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Introduction:

I went to my home town for a few days this week. It is hard to describe the experience - something like slipping through a veil to a different dimension.

It is a small town. There is relatively little traffic (Yes, there are traffic lights - at least 6!) and you can find a parking space with ease. Everyone knows everyone (and most of everyone else's business).

Time does not stand still there, but does seem to slow down a little.

I had a few things I needed to do...family visiting mostly...my baby brother lives there with his family. And I have a great-nephew I had not met who might be stopping by to see his grandpa (and his GREAT aunt). And this short visit was an opportunity do a little prep-work for "graduation" projects.

Part I:

While most of the folks who were my neighbors growing up are gone now, our across-the-street neighbor (IW) still smiles her sweet smile when we see her and invites us in for a visit (if we can catch her at home.). Just after I arrived, she drove up with another neighbor (having visited my former Sunday school teacher in the hospital) and I walked over to get a hug.

Of course I went in and sat down for a little chat and she apologized that her Christmas tree was still up. It seems she lost the key to the shed and had not resolved that problem so she could not put the decorations away. "Wait a second," said I and I trotted across the street and grabbed my brother's bolt cutters (and a new lock - that boy is prepared for anything). IW and I messed around until we managed to cut the bolt off and installed the new one (She held the lock while I leaned against the bolt cutters that I wedged against the door frame of the shed. VOILA!).

I think this lock was painted each time the shed was painted. And, of course, my brother discovered he had a key that fit the lock. Too late, too late. But it's all good.

I miss this. I miss that "neighborly" thing. I miss the generation of elders we are losing so rapidly.

Soon enough I was called back across the street for supper (Remember that? Remember being called home for supper?).

Part II:

My family originated in Ireland, Germany, Scotland, then Tennessee, Louisiana, and Indiana, mostly. They moved here and lived in only a few counties - from the central part of our state to the middle coast. Thus I have ancestors scattered in just a handful of cemeteries in the area. <heavy sigh> Or so we think.

Since I was traveling with no actual demands on my time (that never happens, but did this trip), I thought that, after visiting with the living, I would check on the dead. This may not sound like a good idea to some, but I have needed to "get my bearings" a bit and start organizing my genealogy efforts - at least in my head.*  And last October I had discovered one great grandmother's stone was completely (should I say horribly?) overgrown by a forsythia bush** (My other brother will correct me if I have misidentified).  I was determined that my first trip south "with nothing to do" would include chopping some on this shrub - at least enough to free Theresa's stone.

The photos here show our 45 minute efforts with loppers and other sharp instruments. [My brother insisted on coming too and it is a good thing. He did a lot of the hard work and found the cemetery brush pile - as we had not realized how large our pile of cuttings would be and did not want to leave a mess for the workers there.]

This was not a subtle pruning.*** This was a "we don't plan to come back again for a while and want to be able to find our great grandmother a little easier on our next trip" slash and burn. ****

Photo from October 2013 - brother is pushing back the branches of the shrub to disclose the stone.

 

As we got started we discovered another stone - a large standing headstone completely enclosed by the bush in the adjacent plot. We also uncovered a standing pipe/water faucet that had been "overgrown."

The small pile.

Loppers resting on the now visible stone.

The big pile.

There it is.

This town (where our mother was raised) is about an hour's drive north of my home town and one we all love. After our labor, my brother and I drove around a bit and talked about old buildings and businesses owned by our great grandfather. We told stories about the past and our plans for the future. We shared things you can only share with a sibling (How was I so blessed to have 3 of them?). Then we headed back to our home town - where he still lives as there were children to pick up from school and he had to head to work.

Part III:

Fortune smiled again this trip as my youngest nephew was out of school early and agreed to do his homework immediately so that he and I could take another "history" trip before the end of the day. We drove seven miles east to the town where my father was raised. We stopped at the cemetery and I told him tales of each of my great aunts and uncles who are interred on either side of my paternal paternal great grandparents (Is that what you call the parents of your father's father? Wow, don't I have a lot to learn?). Then I walked my nephew to my paternal grandparents graves and explained a little about their lives and the lives of the three (of their 8) children who did not reach adulthood and were buried on either side of their parents.

Detail from my Great Uncle John's stone. He was killed in action in WWI.

This somber visit was followed by a stop at the local museum. It is an interesting place. We found references to my dad, my three uncles and my aunt (these survivors of that harsh country upbringing) who attended the local high school (mostly in the 40s). We squinted at blurry photos (Daddy in a football uniform) and tried to logic out "inside" jokes from back in the day.

The museum also boasted a collection of arrowheads and native American (North and South!) relics collected by the old town doctor. [He delivered my siblings and me and cared for our parents almost to the end of their days. His wife was also a doctor and our pediatrician. She had a quick step and we dreaded that fast step-step-step coming down the hall as we figured a shot was on its way.]*****

Finding we still had a little time before we had to be home, we hit two flea markets/junk stores. We looked at and commenting on almost everything, but we purchased nothing. We headed home and talked about a future archeology dig perhaps (this is the nephew of last summer's train adventure and we have another summer coming up!).

I have two (or three) more area cemeteries to visit, but it is likely I won't get to them all tomorrow. One is a quick trip here in our town. The other two are a short drive, but I have a luncheon date at the middle school and cannot miss it. Then it will be a quick trip to the airport to drop off my rental before going back to DH and the pups.

I owe them all a few walks. And I am bringing home a couple of stories...something to "dine out on."******


NOTES:

* I am less about the pedigree (I believe it is wise not to look too closely sometimes) than the stories. I want to tell what I know (and some of what I have heard and learned) about these people. I want to remember and I want them remembered, at least for a little while. So many "lines" are closed down - no longer lineal descendants.  And I vow to tell the truth. [And when the truth is not known, I vow to tell the family story and note it as such. There is often a kernel of truth there  somewhere and someone else can research it in the future, or not.]

**  [If you have one of these in your yard, please prune it regularly or I fear you will find it entangles and swallows the unaware.]

*** For directions on how to prune correctly remember that the Aggies almost always have a reference.  http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkind/landscape/proper-pruning-techniques/

**** Only after unloading the tools back at my brother's did we discover he had left his machete at the family plot. We called a friend (I am telling you...there is an invisible line somewhere about an hour and a half north of my home town where things change.) - the youngest son of our mother's oldest friend - to see if he would stop and try to recover the knife. Wonder of wonders, the machete was still there and has been secured.

*****They were Drs. John and Rose Tunnell. They are gone now, but legend still. Someone needs to write their story.

******And these stories are true - really.

Ant hills at the stepping stones just off the back porch. These were so interesting and I had to put this somewhere.