Some Thoughts On "Crossing The Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

There was a clue on "Jeopardy" quite a while ago about the poem, "Crossing The Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, which is one of the most well known poems about death other than possibly "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant. Because the language is a bit simpler and the poem much shorter than in "Thanatopsis", "Crossing The Bar" was for many years one of the most often printed pieces on the back of funeral memorial cards in Appalachia. I have a sizeable collection of such memorial cards and wrote about them in the blog post at the preceding link. I have probably seen it on the cards at a hundred or more funerals in my life. It is a great little poem and, in it's own way, a major part of Appalachian history and culture.

 

With the recent massive flooding in Eastern Kentucky and the still unfinished search for the likely dead, many more of those memorial cards in being printed in several of the most Appalachian counties in Kentucky.  One of those is my native Knott County and, luckily, so far I have not heard of anyone being among the dead from my relatives and acquaintances.  I also have deep ties to Floyd County which has had severe flooding especially in Wayland and Garrett on Right Beaver Creek and all up Left Beaver Creek, all of which lies in Floyd County.   I spent the first 6 years of my life on Steele's Creek in Floyd County just a mile from Wayland and still have many friends and relatives there.  The next 17 years of my life were spent on Right Beaver Creek at Dema in Knott County just about three miles from Wayland.  Most of my closest friends during my teenage years were from Wayland including my two cousins, more like brothers, Jack and Johnny Terry.  It is horrible to think of having anyone die in a flood and it is just as horrible to know that several thousand people in about 7 counties in Eastern Kentucky are now homeless because of this flood.  So, in memory of the dead from the Eastern Kentucky floods of July 29, 2022, here is the complete text of "Crossing The Bar".

 

Crossing the Bar

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

 

 

 

The Death Of Janet Lee Messersmith & Its Connection To The Ashland Sanitary Milk Company

 

A few days ago, I stopped at a small yard sale one of my neighbors was having and the only thing I found to buy was an antique milk bottle from a company called Ashland Sanitary Milk Company in Ashland, Kentucky.  I had grown up in a country store in Knott County within and hour of Ashland but I had never heard of the company.  I got home and dug into the internet to see what I could learn about the company.  The only thing I could find other than one or two other such bottles which had already been sold on E-bay or Amazon and this story about a judgment from the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1930 which involved the death of a young girl, about 11 years old, named Janet Lee Messersmith.  I read the judgement of the court and I was touched by the story of the needless death of the little girl.  Next I went to the wonderful website Find A Grave, where I regularly do volunteer work and research and quickly found the grave of Janet Lee Messersmith.  But she has no obituary on the website and her memorial there does not list her parents by name.  Oddly, their names are not listed in the judgement of the court of appeals either. I have also been unable to locate an obituary in the newspaper archives of the Big Sandy region. It all makes the kind of interesting story which you find if you do research into the lives and deaths of people who have been long dead.  It is a shame for stories like this one about Janet Lee Messersmith to be lost forever.  Please help me remember it and pass it on into the future. 

The gist of the story told in the Court of Appeals judgment is that Janet Lee Messersmith had gone shopping with her mother who was driving a car and returned to their home on Blackburn Avenue in the city limits of Ashland.  The mother parked the car with "the right wheels of her machine over the curb so as to leave it parked with as little of the machine out in the avenue as possible. According to Mrs. Messersmith, she alighted from the car by the door at her left and stepped into the street, and then assisted her daughter to alight through the same door."  The mother said she started across the street toward the house and her daughter was standing on the sidewalk when the truck struck her.  Oddly, the driver of the truck is named in the court's judgment despite neither parent being named.  Claude Ireson, the driver of the truck, had stated in the courts in Boyd County that "When he got within 10 or 11 feet of where they were, the child darted across the street. Her mother screamed, and he tried to avoid hitting the child by cutting his car to the right, thinking the child would go back. If he had been 6 inches further over he would have missed her. His left front fender struck the child."  Regardless of what the truth was, Janet Lee Messersmith had been killed brutally and suddenly literally in front of her mother.  Elwood Blair, a neighbor, had testifed that he heard the noise of the trucks brakes and went to his window where he saw the truck approaching and he corroborated the mother's testimony that the truck was going about 40 miles an hour which Claude Ireson, the driver, had disputed.  In any case, the Boyd County court rendered a judgment of $15,000 in favor of the family.  The judgment of $15,000 was, in the middle of the Great Depression, a very sizable award in any sort of civil suit regardless of the circumstances.  The Ashland Sanitary Milk Company appealed the ruling of the court to the Kentucky Court of Appeals.  It could be surmised, that even in 1930, the legal fees could have cost the company a large portion of any judgment, $15,000 or otherwise.  Thus the case of Janet Lee Messersmith came before the Kentucky Court of Appeals.  The court ruled in favor of the family due to what it determined to have been two technical errors by the court and upheld the judgment of the Boyd Court.  

But, from my point of view, the story is the real issue of interest.  A little girl, about 11 years old, having what can be assumed to have been a happy day shopping with her mother was suddenly killed in a somewhat unusual way by being hit by a milk truck owned by a company whose products this mother most likely used on a daily  basis.  It is likely that the last glass of milk Janet Lee Messersmith ever drank, probably within a few hours of her death, was sold by the company who truck would kill her later that day. What I would most like to see come of this story is the following: 1) that someone who reads this can tell me who Janet's parents were; 2) that we can find their memorials on Find A Grave and edit all three so her parents are connected to her memorial; and 3) that the name and horrible death of Janet Lee Messersmith will not be forgottn.

 Below, I have cut and pasted the entire judgment of the Court of Appeals.  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Decided November 18, 1930.

Appeal from Boyd Circuit Court.

R.D. DAVIS and WAUGH HOWERTON for appellant.

GEORGE B. MARTIN and MARTIN SMITH for appellee.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUDGE CLAY

Affirming.

On June 29, 1929, Janet Lee Messersmith, a girl about ten and a half years of age, was struck and killed by a Dodge motor delivery truck belonging to the Ashland Sanitary Milk Company, and driven by one of its employees. This action by her administrator to recover damages for her death resulted in a verdict and judgment in his favor for $15,000. The Ashland Sanitary Milk Company appeals.

Janet Lee Messersmitn lived with her parents on the south side of Blackburn avenue in the city of Ashland. Blackburn avenue runs east and west, is a paved street, and is about 20 feet in width from curb to curb. It has no sidewalks, but a level space of about 5 feet has been left on either side for that purpose. The Messersmith lot is 40 feet in width and is higher than Blackburn avenue. The entrance to the house, which is about the center of the lot, is by means of a concrete walk about 5 feet in width. Traveling from the west on Blackburn avenue toward the Messersmith residence there is a descending grade for a considerable distance. The accident happened about 4 o'clock on a bright afternoon. Accompanied by her daughter, Janet Lee, Mrs. Messersmith had driven her Dodge sedan car downtown to do some shopping. On her return she had a lot of groceries and provisions in the machine. On reaching a point in the street opposite her residence, she ran the right wheels of her machine over the curb so as to leave it parked with as little of the machine out in the avenue as possible. According to Mrs. Messersmith, she alighted from the car by the door at her left and stepped into the street, and then assisted her daughter to alight through the same door. She then started across the street. When she got to the middle of the street she saw the truck coming about 200 feet away. She had driven an automobile for nine years, could look at a car and tell at what speed it was going, and she judged that the truck was going between 40 and 45 miles an hour. Her daughter was standing on the sidewalk when she was struck by the truck. At the time she was struck the truck was going pretty fast, but. the driver had his foot on the brake and had probably reduced the speed to some extent. Elwood Blair, a mechanic who worked for the American Rolling Mills, was in bed at the time, and his attention was attracted by the noise of the brakes on the truck. He then went to the window, and in his opinion the truck was running about 40 miles an hour after the brakes had been applied. On the other hand, Claude Ireson, the driver of the truck, testified as follows: He first saw the little Messersmith girl and her mother when about 150 feet away. The mother was standing at the car, seemed to be getting something out of it, and the child was standing just slanting back from the mother. They were both on the north side of the street and on his left. When he saw them he raised his toe off the accelerator. At that time they were making no effort to cross the street. When he got within 10 or 11 feet of where they were, the child darted across the street. Her mother screamed, and he tried to avoid hitting the child by cutting his car to the right, thinking the child would go back. If he had been 6 inches further over he would have missed her. His left front fender struck the child. When within about 30 feet of the child he put his foot on the brakes. At that time he was going between 18 and 20 miles an hour. He did not know that the child was going across the street. At the time of the accident the car was slowed down to about 15 miles an hour. The reason he took his foot off the accelerator about 150 feet back was that he was afraid they might start across the street, and there might be danger of hurting some one. He could see the child and he thought that they would see him. At the time he put on the brakes he was between 10 and 15 feet of where Mrs. Messersmith was standing. Running at 15 miles an hour he could stop within 20 or 25 feet. He cut in toward the telephone pole for the purpose of stopping. His main purpose was not to hit the child. Russell Rose testified as follows: He and some other children were playing in an open field about 100 feet north of the point of accident. When Mrs. Messersmith drove up, she got out, started up the steps, looked back and told Janet to stay there. Janet came right on. He then looked over at the milk truck and it hit her. The front fender struck her first. Janet was in the street and was carrying groceries across the street. The truck ran about 20 feet after it struck her. The witness concluded his direct examination as follows:

"Q. 40. Did you see the little girl get out? A. Yes, Sir.

"Q. 41. Which side did she (decedent) get out? A. She got out on — the opposite side her mother did.

"Q. 42. When the little girl first got out where did she go? A. She went around back of the car.

"Q. 43. Back of their car? A. Yes, Sir.

"Q. 44. After she came around behind the car, how soon was she struck by this car. A. I just don't know how long it was — just."

The first error relied on was the failure of the court to give an offered instruction presenting the sudden appearance doctrine. In this connection it is insisted that appellant was entitled to such instruction not only on the evidence of Ireson, the driver, but on the evidence of witness Russell Rose. Whatever may have been the view of the court in years past, we have been inclined in recent years to confine the sudden appearance, in so far as infants are concerned, to cases where the injured infant leaves the sidewalk or emerges from behind another vehicle or other obstruction, and appears on the highway in the path of the on-coming vehicle so suddenly that the driver thereof in the exercise of ordinary care could not have prevented the collision with the means at hand if he had been running at a reasonable rate of speed. Metts' Adm'r v. Louisville Gas Electric Co., 222 Ky. 551, 1 S.W.2d 985. Whether, in view of the driver's evidence that he saw the child standing by her mother in the street when 150 feet away, we would hold that the sudden appearance instruction should have been given if the witness Rose had actually testified that the child came from behind her mother's machine and rushed suddenly in front of the approaching truck, we need not determine. As a matter of fact, he did not say how long it was after the child came from behind the car before it started across the street. Thus there was no evidence tending to show that she was not standing by her mother in full view of the driver, as he repeatedly testified, when she started across the street. Clearly the circumstances were not such as to call for a sudden appearance instruction. The street was only 20 feet in width. The mother and child were standing in the street on the south side of the car in plain view of the driver of the truck, and only a short distance away from the path of the truck. The situation was such that the child might be expected to move in the pathway of the truck at any time. Notwithstanding this fact, no warning of the approach of the truck was given, and just before the accident the speed of the truck was about 15 miles an hour according to the driver of the truck, and from 40 to 45 miles an hour according to other witnesses. It would be a harsh rule were we to hold, in the face of such clear evidence of negligence, that appellant could escape liability on the theory that the child appeared so suddenly in the pathway of the truck that the driver could not have avoided injuring her if he had been running at a reasonable rate of speed.

Another error relied on is the alleged misconduct of counsel on the voir dire examination of the jurors. The facts disclosed by the bill of exceptions are these: Norman Berry, who was on the list, was asked to state his occupation. He answered that he was in the real estate business. Thereupon counsel for plaintiff inquired of him in the presence of the remaining members of the panel whether he wrote any insurance in connection with the real estate business, and he answered that he did not. John S. Hager, another member of the list, was asked if he had any connection with the Ashland Sanitary Milk Company. He answered that he had no connection with the company other than it was a customer of his, and he bought milk from them. He was then asked by counsel for plaintiff what kind of a customer it was of his, and he answered, "Insurance." Counsel inquired what kind of insurance he wrote for the defendant, and he answered, "Fire, theft and casualty." Thereupon counsel for plaintiff called counsel for defendant, and also the prospective juror, John S. Hager, to the desk of the court, and there privately, and not in a tone to be heard by other jurors, inquired of Hager if he was on this particular risk through any policy of insurance in any of his companies. Thereupon counsel for the defendant moved the court to discharge the entire panel of eighteen because of counsel's reference to insurance in the interrogation of the two jurors, which motion was overruled. In the case where we condemned the practice of interrogating prospective jurors with reference to accident insurance, the jurors were asked whether any of them owned any stock in the insurance company which carried the indemnity policy on defendant's mine, and on objection the attorney for plaintiff stated that he had been informed that the coal company carried insurance in a company that would pay any loss that might result to the defendant on the trial of the case. W. G. Duncan Coal Co. v. Thompson's Adm'r, 157 Ky. 304, 162 S.W. 1139. It will thus be seen that counsel for plaintiff in that case not only brought directly to the attention of the prospective jurors the fact that defendant carried accident insurance and that the loss would fall on someone else, but inquired whether or not any of them owned any stock in the insurance company which carried the indemnity policy on defendant's mine when it was wholly improbable that such was the case, thus evincing a lack of good faith in propounding the question. A different situation is presented in the case under consideration. Naturally counsel for plaintiff would not want on a jury any one who had written indemnity insurance for the defendant, or any other insurance that would place him under obligation to the defendant. As real estate agents generally conduct an insurance business, it was not improper to ask Berry if he wrote insurance, and so far as he was concerned the matter ended with his answer in the negative. As Hager conducted an insurance business in the city where defendant's plant was located, the preliminary questions were not out of place, and as counsel for plaintiff was careful not to ask in the presence of the other jurors whether he carried the particular risk, we see no reason to doubt counsel's good faith in the matter. We therefore hold that the trial court did not err in refusing to discharge the entire panel.

Another contention is that the court erred in admitting the photograph of the deceased. It is insisted that its admission was prejudicial, in that it presented to the jury a very beautiful young girl, and was thus calculated to excite their sympathy and prejudice. It may be conceded that the admission of the photograph without proof of its accuracy by the photographer was technical error, but in view of the fact that the health, strength, mental capacity, and personal appearance of the child were fully discussed and presented to the jury by other witnesses, we are not inclined to hold that the admission of the photograph was prejudicial.

Still another contention is that the court erred in not granting a continuance on account of the absence of the witnesses, Hobart, and Aderine Pope, for whom subpoenas had been issued and returned, "Not executed," with the notation that they had gone to Arizona. In the affidavit it was stated that if the witnesses were present they would testify that they lived on Blackburn avenue across the street from the home of the deceased and within a few yards of the scene of the accident; that at the time of the accident they were playing in a field about 100 feet north of the point of accident where defendant's truck struck deceased, that they heard the brakes of the truck go on and that they looked up immediately and saw the truck, and that it stopped almost immediately after the brakes went on; that it went only a few feet after the brakes were applied; and that the deceased was struck while she was in the street and not on the curb. It was further alleged that defendant had had no opportunity to take the depositions of the witnesses because he did not know that the witnesses had left the jurisdiction of the court; that if the case were continued to the next term of the court defendant could either have them present in court or take their depositions as it desires one or the other to be done. There was the further allegation that the true and proper effect of the testimony of the witnesses could not be had without their personal presence in court. It being alleged in the alternative that defendant could either have the witnesses present at the next term of the court, or take their depositions, it is at once apparent that there is no showing that their actual presence could be had. That being true, the only way to secure their evidence was by deposition. Rarely, if ever, is the evidence of an absent witness taken by deposition as strong as that contained in an affidavit for continuance. In view of these considerations, and of the fact that the affidavit for a continuance was permitted to be read as the depositions of the absent witnesses, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse a sound discretion in refusing the continuance.

Lastly, it is insisted with great earnestness that the verdict is excessive. The case is not to be determined by decisions of the long ago. Within recent years the purchasing power of money has decreased, and the courts are inclined to uphold larger verdicts than they were accustomed to approve years ago. The deceased was sound in health and of fine mental attainments, with all the opportunities that are now open to the members of her sex. In a case of this kind it is the province of the jury to assess the damages, and our duty to give effect to its finding unless we can say the verdict is so excessive as to strike us at first blush as being the result of prejudice or passion. This we cannot do.

Judgment affirmed.

Whole court sitting.

Ashland Sanitary Milk Co. v. Messersmith's Administrator, 236 Ky. 91, (Ky. Ct. App. 1930)

 

 

Funeral Home Fans And Funeral Memorial Cards--Two Appalachian Traditions

 I recently posted a small post in Facebook about funeral home memorial cards which was my rapid response to a clue on "Jeopardy" the day before about the poem "Crossing The Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson which has been used on the back of funeral home memorial cards in Appalachia for many years.  That post was very actively and positively received by numerous people in Facebook groups devoted to Appalachia.  It had never occurred to me to write a post about these two topics despite the fact that I have been saving/collecting both items for quite a few years.  I have probably a couple hundred funeral memorial cards, all from funerals or visitations I have attended over the years.  I have also recently acquired a small collection of funeral home fans both from funeral homes where I have attended services and from a few small yard sales I have attended.  Both these items, especially the fans, are less often seen than in the past.  Funeral memorial cards were present at nearly every funeral I ever attended until about ten or twenty years ago.  Funeral home fans became less common when the small rural churches across Appalachia nearly all acquired air conditioning.  Nearly all Appalachian funeral homes for many years used the fans as advertising and always left a stack in every church where they held a funeral.  Many of the older Old Regular Baptist, United Baptist, Freewill Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal churches across the region still have some number of the fans which are frequently still used even if electricity and air conditioning are present.  But most funeral homes have stopped using them as a form of advertising.  Historically, the fans nearly always had a front side which was some generic religious themed reprodution of a religious painting or photograph in color, sometimes a photo of the funeral home building, but more often a painting of one of the more popular depictions of  Jesus Christ, either on the cross, the Last Supper, as the Good Shepherd, or arising from the tomb.  The reverse side was almost always plain white with the name, address, and telephone number of the funeral home involved.  The fans were usually a thin piece of somewhat stiff paper about 8" x 8" with a flat wooden handle stapled to the fan which was about 1" x 8".  It was also possible to see the same fans from the same printers being used by both local businesses and political candidates but they are less common.  I do have a few political fans in my collection.  

This first fan is from the funeral home with which I grew up as a child, The Hall Funeral Home of Martin, Kentucky, and shows Jesus Christ as The Good Shepherd on the front which is one of the most common scenes to be shown on funeral home fans.  

This next fan is from a funeral home, the Thornburg Funeral Home, and a community, Farmland, Indiana, in which I have never been.  I located the fan at a small yard sale in Stanton, Kentucky, where I also bought several other funeral home fans and a couple of antique books and a corn sheller.  It shows a typical Last Supper scene with a typical advertisement for the funeral home on the back. 

 

The funeral memorial card below is from the funeral of a neighbor, Flora Cook Isaac, and has a photo of the deceased on the front which is a common choice for funeral memorial cards.  

The interior of Flora Cook Isaac's memorial card is a typical two-sided print statement of birth and death dates, survivors, clergy, burial site, etc. and the left side of the print is the 23rd Psalm which is also a very common inclusion either on the inside left of the rear of these memorial cards. 

This next memorial card is from the funeral of my good friend and former auction ring man, Dewey Rogers.  The front is a depiction of the pick and shovel of a coal miner, which he had been in his younger days.

 

 

 

I will be adding several more photos to this blog post over the next few days due to a current problem with converting scans and photographs on the equipment I am using.  If you like what you have seen so far, please return in a couple of days and I will added to the contents of the photograph section. 

"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. 

I Got Tested For Covid 19! So Should You!

On Tuesday, May 19, 2020, my wife and I traveled to Saint Claire Medical Center in Morehead Kentucky to participate in a free, drive through Corona Virus test.  I hear people talking all the time about how they will not participate in testing, will not wear a mask in public, and think that all the promotions about staying safe against the spread of the most dangerous virus in the world is all "a hoax", or useless, or crazy, or whatever asinine excuse they can come up with to avoid being tested.  The entire procedure from the time we drove into the parking lot to the completion of testing and driving away was about fifteen minutes.  Isn't it worth fifteen minutes of your time to avoid becoming an asymptomatic carrier, infecting dozens of people, and possibly causing the deaths of some of them?  The test itself is a bit unpleasant.  The nurse, in full personal protective equipment (PPE) walked up each window of our vehicle, asked a few identifying questions, entered them into a laptop, and returned with a long handled swab which was probably six inches long.  I honestly cannot tell you whether the handle portion of the swab was plastic or twisted paper like a stick for a child's sucker.  The cotton tip of the swab was then inserted up each of our nostrils all the way to the back of our throats which takes less than ten seconds but is a bit unpleasant.  I had to sneeze into my mask a couple of times shortly after the test was performed.  My wife did not and seemed to dislike the procedure less than me.  This morning, two days later, I went on the patient portal at Saint Claire and checked our results which were both negative as we expected.  My wife, due to serious complicating health problems has not gone into a public setting in over two months.  I do the chores and always wear a mask and gloves.  You should also always wear a mask and gloves.  There are no valid reasons for not wearing a mask in public.  There are no valid reasons for not wearing gloves in public.  There are no valid reasons for not being tested.  There are only excuses.  If you allow your irrational fears of testing or your ignorant justifications for not wearing a mask and gloves to prevent you from helping in the fight to stop the spread of this virus will you be willing to step up and take responsibility for the potential dozens of infections and deaths your refusals led to?  I doubt it.  You should be tested and you should wear a mask and gloves in public.  You are simply assisting in the spread of the deadliest disease to hit the world in many years if you do not.  This virus has already killed 95,000 innocent American victims as of today, May 21, 2020, and will kill more than 100,000 before June 1, 2020.  It is also likely to kill 150,000 before July 1, 2020.  Are you going to help it in its work or are you going to help the country fight it? 

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".