The highlight of our trip was to look for the ancestral cemetery of my mother's people. We knew it was near a small hamlet in the Appalachian foothills where Mama spent her childhood. We had even seen pictures of her mother's headstone. So it was with high hopes that we set out this morning, two carloads of us, without exact directions, but full of confidence that we could locate it.
The views of the mountains were breathtaking, especially glimpsed through an opening in the trees when we caught sight of the Smokey Mountain range in the distance, ghostly spectres looming like phantom sailing ships against the horizon. The immediate mountains seemed close and friendly, the fall colors just beginning to transform them into a palette of red, orange and yellow. No wonder my mother loved these mountains and talked about them all her life!
Her family had moved to Texas when Mama was 12 years old, but she never forgot the fun times of growing up in Tennessee. Her childish antics and adventures were revealed in a 14-page memoir shared only recently with our family from a Texas relative.
Our daughter, Julie, has lived an hour's drive from this area with her family for the past 10 years, and has searched several times for the resting place of her forbears with no avail. I began to think that would be our lot, as we drove down an endless, curving road, past a settlement we thought near my mother's home place, which never came into view. Turns out the community does not exist any more, at least not in the name by which Mama knew it.
Turning around, we decided to stop at a post office, the only substantial business we had encountered. Although no automobiles were in the parking space, I went in only to read that office hours were from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. weekdays, and 7:00-12:00 Saturdays. Returning to the car, I saw our granddaughter, driver of the other car, leaning into her father's car window with her phone in hand. She had Googled the exact location, and shortly we followed the directions up a winding country lane, then a right turn brought us to it!
The scene materialized before my eyes like a movie set! I had seen this in a picture, and here it was in reality! Yellow leaves from huge trees seemed to cast a restful glow over the fenced lot. The rusty iron gate was not locked, and the aged, even lop-sided, headstones bore their silent, enduring witness to their charges below. A quick glance around revealed the marker I was looking for. It was the old-fashion stone of the photograph! My mother's mother, barely 19! How surreal!
Warm sunlight filtered through the trees almost like a halo as we saw civil war graves, small graves marked by cherubs, and stones of relatives we hadn't realized rested there. Two of Grandpa's wives were there, his father, my great-grandfather was there, and dates too close together separated by a dash disclosed brief lifetimes.
I still couldn't believe we had found this! It felt like a puzzle piece of history had been put into place! We left with a feeling of gratitude, spirits buoyed by our success, but a little humbled, too, at the presence of those gone before. One of the verses on the headstones read, "Planted on earth, to bloom in heaven." A fine epitaph!
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