alan Jabbour and Karen Singer Jabbour and it is directed only toward the practices of decorating graves and cemeteries and not toward the entire broad spectrum of how death, dying, burials, grave digging, funerals, memorial services, and numerous other aspects of how we, as a people with one of the most unique cultures in the entire country, deal with our dead.  Until another author produces a book of this quality and depth of research which covers the entire width, depth, and breadth of the field, this is the book most likely to give the best answers to any interested person about death and dying in Central and Southern Appalachia.  I have mentioned this book at times in several other blog posts on this blog but I have never written an entire blog post about it and, in that respect, I have been remiss.  Due to the fact that it was published by a major academic press, there are usually a few good used copies available at one or more of the large used book websites on the internet and it is well worth buying for the serious student of Appalachian Studies or the avid reader who is simply interested in any aspect of the book.  

The author, James K. Crissman, did a well researched, scholarly job of discussing nearly every aspect of death and dying in the area of Central and Southern Appalachia in the slightly more than 200 pages of this book.  His bibliography and notes are exemplary in both their volume and precision and he supplemented his writing with numerous photographs throughout the book.  The one shortcoming of the photographs is that they are all in black and white.  The book is comprised of an Introduction, ten chapters and a Summary.  Chapter topics include Familism, Neighborliness, and the Death Watch; Preparation of the Body; Burial Receptacles and Grave Digging; The Wake; The Funeral Service; Burial Customs; Grave Markers and Other Forms of Memorialization; Funeralizing and Memorial Traditions; Dying, Death, and Central Appalachian Music; and Mining Disasters and Death.  All of these chapter topics are important and many aspects of all of them have changed in some ways over the course of the nearly thirty years since this book was published.  

If we look briefly at some few aspects of most of these chapters we can get some general idea of how these aspects of death and dying in Appalachia have changed.  Firstly, let's look at the top of Familism which is a word many readers may not fully understand.  Familism is a concept from sociology which amounts to somewhat of a double edged sword for the people who practice it in their lives.  But it is less widespread in Appalachia today than it might have been thirty to fifty to one hundred years ago.  Familism occurs when members of a family, especially an extended family, have deep ties to the family and to each other.  Familism is a bit of a double edged sword.  It means that a second cousin might take a day off work to drive his cousin to a doctor's appointment or to help her move.  It also means that family members and families can become negatively enmeshed to such a degree that fights can occur over very minor points and, yet, two family members who have been in disagreement for months will spring to the defense of each other if an outsider comes in conflict with one of them.  Neighborliness is now less likely to result in extensive assistance being provided by neighbors in the event of a death than happened in the past.  Today, death watches in Appalachia usually involve only family members or close friends with an occasional involvement by a church member or co-worker.  In the past, it would not have been uncommon for neighbors to visit at least once daily to offer sympathy and assistance as a person was approaching death.  Preparation of the body for burial in Appalachia in this day and age is almost always performed by undertakers, embalmers, and their assistants in a funeral home.  Even in my childhood, it was much more common for female family members, close neighbors, or "granny women" to come to the home of the deceased and wash and dress a dead person for burial.  I am nearly seventy years old and I can only remember one person in Appalachia who was buried unembalmed in a shroud. But I do know of several who have been buried, at their request, unembalmed and dressed in everyday clothes instead of the now common fancy burial dresses and suits. But I do remember the Old Regular Baptist preacher Clabe Mosley who was buried in a homemade casket which he bought, paid for, and tested for fit almost a quarter of a century before his death at 102.  Clabe was also buried under a concrete homemade tombstone which one of his sons constructed to Clabe's specifications.   I also remember seeing graves dug for the old, cheap, wooden caskets which were buried without a  vault.  In those situations, the grave was dug in two different widths, a close fit for the casket in the bottom two feet of the grave, then the top three or so feet was dug with a step outward on all four sides of about six inches so that boards of rough, hardwood lumber could be laid over the casket to help retard the eventual rotting of the casket and body along with subsequent sinking of the grave. Today, cremation is much more common in Central and Southern Appalachia than ever before.  At the time Crissman wrote this book, almost no one in Appalachia was being cremated. When I was young, almost no one was ever buried in a grave which anyone had been paid to dig and graves were always dug by hand.  Now, almost all graves in Appalachia are dug by a backhoe and it is truly rare to see neighbors, family, or friends perform the grave digging service as a sign of respect for the dead.  

Today, nearly all funerals in Appalachia are held in a funeral home and it is incredibly rare to see a home based funeral where the body is brought home and a visitation and church service is held nightly for up to three days which is how most of my family members were funeralized until about 1980.  Grave markers have changed drastically in my lifetime.  When I was young, it was possible to still see a few people who were buried with only a sandstone or rough lumber marker and that changed in my childhood to markers being primarily either professional granite or marble tombstones with carving on them.  Double tombstones for married couples and occasionally a parent and child were also the norm and that is still common.  In my early years, nearly everyone was buried in a small, privately owned family cemetery.  That is far less common today.  The majority of people are now buried in commercial cemeteries although family cemeteries have not disappeared completely.  Many, if not most, of the commercial cemeteries now require that markers be made of bronze and lie level with the surface of the ground so the entire cemetery can be mowed with a riding lawn mower or tractor without the operator or an additional laborer ever being required to move flowers and other decorations or stop and**** get off the mower.  Most also have strict rules about how decorations such as flowers may be used on graves.  Up until about twenty years ago, all tombstones were simply engraved with names and dates of birth and death along with one short phrase such as "Asleep In Jesus", "Gone Home", or the like.  Today, it is common to see laser decorated tombstones with very complicated scenes which may be purely artistic in nature or copied digitally from a photograph.  

Lastly, mine deaths and disasters are less common than they were in 1994 when Crissman wrote his chapter about them.  They are not totally non-existent today and I cannot remember the last occasion when coal miners were permanently entombed in a mine due to the extreme danger of further deaths of recovery workers if attempts were made to remove dead bodies after an explosion.  Crissman devoted an entire chapter in his excellent book to that subject and it deserved to be addressed at that time.  Now, most attempts to address that topic have become historical in nature due to the steady lessening of mine deaths both due to mechanization and decreased underground mining.  

James K. Crissman produced one of the best books in the entire field of Appalachian Studies with this book.  It should always be included in any attempt to create a broad personal library of Appalachian books.  The subject of death, dying, and burial practices in Appalachia should never be addressed without including a discussion of this book.  It is masterpiece.  If you haven't read it and consider yourself a student of life in Appalachia you should read it. 

"Decoration Day In The Mountains: Traditions Of Cemetery Decoration In The Southern Appalachians" by Alan Jabbour & Karen Singer Jabbour--Reflections On A Wonderful Book

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. 

Cratis D. Williams and I On Death, Dying, and Funeral Rituals In Appalachia

I am currently reading "Tales From Sacred Wind: Coming of Age in Appalachia" by Cratis D. Williams and I will write about it more fully in a more formal kind of book review when I finish it.  But I have just read some important sections of the book about the deaths of various people in the Sacred Wind community of Lawrence County Kentucky in the book and they prompted some memories of my own which led me to write about that aspect of Williams's observations and to insert some of my own.  I also wrote another post about "Tales From Sacred Wind..." since I posted this one which has also become quite popular with lovers of Appalachia and Appalachian History and folkways. It is about both our experiences as children in traditional Appalachian children's games.  At the time I wrote these two most recent posts about Cratis Williams, I neglected to mention in either of them that I had written a much earlier post called "Responses To Some Reading Of Cratis Williams" which might also be interesting to some of you.  It is a response to a small pamphlet he wrote about his most important early teacher, William H. Vaughan, who was a primary influence in leading Williams to pursue a career in academia which was not common at the time in Eastern Kentucky. 

Cratis D. Williams--Photo by The Williams Family

I have written previously on this blog about these topics but the practices in Appalachia have been ever changing in both my lifetime and that of Cratis Williams who was born about forty years before me and has now been dead for thirty-five years.  Cratis Williams was one of the premier scholars in the field of Appalachian Studies and served in various capacities at Appalachian State University.  The best, and perhaps only book, devoted solely to death, dying, and burial practices in Appalachia is "Death and Dying In Central Appalachia" by James K. Crissman.  But it was published in 1994 and is becoming a bit dated twenty-six years later.  "Tales From Sacred Wind..." was published in 2003 based on manuscripts which Cratis Williams had left unpublished at his death in 1985 and is also a bit dated.  There is a genuine need for a more recent scholarly look at death and dying in the region.  Crissman's book is excellent, well researched, professionally documented, and wide ranging in its coverage and I have cited, quoted, and recommended it for many years.  But the work of Williams in "Tales From Sacred Wind.." provides a brief but needed addition to the work of Crissman.  I hope my own observations from a long life in Appalachia also contribute to the field.  

My primary impetus to write about Williams's observations came about quite serendipitously shortly after I read his section on death practices through an e-mail exchange with a new acquaintance about a cemetery in our native Knott County which both of us have known all our lives.  I grew up near that cemetery and my acquaintance has several relatives buried on it.  In his book, Cratis Williams tells a story about one of his elderly female ancestors who planted two cedar trees beside some graves on a cemetery at Sacred Wind.  The old woman would not allow anyone else to assist her in planting the trees and expressed an old folk belief that the person who plants a cedar tree will die before the tree is fully grown.  As my e-mail exchange progressed with my acquaintance about the Knott County cemetery, he said this: "My grandfather died in (a) mining accident in 1948, and my grandmother later moved to Michigan. Her last visit to this cemetery was in 1974. During that visit, she planted some cedar trees near the grave of my grandfather. She told me  there was an old saying, that if you planted a cedar tree, you would be dead by time the tree was large enough to shade a grave.  My grandmother died five years later, in 1979. The cedar trees are still standing, and are posing problems to headstones due to their roots."  It is always fascinating to me to read, and especially to hear first hand, about any Appalachian folkway or folk tale.

Another friend of mine, both on Facebook and in real life, John D. Shelton, responded to this post after I had posted it on Facebook with this story about planting cedar trees which concurs almost exactly with Cratis Williams's story and the one above from my other acquaintance.  "As a teen, I was going to plant a Cedar Tree my Uncle scolded me saying never plant Cedars, because you will die when they are big enuff to shade your Grave."  Obviously, the folkway or folktale about planting cedars and impending death of the planter has spread across a wide area.  

Williams also discussed several funerals he had attended both as a child and as an adult in Lawrence County including the deaths of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.  He even discusses one funeral which his entire one room school attended for the father of a classmate who had died from "lockjaw", tetanus, after having stepped on a nail while tearing down a house.  He discusses the man having been buried in a shroud or winding cloth only one of which such funerals I have ever known about in my life.  A man who owned property adjoining ours in my childhood home and, in fact, adjoining the cemetery which my acquaintance and I have been discussing was the only person I ever knew who was buried in a shroud or winding cloth and I did not attend that funeral which I regret.  For those of you who have not encountered either term, a shroud or winding cloth is a plain flat, usually white, garment or sheet in which a dead body is wrapped in the casket.  As I understand it, a full sized or larger sheet was used in most cases and the body was placed with the feet a foot or two above a corner with the head a foot or two below the diagonally opposite corner in order to increase the length and folding options of the shroud or winding cloth.  The washed and prepared body was then wrapped in the cloth usually beginning with a fold of the lower corner over the feet up to about the knees.  Then one side was folded over and possibly under the body and the other side was folded in the opposite direction in the same manner.  Usually after a viewing, visitation, or funeral, the top corner was then folded down to cover the face of the deceased.  It is my understanding that in some other countries, especially in the Middle East, this is still the dominant method in use.  In Appalachia, America, and several other countries, the use of white cloth is, of course, a symbol of purity.

Cratis Williams also discussed having known people who had their coffins made while they were alive and storing them in attics, barns, or spare rooms.  In an earlier post on this blog, I wrote about Clabe Mosley, an Old Regular Baptist preacher, whose coffin hung in the attic of my maternal grandparents' house for several years before he actually died.  Williams, in this book, also concurs with my writing that these people who had coffins built while living would sometimes actually get in and test the coffin as I reported that Clabe Mosley had done.  John D. Shelton also relayed this story about a person who had their coffin made well before they died and allowed the coffin to deteriorate in a fence row before his death.  But others, after the death, repaired the coffin and used it to bury the original buyer.  "I had another relative who was poor, so he built his own Casket and painted it, tried it for size, placed it in the Grave Yard fence row, it sat there many years covered in grass and weeds, no one moved it, he died and a Cousin and Preacher dug it out the weeds and cleaned it and made repairs, and a woman from Church made a cloth lining, and he was buried in it. This happened a few years back."

Cratis Williams also discussed grave houses in "Tales From Sacred Wind..." as I did in my post about burial practices in Appalachia in which I also included a few photos none of which are originally shot by me.  One of the funnier stories in the book is about a distant relative of Williams who, after getting drunk at a square dance, decided to crawl in the grave house of an ancestor to avoid walking home in the rain.  The man was awakened and terrified by an old sow and her pigs when the sow decided to use the grave house to scratch an itch.  Williams's relative thought he was experiencing a "hain't" and left the cemetery in terror until he realized it was only a sow.  I know of a couple of grave houses on a small cemetery near the Johnson/Lawrence county line on US 23 which are clearly visible from the divided highway.  I also know a few in Lawrence and Elliott counties in an are near where Williams grew up.

Williams also discussed, and his posthumous editors provided several photos of his grandfather David O. Williams who had a large stone, homemade mausoleum, or grave house built to hold the bodies of himself and his wife.  I know of one hand cut stone grave house of a similar nature at a small cemetery between Mousie and Lackey in Knott County Kentucky which is unmarked and said to contain the body of one of the first white settlers to that area.  That stone grave house has several cracks and openings where the stones have settled over the years and I have to admit that I have been tempted to return with a flashlight to see what is visible through the cracks.  I also know of a similarly constructed grave house in a small cemetery near Morgan County High School in West Liberty, Kentucky which also shows signs of settling and age. John D. Shelton, whom I mentioned above, also reported this anecdote about a grave house he had seen: "There is one Grave Yard in Clinton County (Kentucky) which has a little House on one Grave about four feet tall that has Windows in it, I guess they wanted the Loved one to get Sun and be able to see out."

I am thoroughly enjoying reading this book and regret that I was never able to meet Cratis Williams in the flesh.  He is funny, informative, at times risque, and well worth reading.  "Tales From Sacred Wind..." is a book which ever student of Appalachian Studies should place on their "Must Read List". 


 

Memorial Meeting, Elijah Smith Cemetery, Dingus, Kentucky, September 29, 2019

Yesterday, my wife Candice and I attended a memorial meeting on the Elijah Smith Cemetery in Dingus, Kentucky, in Morgan County.  The cemetery is located on Kentucky 437 on White Oak Branch in a very rural part of Morgan county near the Johnson county line and not far from Crockett.  The cemetery is a classic old Appalachian mountain cemetery on a high point of land with a pretty fair view and lots of large old trees.  It still has an area set aside for church services in the upper corner with about six rows of benches made of 2 x 12's set on concrete blocks.  The cemetery is fenced with a good chain link fence and has a gravel road up the hill from the highway. There is even a pulpit built out of a wooden post with a slanted board top on which a preacher can place a Bible or song book and there is a flat platform attached to a tree which fits one of those large orange water jugs.  But the road does tend to wash out and become rough at times.  It was in pretty good shape yesterday but several people still managed to become temporarily stuck due to driving too slow and having only rear wheel drive.  There is a one seat outdoor toilet about a hundred feet further up the ridge above the cemetery which does not have a hole dug but is simply set on the edge of a bank near the edge of the timber.  I realize that this is probably not acceptable to most health departments today but since the toilet is generally used only for the memorial meeting or an occasional burial, it gets the job done and a combination of weather and insects does the disposal work.  

This is the second time Candice and I have attended this memorial service  at the cemetery.  We were there two years ago and one was not held last year due to heavy rain.  There are 114 memorials documented for the cemetery on Find A Grave but there are also several with only sand stone markers which are not documented and so far as I know the identities of the people buried in them is no longer remembered by anyone. Several of the graves have tombstones dated in the late 19the century and it is likely that it may extend back somewhere close to 150 years.  There seems to be a large number of graves from the Great Depression era, especially graves of young children.  I wonder how many of those Great Depression deaths were attributable to poverty and starvation.  There is also one row of children's graves with ten graves which one of the attendees told me were all the children of one set of parents who lost all their children in early childhood or childbirth except one  son who lived to adulthood.  There are four or five families represented with several members in the cemetery  and it appears to have always been a genuine Appalachian cemetery where no one would have been denied burial.

We know two people who are buried there, Clint Howard and his wife Ella Howard, who were the parents of Shirley Howard Robbins who is a friend of Candice and cleans our house.  But, due to our 27 years in this county, we generally know quite a few people who attend this service.  There are numerous members of Shirley's extended family including her children, grandchildren, brothers, and cousins.  We also know one woman and her daughter from the time when Candice was using physical therapy at our local ARH hospital and that woman was a physical therapy assistant.  We have also come to know a couple of the preachers who usually come to this service. There was one babe in arms, several people in their twenties, and nearly every decade in age represented by at least one person including one man who is past 90. Due to the size of the attendance and the representation of a multitude of age groups, this memorial meeting gives me hope that such memorial services are not totally gone from the current Appalachian culture. The denomination in charge has always been Enterprise Baptist.  They are one of the offshoots of the Old Regular Baptists who split off nearly a hundred years ago and became more liberal with instrumental music in their churches although there are never any instruments at this service.

The service usually starts with a song or two which are started by one of the preachers but not sung in traditional Appalachian lined hymnody which is a shame.  Lined hymnody is the method which the traditional Old Regular Baptist churches still use and what I grew up around.  I rarely hear it anymore since I rarely attend an Old Regular Baptist service.  The Elijah Smith Cemetery service is usually begun, as I said, with a couple of songs and then a prayer and opening short sermon by one of the preachers.  At some point, one of the usual preachers will offer an opportunity for anyone in the congregation to either give a testimony, sing a song, or voice a prayer request.  Another of Clint and Ella Howard's children, son Jimmy Howard almost always sings a song or two and he is a wonderful singer in the manner most often seen in Enterprise Baptist congregations.  But this year, Jimmy sang with another of the preachers and it just did not stand up to his solo singing from the previous occasions I have seen him sing.  The preachers who preached were John Ed Howard, a descendant of some of the people buried there; Ben Smith, also a descendant of some of the people buried there; Lonnie B. Wright, also related to some of the people buried there; and a fairly young preacher whose name I do not remember who, I believe, is actually from Pike County. 

When the service ended, approximately forty or so people, many of whom are related to Shirley Howard Robbins and her husband Russell Robbins, went to their home just up the creek for a wonderful dinner and conversation for two or three hours. For me, one of the best parts of the dinner and conversation is that Lonnie B. Wright always attends the dinner, is a wonderfully funny man who can talk about anything and has a broad history of working as a heavy equipment operator, knows everybody in the area, and loves to talk, make jokes, and become the center of attention.  Also, he and I know each other pretty well and are passing friends without being bosom buddies and we love to play off each other's jokes.  It makes for a fun time and one or two others who attend can also hold their own in a room with Lonnie B. and me. Candice and I also went there as we have done on other occasions.  The food was awesome and we all enjoyed it a great deal since Shirley and several members of her extended family are wonderful cooks.  There was ham, turkey, fried chicken strips, and chicken and dumplings along with green beans, baked beans, rolls, cole slaw, corn, and quite a few desserts such as a great fruit salad, chocolate pie, and a few other temptations for the sweet tooth.  We stayed until about 4pm before we left for home and enjoyed the entire experience a great deal.  This really is a throwback to old cemetery memorial meetings extending all the way back to the time which James Still wrote about in "River of Earth".  This meeting is always held on the last Sunday in September and anyone is welcome whether or not you have ever been there, whether or not you are related to one of the dead, or whether or not you are even an Appalachian.  If you are a student of Appalachian Culture, religion, or genealogy and have not seen a cemetery memorial service or just haven't seen one in a long while, just show up next year at about 10am on the last Sunday of September and you will have time to make friends before the service starts.  I am also willing to bet that you will also be invited to the dinner afterward. 

Cemetery Traipsin' With Alexander Allen--September 5, 2019

Roger D. Hicks At Collins Cemetery--Photo by Alexander Allen

Yesterday, September 5, 2019, I spent a large part of the day doing what I like to call cemetery traipsin' with Alexander Allen in Floyd and Knott Counties in Eastern Kentucky.  Alex is a distant cousin on the Allen side of my family, only in his early twenties, and actually very interested in and actively involved in local history, family history, and genealogy.  It is highly encouraging and positive to see anyone Alex's age who is this interested in these issues of genealogy and historic preservation.  I think I know a lot about the cemeteries of Eastern Kentucky, some in Southern West Virginia, and a few others scattered over a few other states.  I have personally added more than 3,000 memorials to Find A Grave and photographed more than 650 graves for the website.  As my Find A Grave profile states, I have wandered through cemeteries in a great deal of the country and grew up within sight of three in Knott County. But I have to admit that Alex, especially for his age, has a large store of knowledge about cemeteries in Eastern Kentucky. Alex and I were going to some cemeteries each of us know well but neither of us knew all of them or all of the necessary information about them. We intended to take each other to a few which were important to both of us and share some information about them and the people buried there.  We started at the Manns-Allen Cemetery on Steele's Creek near Wayland in Floyd County.  This cemetery is located on a fairy high point on the left side of Steele's Creek about a mile and a half up the creek from Wayland and less than a half mile from the place where my parents operated a country store from 1945 to 1957 before moving to a new store at Dema on Beaver Creek in Knott County. It is at the mouth of a little hollow, which so far as I know has no name, and is the location where a couple named Bill and Goldie Stegall lived for many years.  I lived the first six years of my life on Steele's Creek and I had never been on that cemetery.  I do not remember ever being told that several members of our extended family were buried there.  What is a real shame about it is the fact that my maternal great-grandmother Hester Allen is buried there.  For the first time in my life, I visited the grave of my great-grandmother.  That cemetery is becoming badly overgrown and one section of it does not appear to have been mowed or cleaned up in many years.  At least one tree has fallen over a couple of graves. Another grave has a grape vine growing out of it and the base of the vine is nearly as big as my wrist.  Alex says he has dealt with the Floyd County Judge Executive recently about another cemetery and that official will sometimes send county inmates to clean up cemeteries.  Alex also states that each cemetery has to be placed on a list and they are done on a first come, first served basis which is the appropriate policy for such work.  Another friend has also told me recently that Floyd County inmates are also used sometimes to dig graves for families which cannot afford to pay for graves to be dug and I witnessed that practice not long ago when the nephew of some friends died whose parents were quite poor.  That issue of paying to dig graves irks me and always will.  I was an adult before I ever saw anybody paid to dig a grave in Eastern Kentucky.  When I was growing up, the family, friends, and neighbors always dug graves and nearly everyone would have considered it to be a travesty for anyone to accept money for such work. I would go so far as to say that most of the adults I knew in my childhood would have assisted in digging a grave for their avowed enemies if the need arose.  In that time and place, they would have done the work and never uttered one negative word about the person with whom they had disagreed in life.  

Ella Hicks Tombstone, Collins Cemetery--Photo by Alexander Allen

We traveled further up Beaver Creek beyond Wayland to the Collins Cemetery #1 which is located on the west side of Beaver Creek about a mile below the Knott County line.  I have known about this cemetery all my life and can remember a time when it was clearly visible from the highway nearly an eighth of a mile away on the other side of the creek.  But neither Alex or I had ever been on this cemetery despite the fact that both of us have family members and others we have known about buried in this spot.  It is a large cemetery with more than a hundred graves on it.  One hundred and thirty six graves on this cemetery have actually been documented on Find A Grave but I suspect that there are probably several more which were missed by the person who did most of those memorials.  This cemetery sits well up on the hillside and, if it were in good shape, commands an incredible view of a sizeable section of Right Beaver Creek with large mountains in every direction, no visible strip mine damage, obvious evidence of elk in the area which also means there has to be other wild game population, and the scene is generally quiet and peaceful without a great deal of noise from the visible highway.  When I say that the Manns-Allen Cemetery is "badly overgrown", that statement does not hold a light to the deplorable condition of the Collins Cemetery.  At one time, it was considered a major non-commercial public cemetery along the Beaver Creek, Floyd and Knott county border area and many outstanding members of the community have been buried there over the last one hundred years or more.  But today the cemetery is at best a briar patch with trees growing randomly all over the area and jungle might be a more apt descriptor.  The cemetery has a still functional chain link fence around it which is in good condition.  But elk are bedding down in the brush all over the cemetery. There are several monuments which have been turned over and one or two are broken.  I suspect that elk may have caused most of this damage since all livestock and wild animals will sometimes need to scratch themselves on the first available solid object.  A tall grave marker is no fitting scratching post for an elk weighing more than 500 pounds. It also appears that at one time someone had installed an electric fence charger in the vain hope that it would deter the elk from entering the cemetery.  But even if the electric was functional, the elk would simply raise their front ends and launch themselves over the fence. I actually stepped into a grave that was sunken to about knee depth because I was working my way around the cemetery and wending my way through briars, weeds, grapevines, and other brush which was over my head in many places.  I was pushing and weaving my way through a large mat of vegetation and literally pushed through and before I could see where I was I had stepped into the sunken grave up to my knees.  That one grave was the only one we found which was noticeably sunken although more could be hidden in the brush patches into which we never waded. 

Edgar Hicks Tombstone--Photo by Alexander Allen

Alex and I slowly worked our way through the majority of the cemetery and found probably most of the graves which are marked with formal granite or marble markers.  But we also frequently stumbled over semi-sunken sandstone markers for graves which might or might not be susceptible to rubbing in order to learn who is buried in them. Most of these sandstone markers have slowly sunk into the earth and little is visible of many of them. I have never done rubbing on grave markers and I realize that I should attempt to learn.  But, in spite of all these problems with brush, briars, and trees, both Alex and I were able to find some graves which were important to us.  I was able to locate the graves of my maternal aunt and uncle, Ella and Edgar Hicks, who had died tragically as children.  Just a few days before she would have turned three, my aunt Ella woke up one frosty October morning in 1922, just 11 days before what would have been her third birthday, and backed up against the hearth catching her nightgown on fire.  She died as a result of severe burns.  I had heard the story dozens of times as a child but I do not remember ever being told where she and my uncle Edgar were buried.   My uncle Edgar died at the age of ten in 1936 of what I always heard described as "a fever".  He had apparently been perfectly healthy until just a few days before his death.  My mother, the firstborn of my grandparents' children, was 22 years old when her brother Edgar died. She had been 8 when her little sister Ella died.  I am glad to say that I have finally been able to visit their graves.

Roger D. Hicks at the graves of Ella and Edgar Hicks--Photo by Alexander Allen

After we left the Collins Cemetery, Alex and I traveled further up Beaver Creek to Dema to visit the Turner Cemetery where both of us have several members of our extended family buried.  I grew up within sight of this cemetery, played on it with my friends as a child, attended traditional Old Regular Baptist Memorial Meetings there, and was first exposed there to the fine old Appalachian tradition of digging graves without pay for family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers.  I often refer to one old man, Alonzo "Lonzo" Bradley, I knew who lived his entire life on a hillside farm between the Turner Cemetery, the Pigman and Slone Cemetery, and the Collins Cemetery and always appeared in front of a deceased person's house the morning after they died with his tools in his hands ready to help dig the grave.  I often say that I have seen that old man insist that a grave be perfect, absolutely vertical and rectangular, without odd projections or holes in its walls, and dug with respect for the dead.  He firmly believed that the last decent and respectful thing we the living can do for the dead is to provide them with a perfectly dug grave which has been rendered with love and respect. I have seen that old man use his drinking water and dirt from the grave to make mud balls to fill holes in the sides of a grave where a rock had fallen out or been removed.  I will always remember him in his bib overalls with an old crumpled hat on his head climbing in and out of a grave until it perfectly suited his expectations. If good works and charity can get anyone into Heaven, you can rest assured that Lonzo Bradley is there resting from digging hundreds of graves for his neighbors and friends over his 76 years.

Alex had visited the Turner Cemetery but did not have much of the personal information I have about the individuals who are buried there.  I had personally known the majority of people who have been buried there over the last sixty years.  Alex and I started at the gate and walked the entire cemetery and I told him the stories I know about the people buried there.  The cemetery contains the graves of three very significant preachers in the Old Regular Baptist Church: E. Hawk Moore whom I have written about on this blog; Clabe Mosley, who lived to be 102 whom I have also written about, and who is perhaps the most famous Old Regular Baptist preacher in the history of the denomination; and, Hawley Warrens who lived within sight of the cemetery and was also a significant preacher in the denomination.  I suspect I will also eventually write a blog post about what I remember of Hawley Warrens. 

Turner Cemetery Sign--Photo by kestryll on Find A Grave 

As we were leaving the cemetery, we encountered Roy Huff and his wife, Priscilla Gail "Dockey" Huff, who do the lawn mowing and care of the cemetery and have done so for about twenty years.  Let me state for the record that this cemetery is always in excellent condition compared to most non-commercial cemeteries in Appalachia.  Roy does an excellent job despite the fact that he is nearly 80 and has had coronary bypass surgery.  Roy and Dockie do this work year in and year out, receiving only donations, and completing the work regardless of the income they may or may not receive for it. In many ways, Roy Huff has stepped into the empty shoes of Lonzo Bradley.  They say they mow the cemetery roughly a half dozen times a year.  And if you have read about the previous two cemeteries we visited on this day, you know that this is an exception.  If you know this cemetery, have loved ones buried there, or simply want to do a good deed, send them a check at the address on the sign in the photo below.  I can assure you the money will be used for the good of the cemetery and Roy and Dockie are completely honest.  I have known them since 1957.  We talked outside the cemetery near my truck for probably fifteen minutes before we left them to do their work.

One interesting portion of the talk which Alex and I had with Roy and Dockie was an almost verbatim repeat of a conversation which I had with Alex only minutes before.  I had been telling Alex about an incredible, perhaps two hundred year old oak tree which used to grow in the center of the cemetery and eventually died and was cut down.  It grew near four graves at the highest point of the cemetery which are only marked with rocks.  One of those graves is outlined with cut stones which are very similar in size, shape, and cut to the classic hand cut stone steps we often see at old mountain homes.  The other three have only large sandstone rocks on them.   When I was growing up, the prevalent tale in the area was that this grave with the cut rocks was "the grave of an old Indian".  Today I know better.  Native Americans did not bury their dead in that fashion.  What I had been telling Alex was that no one in my lifetime had ever been able to make a statement about who the four people buried in those graves might have been.  During our discussion with Roy and Dockie, Roy suddenly and spontaneously brought up that magnificent old oak tree and the four graves near it.  He went on to tell Alex virtually the same story I had only minutes earlier.  He also holds a view similar to mine that those people must actually be some of the first white settlers in the area of Dema and were probably the first people ever buried in the Turner Cemetery.

After we left the cemetery, we traveled to Garrett, Kentucky, and had lunch at the Garrett Fountain which serves mostly sandwiches, fries, and onion rings. The food is acceptable but not outstanding.  Then we went back to Glo and I visited with Alex's maternal grandfather Sam Bradley for awhile before heading back home.   

My Personal Aversion To Cremation!

I learned last night, June 18, 2019, of the death of a friend I have known for fifty years.  He was seventy, had never married, and was found unresponsive in his apartment on Sunday, June 16, 2019.  He was the third friend I had known since 1968 who has died in the last eight years.  All three had never married, had productive work lives, and were cremated, given quiet memorial services by their closest relatives, and slipped from the world with little to no fanfare. All three were cremated and their ashes disposed of in some manner which was acceptable either to themselves or their families.  All three had siblings who were more than capable of having paid for a more customary funeral.  Two of the three had been raised in Eastern Kentucky under some level of influence  from the conservative Old Regular Baptist Church.  The third had spent two or three years in Eastern Kentucky as a college student and still maintained numerous serious relationships with native Eastern Kentuckians.  Two of the three were native Appalachians.  The third had been influenced by the time he had spent in one of the most traditionally Appalachian counties in Kentucky.  I must admit that I do not know that any of them had or had not expressed a desire to be cremated.  But I do know that all of them had grown up in families where traditional earthen burials were the norm.  In fact, one of these three had a sibling die within this week who was buried in a traditional manner in the same cemetery which their parents and another sibling are buried. 

 I realize that cremation and some wide range of options for disposal of ashes has become very prevalent all across Appalachia.  But I was about forty years old before any of my relatives were ever cremated.  I have been deeply influenced by the mores, traditions, and spiritual beliefs of the dominant Appalachian Culture in which I have spent most of my life.  I admit that I am not particularly religious although I do claim a degree of spirituality.  My personal aversion to cremation lies quite simply in my personal belief that it is barbaric.  I can think of no more appropriate word to use to describe cremation than barbarism.  I have no belief in particular that anyone will be resurrected from the grave prepared to use the earthly body which they occupied during their lifetime.   I have personally participated in the funeral arrangements for my mother-in-law whom I dearly love and will always miss.  She had expressed a desire to be cremated and to have her ashes scattered into the Sheboygan River at Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, at a riverside park where she often took my wife and her siblings on the weekends.  The memorial service was conducted in a funeral home where several members of my wife's extended family have been served in their passing from the world.  At my mother-in-law's memorial service a sizeable crowd was present and the immediate family then left the funeral home with her ashes for a private family ceremony at that park.  We took the ashes in their cardboard box and the several dozen yellow roses which had been provided at the memorial service to the park.  After a minimal number of small, indistinguishable remarks, we passed the ashes in their box from hand to hand and each of us scattered a few ashes and a rose or two into the river and watched the ashes sink out of sight as the roses floated down the stream out of sight.  While a few of you readers will probably say something such as "what a lovely ceremony", I am still of the same opinion with which I grew up: "Cremation is barbaric!"